The Web brought the chaotic cacophony of the entire world to our doorsteps. Once isolated in the blissful peace and slow-moving informational landscape of our pre-electric communities in which news could take months to reach an isolated town, today’s real-time digital fire hose bombards us with infinite information. Our mobile phones ensure we are perpetually tethered to the chaos, leaving us little time to ourselves. Uber’s recent addition of the equivalent of a “mute” button to its app reminds us how precious silence and solitude have become in our perpetually connected world.
The modern Web sought to connect the world. In that regard, it has succeeded admirably. Today we have the ability to access information from all across the globe and to engage in conversations and exchange ideas with those anywhere on earth.
This chaotic cacophony arrives today via our ever-present smartphones, meaning whether we are sitting at our desks, riding the bus or subway or rideshare or simply walking down the street, we can never escape it. Even those in the midst of nature are today glued to their phones, hoping to capture the perfect Instagram moment and make it go viral.
From desperately seeking information to desperately trying to escape it, our world has changed dramatically over the last three decades.
Escape from the digital world has become a privilege. The ordinary working person is increasingly expected to be online 24/7, responding to emails from the other side of the globe at 3AM within minutes. A 6-hour plane ride is no longer a momentary respite from the office – onboard Wi-Fi means employees are expected to work the entire time just as if they were still in the office.
Even before their leap into the workplace, teenagers and young adults are expected to be glued to their phones keeping on top of the torrent of live social media updates from all of their friends and those they follow. They are expected to respond to every breaking event with a witty remark capable of going viral and then deal with the emotionally crushing realization that no-one “liked” their comment.
Parents are expected to consume a deluge of communications from emails and phone calls to tweets and Facebook posts and Web portal updates to keep tabs on their children and their parental school-related responsibilities. Forget to check the school portal on Monday and you might miss that your child has a permission slip that must be signed and returned the following day for a fieldtrip.
We can no longer escape the digital world. The Web is no longer something we venture to via a limited array of physical portals and leap within to escape our mundane and quiet lives. It is omnipresent, unescapable, a crushing weight that can suffocate our daily lives.
The right to escape the digital world, to unplug and enjoy a moment of peace and quiet is quickly becoming a luxury afforded only to the privileged.
Uber’s recent addition of what amounts to a “mute” button, allowing riders to request that their drivers not engage in communication, represents the expansion of this movement back from the digital realm to the physical.
What happens as this trend continues through our lives, as we seek out blissful moments of respite from the digital cacophony?
Could we someday have the equivalent of a giant “mute the world” button on our smartphones that works everywhere? Imagine pulling up an app on one’s phone and pressing the “mute” button and having that request transparently communicated to everyone around us. From checkout clerks to waiters, they would be notified not to engage in casual chitchat with us. Similarly, waiting in line, standing in an elevator and other places of casual conversation would no longer result in unwanted conversation as everyone around us is notified of our desire not to converse.
Of course, we already have such implicit mute buttons today. Those who wish to be left alone simply put in visible earplugs or earphones and block the world out. Anyone making the mistake of trying to engage in contact is simply shrugged off with a gesture towards the earbuds. At work, employees privileged enough to disengage simply set their status in the corporate messaging app to “do not disturb” and set their cellphones to mute or close their doors.
Perhaps in the future these workarounds will be replaced by a universal smartphone app that informs the world around us to leave us in peace, while our AI-powered digital assistants take care of monitoring the real-time deluge of information around us and let us know just the things that are most important to us at that moment.
As the digital world brought us this chaos, perhaps the next stage of its evolution is to take it away from us.
Putting this all together, where we once begged for access to the world of information today we beg for momentary respite from it, to return to our peace and quiet.
In the end, perhaps the killer app of tomorrow will be something that doesn’t enlighten or entertain us, but rather which blocks it all out and gives us a moment of peace.
