Killing, Skinning, Twittering
I came across an article today on one of my favorite themes: the evil/danger of social networking/computers/video games for kids (indeed, for us all, but I won’t digress). This article, from The Daily Mail, presents findings from a neuroscientist named Susan Greenfield, who asserts that social networking sites, including Facebook and Twitter, actually change childrens’ brains, harming them in all kinds of ways.
The whole article was alarming and interesting, but what caught my attention was this troubling analogy:
“‘I often wonder whether real conversation in real time may eventually give way to these sanitised and easier screen dialogues, in much the same way as killing, skinning and butchering an animal to eat has been replaced by the convenience of packages of meat on the supermarket shelf,’ she said.”
This gave me pause. I see what she’s trying to say—that the real stuff of life, the real physicality of everyday existence, the butchering and skinning and talking face-to-face, is giving way to sanitized, soulless anonymity and impersonality. But the analogy seems flawed. Who among us would advocate for a return to killing and skinning on an everyday basis? Those plastic-wrapped packages of meat make my life better; the “interaction” I lose with the animal is, perhaps, best lost, lest I turn to a diet of roots and greens. Fearing the loss of real-time, personal conversations is not in any way similar to mourning (?) the transition from hunting to supermarket-gathering.
But perhaps the analogy makes more sense than I first thought. Perhaps that loss of interaction with the animals we eat is, indeed, similar to the loss of interaction among in-person friends—both result in a kind of distance; a weakening of the ability to see others’ humanity; a dulling of the humane impulse toward nonhumans. Sanitized dialogues and online “relationships”—like unidentifiable packages of beef and pork—cocoon us, allow us to exist in our own small spheres, unconcerned with the effects of our words or actions.
The analogy is strange and disturbing and violent, perhaps best taken a bit less literally. Indeed, there’s a kind of truth to killing and skinning, just as there is truth to real conversation—to the real world, to a life lived away from a screen. This truth simply doesn’t exist in Facebook and Twitter’s relentless newsfeeds from people we barely know. And it is certainly something to be mourned when and if it disappears.
The whole article was alarming and interesting, but what caught my attention was this troubling analogy:
“‘I often wonder whether real conversation in real time may eventually give way to these sanitised and easier screen dialogues, in much the same way as killing, skinning and butchering an animal to eat has been replaced by the convenience of packages of meat on the supermarket shelf,’ she said.”
This gave me pause. I see what she’s trying to say—that the real stuff of life, the real physicality of everyday existence, the butchering and skinning and talking face-to-face, is giving way to sanitized, soulless anonymity and impersonality. But the analogy seems flawed. Who among us would advocate for a return to killing and skinning on an everyday basis? Those plastic-wrapped packages of meat make my life better; the “interaction” I lose with the animal is, perhaps, best lost, lest I turn to a diet of roots and greens. Fearing the loss of real-time, personal conversations is not in any way similar to mourning (?) the transition from hunting to supermarket-gathering.
But perhaps the analogy makes more sense than I first thought. Perhaps that loss of interaction with the animals we eat is, indeed, similar to the loss of interaction among in-person friends—both result in a kind of distance; a weakening of the ability to see others’ humanity; a dulling of the humane impulse toward nonhumans. Sanitized dialogues and online “relationships”—like unidentifiable packages of beef and pork—cocoon us, allow us to exist in our own small spheres, unconcerned with the effects of our words or actions.
The analogy is strange and disturbing and violent, perhaps best taken a bit less literally. Indeed, there’s a kind of truth to killing and skinning, just as there is truth to real conversation—to the real world, to a life lived away from a screen. This truth simply doesn’t exist in Facebook and Twitter’s relentless newsfeeds from people we barely know. And it is certainly something to be mourned when and if it disappears.
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