This thought question was posed earlier today to me on a dating site "How the world is so connected and do dissociated at the same time?"
It took several hours of thinking for me to come up with a response. And I thought I would share with you amazing people here.
So my theory corresponds with the increase of communications technology. In short, the advancement of communications technology roughly parallels the decline of social interaction; or more specifically, long distance communication. When the primary method of long distance communication was a handwritten letter, it was still an intimate connection from one person to another, not as intimate as a face to face conversation, but intimate because the author was forced to describe his or her thoughts and emotions as accurately as possible due to the communication lag between sending a letter and receiving a response. Due to this, it was possible to still feel connected to the other person.
With the advent of the telephone, something was lost and something was gained. Gained, was the ability to hear tone of voice and the ability to tell emotions from the voice. What was lost was the desire to be as accurate with word choice as possible, which can lead to disconnection, especially when tone of voice and word choice do not match. And this did nothing but grow more disparate as time passed.
Now into our current day. It has been proven that the greatest way to accurately and effectively connect with another individual is face to face. This is because being able to emphatically connect with another individual is more than just words, or tone of voice, or body language. There is a subconscious that automatically takes all of these things and incorporates them into a general, and generally accurate, impression and connection with an individual. This is a connection in the broadest, lest objective state. And the state that we have the greatest disconnect with others.
In today's world, we have the ability to communicate with a huge percentage of the world through a text message or video or audio or a combination of all three in of some form or another. Yet without word choice and the desire to be accurate with how one portrays oneself is an excellent way to be misunderstood, which then leads to a disconnect. And this comparison is still between two individuals. We have all these tools to be technically connected. In the strictest sense, a way to communicate with another individual is connection. And never before in history has so many individuals been connected to so many other individuals.
The disconnect comes because as individuals, we do not know how to connect honestly every time with other individuals that are not on a face to face basis. And long distance is no longer someone who is not within a day’s drive anymore. It is incredibly difficult to form a true connection with someone without face to face contact where you can see their eyes, be aware of their body language, hear all the nuances of their voice, and feel the emotion that all of these things portray. That is connection and connecting with someone.