The hit song Video Killed the Radio Star by the Buggles was released in 1980. The artist Trevor Horn said of this song in the book I Want My MTV: "It came from this idea that technology was on the verge of changing everything. Video recorders had just come along, which changed people's lives. We'd seen people starting to make videos as well, and we were excited by that. It felt like radio was the past and video was the future. There was a shift coming."
Just as The Buggles hit song marked the beginning of video's domination of pop entertainment, I believe 2017 will be the year that the Internet kills friendship once and for all. In my 21 years of life, there’s nothing that saddens me more than a room full of friends that elect to look down at their phones instead of engage with each other. I’ve done this myself hundreds of times and the most haunting part--every occurrence has felt completely justified.
If it’s not a text I have to reply to it’s an email I have to address, an article I have to read, a meme I have to laugh at, or a video I have to watch.
My buddies Jack and Sally don’t stand a chance in the fight for my attention. Within seconds I can pull up Chris Rock standup. A MGMT music video. A trailer for the newest Fast and Furious. Or a collection of Arthur memes.
My friends will always find themselves outmanned and outmatched. Sometimes their presence feels more like a burden than anything. Every minute with them is a minute less I have on the internet.
Through my smartphone-I have access to the entire world at my fingertips. There’s no conversation I'll have with John or Sally that I'll find as stimulating as a podcast from one of my favorite artists/academics. Back in the days without internet, we relied on our friends and family for information and perspective because they were the only ones with whom we could bounce ideas off of.
The internet has caused this dependency paradigm to shift. If there’s something I want to learn about I have an abundance of information at my disposal. I could listen to Sally’s opinions on gender identities or I could listen to a 20 minute TED Talk that expands on her main points and frankly makes better developed insights.
I could listen to John’s opinions on the future of the Chicago Bears or I could pull up a panel of pro football analysts to weigh in. I know it’s wrong to think these things but I can’t help it. My friends are giving me personal opinions about topics they’re clearly passionate about, yet the whole time I’m thinking I could learn these same things in half the time from more reputable sources. I feel like an asshole when I do this, but the thoughts persist.
Through this lens, there’s no empirical reason to hang with friends anymore. Can you honestly say you’d rather spend 12 hours straight talking with a friend instead of binge watching your favorite TV shows or movies? How many times have you scrolled through social media or looked up something on your phone instead of engaging with the person right in front of you? How can you call anyone a ‘friend’ when you look into their eyes about as much as the cashier at the local cafe?
Friendships are living organisms that you have to consistently feed. It must be nurtured or else it’ll die. I know some parents that check their phones more often than their kids. I know that friendship's doomed because getting texts from people routinely stirs up feelings of contempt. How dare they interrupt my episode of Gilmore Girls. How dare they distract me from composing this fire tweet.
The internet is growing exponentially and I've been putting friends on the back burner more often as I've grown older. It's increasingly difficult to envision a scenario in which this trend stops and I have a bad feeling that soon all friendships will amount to nothing more than an exchange of likes and happy birthday posts on social media.
Do you think meaningful friendships can still exist past 2017? Let me know if you think friendship is doomed altogether or if you think it can be salvaged. Comment your experiences/predictions below.
