Seems No One's Lonely Anymore

Yesterday i had a Greg Brown song running through my head, i think it is the opening track from his album "Covenant", i don't remember the song title. It goes:

"Half the people i see these days are talkin' on cell phones, driven' off the road and into cars./ People used to spend quite a bit of time alone, seems no ones lonely anymore./ 'Cept you and me babe, 'cept you and me..."

This isn't the first time this song has been stuck in my head, Greg Brown has a haunting, deep, voice with effecting lyrics and complex melodies laced throughout his music. I enjoy the slow lonely feel of his music, it being less dark than Tom Waits but no less haunting and intriguing. I suppose the effect of those lyrics hit me hard as it relates to facebook. "It seems no one's lonely anymore" is, I believe, an ironic take on the way we stay connected to friends and family.

Connectivity on facebook--and email, over the phone, instant messaging, even blogging, or anything electronic--is not the same as seeing people face to face, being in relationship with the physical person. So much of how we communicate and relate to the people around us is based on a reliance on email and text messaging. For my part it is easier to organize my thoughts around written word and the vague, informal lexicon of texting. But i know, at its heart, is often my lazy or fearful nature of vocal contact, then face to face. This sense of control than can be obtained by electronic communication--electronic community--has this danger of being so connected, in an impersonal way that it becomes the antithesis of community in that we are suddenly isolated to a computer for human community and contact.

Not to say social networking forums are inherently bad things. They have a very real and useful place in our lives. So far I've loved being able to see pictures and updates from the lives of old friends and to stay connected to the daily lives of the people i only see occasionally due to busy and conflicting schedules. But the danger remains that it becomes the social circle. The little status comments become the intimacy of friendship and presently we are no more than a friend of a computer and face we no longer really know.