Coffee, Tea or Robot?
by Are we replacing the human touch with technology?
Overview
A common sight these days — cell phones seemingly attached to the ears of pedestrians, shoppers, drivers and folks waiting in line. I’ve even seen friends walking together, each with a cell phone — are they talking to each other?
Social scientists and health officials have long worried about cyberspace isolation and the lack of real-time face to face interactions. Still, as long as the majority of people continued to go out and about their business, how bad could it be?
OMG! What’s the BFD?
Watch folks while they’re being served — by a supermarket cashier; a bank teller; a receptionist; even doctors and pharmacists. This list is far from inclusive. You can see it anywhere. Are there smiles, a thank you, or even an acknowledgement that they are interacting with a fellow human being? Unless it is an emergency situation or one requesting information to get better service, how does a mechanical device become more important than the person right in front of you?
The everyday face-to-face interactions keep us connected to each other. It is, after all, what we do collectively that affects our environment and our living conditions. At the rate this trend is growing, I’m beginning to wonder if the folks so attached to their cell phones would notice or even care if robots replaced the people helping them.
Why do I care?
What is so important about a cell phone conversation that we can’t put it on hold for the brief moment it takes to acknowledge someone providing us with a service? Isn’t this behavior rude at best and dehumanizing in the extreme? Whether we realize it or not we’re building our own isolation chambers, bouncing along in invisible bubbles, less and less aware of what’s happening in the world around us. This can’t be good for us as members of an intelligent species.
That’s my point of view. What’s yours?
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