Around 2007 the iPhone emerged along with; Facebook going worldwide, Twitter, Change.org, Android, Kindle, and the Internet crossed one billion users worldwide, which seems to have been a tipping point. This TECHNOLOGICAL progress without an equivalent progress in human COMMUNICATION can doom us. I know that sounds naïve, but in this age of acceleration we have to be cognizant to our old ways of COMMUNICATING and relating to people.

We can be morally and socially disconnected if we do not get out of Facebook and look others in the eye and COMMUNICATE. David Brooks has said; “Most of the time, character is not an individual accomplishment. It emerges through joined hearts, souls and hands. and in groups.”

TECHNOLOGY is great, it has so much to offer if used properly. It is necessary to help us to grow our intelligence, our knowledge. With that knowledge wisdom can be acquired if we combine it with human interaction. M. Gorbis said; “We always need the group to give us identity. We are wired that way. From the first campfire, human beings evolved as tribal beings.”

Surgeon General Murthy was asked what was the biggest disease in America today, he said;  “It’s not cancer, not heart disease. It’s isolation. It is the pronounced isolation that so many people are experiencing, that is the great pathology of our lives today.” We are the most TECHNOLOGICALLY connected generation in human history-and yet more people feel more isolated than ever. As Murthy said, the connections that matter most, and are in the most short supply today, are the human-to-human ones.

We can get the best out of these TECHNOLOGIES if we don’t allow them to distract us from making deep human connections. You can’t download; a high five, the praise from a mentor, a hug from a friend or colleague, a handshake from a rival or a gesture of kindness from a stranger.

So IN THIS AGE OF TECHNOLOGY walk to your colleague’s office, meet your friend at a restaurant. GO AND LOCK EYES, COMMUNICATE AND FEEL THE WONDERFUL EMPATHY.

Categories: Article Summary Philosophical Perspective

ron winnegrad

Ron Winnegrad has been a Perfumer and teacher for 46 years. As a perfumer, Ron has been able to express the world he sees through a rainbow of olfactive and emotive visions. As a teacher, Ron has helped others to see fragrance through his own multi sensorial lens.