Communication and Emerging Technology

When reading Gary Shteyngart’s Super Sad True Love Story, my original opinion was that the advanced technology of the story was at a greatly imaginative level. Now however, after reading the articles, this fictional world does not nearly as far from reality. A couple of the articles were pretty tame; The Hotlist and Lulu do not seem to be much of a problem. These apps do echo functions such as FACing but are not nearly as extreme or invasive. Contrastingly, the surveillance system articles were quite a bit more unnerving and similar to the technological police state of the book. However, while I felt less disturbed about the technology it discussed, Shteyngart’s “O.K., Glass: Confessions of a Google Glass Explorer” struck me more than the other articles as its subject, like the fictional äpparat, has the potential to become a serious detriment to direct, person-to-person communication.

I’m not an incredibly tech-savvy guy. I certainly enjoy technology, but I rarely rush out to buy the latest models of anything (besides the occasional gaming system). My most up to date piece of technology is probably my iPhone (not even the newest version) which I only just acquired after years with an old flip phone. I’ve been pleased with the iPhone so far; it’s quite user-friendly, the apps are nice if you are sitting around bored or need to look up a quick fact on the go, and its various modes of communication are as useful as ever. However, there are already signs of antisocial tendencies with the iPhone alone, not to mention with the new Google Glass. At least with an iPhone you feel somewhat bad about pulling it out for an app or a text during a face-to-face conversation. From Shteyngart’s article, it seems to me that use of the Google Glass is much more discreet than a smartphone. With this technology, it would be easy to feign interest in what someone has to say

while truly ignoring him or her for the sake of a video or a Google search.

Direct communication between people is quite important in my eyes. Although Aray Montalvan states in Shteyngart’s article that the Google Glass “allows for more personal interaction” in comparison to the iPhone, I believe that it is more likely to disguise the distractions of a smartphone as paying attention and thereby discourage communication. Apart from this downside, the capabilities of the Glass are definitely impressive (despite its odd appearance), but to me personal pros of the Google Glass do not outweigh its possible societal cons.  This potential antisocial behavior is not at the level of normal in Super Sad True Love Story, but the Google Glass certainly seems like a big step toward Eunice Park’s overly frequent window shopping on AssLuxury . The lack of actual interaction cripples the characters throughout Shteyngart’s book from Eunice’s poor relationship with her parents to the virtual absence of feasible resistance against America’s totalitarian regime, and advanced is what allows this breakdown of communication to occur.