Pre-Internet closeness
There was a time two people could be fully together in a way that’s essentially impossible now. No screens between you. No distractions from their presence or anxiety at their absence. No obligation to document, message, optimize. Just the two of you. Giving each other all the attention our screens get now. If that sounds boring or limiting or inefficient, it was. And it was wonderful.
Sure, screenless interactions still happen and phones can be turned off. But even unplugged, they’ve put images into our heads and expectations into our lives that are there even when the phones aren’t. There’s an intensity of connection, an all-in ness with another person, that technology’s sheer omnipresence has diluted.
Of course, pre-Internet people were scared, shy, delusional, tiresome, just like we are now. Most of us probably would have signed up for a magical handheld infinity box to escape life’s slower bits if we’d had the choice.
But technology is so deep in most of our lives that it’s now hard to believe a real person could know us better than our algorithms do. Even when we know they’re just approximations based on the aggregated actions of people who aren’t us, perhaps mildly spiced with traces of our own actions.
Pre-Internet people could be quiet together. Present with each other. Scary close. I miss that.