When we let technology destroys all human contact

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I'm super pissed at our society for letting technology develop because it is destroying human contact every day. I've been longing to escape to the 60s or 70s where the people didn't need the smartphones and stuff we have now to talk to their neighbors. Some of the "progress" made by smartphones and Facebook are meaningless. I am not talking about all of Facebook being useless, but people also had their own ways of connecting to strangers before Facebook, right?

I don't know if I can live like this anymore. I'm not suicidal. All we ever do is make "progress" that we can never stop (or so it's widely thought) so God, if such an all-powerful creator exists, I feel like he should enforce laws on our will restricting such progress.

I also miss the old days of how companies did their business. I hate seeing these department stores go down, it's bad enough that we only have a few of them left (RIP Hills, Ames, Woolworths etc.). Why can't companies even in the days of computers and smartphones, operate the way they used to?

I think the masses are getting stupid, and I'm the one who's mocked just for informing everybody how technology has it's bad side.

We need to go back to the 70s or 80s. I'm not sure if I'd like the virtual world were headed for now. The only thing that looks bright is the advancement of 3D printing.

I think the TV has to go too.
It took the place of socializing

I don't know, technology makes it a lot easier for me to connect with people.

You're using technology right now to try to connect with people. How would you reach such a wide audience without the internet? How would you reach an audience of people who could relate to you? I know I couldn't find thousands of people who thought like me in my locality: even if they were there, I wouldn't know, because none of them would approach each other.

Let's get rid of the telephone, since people use it to avoid the risk of disease through personal contact.

And commercial radio, so we can have our newspapers back, and reading can once again become a popular pastime.

Let's make audio recordings of music illegal, so that if people want to hear a band play, they will have to gather together in a large open area with all their friends and neighbors around them.

Let's make video recordings and video games illegal, too, so that if people want interactive entertainment, they will have to learn to interact with each other.

Automobile, planes, trains and mass transit? Abolish them! Who needs people to get away from their families and neighbors just so they can spend money someplace else?

Yeah, progress sure has ruined society. Let's turn the clock of technology back about 150 years so that family members will be forced to depend on each other for their entertainment and social needs!

I just got off of a skype call with one of my best friends; a person whom I have never met in person, but am very close to. (Incidentally, i met her on this forum). This is a person I never would have met without the current advanced technology. The ability to so easily talk to a person on the other side of the planet opens up my world and provides human contact with a person I can relate to (unlike most of the people in my immediate vicinity.)

Obviously technology has its good sides and its bad sides. But the arguments you make sound remarkably similar to the arguments made 100 years ago about the telephone and later radio and later television... Or earlier about the telegraph. Heck, there were people complaining about how the invention of the Gutenberg press devalued books that were written out by hand.

I think it is important to see the problem for what it actually is; that the methods of communication and commerce are changing around you and you would rather not change with them. I understand wanting things to stay the same. But they are not going to stay the same. Some things will get better. Some things will get worse. When all it said and done, everything remains the same, just different.

I understand your frustration, but I think you could help yourself by accepting what good can come of it and not getting so worked up about what is bad about it.

The irony is that our Age of Mass Media and Communication has brought us to close together, not farther apart. It's to easy for people to become intensely involved in other people's affairs through services like Facebook. Or follow gossip on public figures more than ever before.

We are to close together in this electronic global village where people can quickly become abrasive and impatient with each other. This is very common on services like Facebook or even on some forums.

The sad thing is some people still feel that bringing all people and nations together is a noble goal. I feel this is a disaster that directly conflicts with human nature. True, most of us are social animals, but we also need our space.