Similar to the industrial revolution that vastly shifted the society that the canonical social theorists were living through, today’s society is going through its own revolution. This is a revolution of rapidly advancing technologies centered on the Internet and computer processing systems that have shaped the way that “modern” individuals communicate, connect and interact with one another. Central to this communication revolution has been the development of the mobile phone with internet capabilities; for the time in human history, handheld devices unite people from all around the world with each other and with the majority of collective human knowledge. While this has been a great boon in many respects, this transition is not without its
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As technology advances and becomes more pervasive, individuals have more agency in choosing who they will interact with, what information they access and when these options are available. Phubbing, as opposed to suicide, can be seen as one way that normative and mild anomie presents itself in modern society. Before phones, an individual’s options for interactions were limited by close physical proximity, but with the development of the cell phone an individual has a nearly endless number of options that can be interacted with. Combined with Durkheim’s argument that individuals are constantly seeking new stimuli and experiences and with our “imagination is hungry for novelty, and ungoverned, it gropes at random” (2011:51), phubbing can be seen as a way for individuals to attempt to continuously stimulate themselves with new experiences even when this is to the detriment of interactions happening in person. As people gain new avenues for experiencing novel stimuli, though technology, those who lack regulation in their lives (or those who experience higher amounts of anomie) feel compelled to take advantage of these opportunities in order to reach the unattainable goal of experiencing “more”. Phubbing is a way that modern society attempts to dissipate anomie; interacting with the people around you is not always new or exciting, but phubbing allows for new and exciting interactions to occur even when spatially limited to those directly around you. Durkheim would say that anomie is a natural by-product of the interplay between technology and anomie. Durkheim describes anomie as a social pathology of post-industrial day culture, and phubbing is the presentation of this pathology through the advancement in technology (Kivisto,
As technology advances and becomes more pervasive, individuals have more agency in choosing who they will interact with, what information they access and when these options are available. Phubbing, as opposed to suicide, can be seen as one way that normative and mild anomie presents itself in modern society. Before phones, an individual’s options for interactions were limited by close physical proximity, but with the development of the cell phone an individual has a nearly endless number of options that can be interacted with. Combined with Durkheim’s argument that individuals are constantly seeking new stimuli and experiences and with our “imagination is hungry for novelty, and ungoverned, it gropes at random” (2011:51), phubbing can be seen as a way for individuals to attempt to continuously stimulate themselves with new experiences even when this is to the detriment of interactions happening in person. As people gain new avenues for experiencing novel stimuli, though technology, those who lack regulation in their lives (or those who experience higher amounts of anomie) feel compelled to take advantage of these opportunities in order to reach the unattainable goal of experiencing “more”. Phubbing is a way that modern society attempts to dissipate anomie; interacting with the people around you is not always new or exciting, but phubbing allows for new and exciting interactions to occur even when spatially limited to those directly around you. Durkheim would say that anomie is a natural by-product of the interplay between technology and anomie. Durkheim describes anomie as a social pathology of post-industrial day culture, and phubbing is the presentation of this pathology through the advancement in technology (Kivisto,