Theorem: Cars paved the way to our social media dependency.
Proof:
Before the automobile took over, people lived much closer to each other. Cities were typically dense, walkable environments.
Narrow roads, compact blocks and lively streets provided frequent social interactions and spontaneous conversations every day.
The density and interpersonal connections established familiarity.
Thus, citizens developed aligned incentives to care for each other, trust each other, and hold each other accountable.
These strong social fabrics are a vital part of being a healthy human. We’re social creatures and most of us benefit from working with, playing with and communicating with other people. There’s a reason solitary confinement is a (cruel) form of punishment.
Enter the automobile.
We’re also space-filling and exploratory creatures. Put us behind the wheel and the natural thing to do is drive off.
Cars made it easy to live further away from the things we need in the city. On one hand, we could build (or afford) bigger homes, maybe breathe cleaner air, and have more options for schools and neighborhoods.
On the other, to accommodate all the cars, streets and infrastructure had to expand too. This led to urban sprawl and the rise of the suburbs.
In this environment, where streets are designed for, and filled with cars (usually single-occupancy cars), it’s not as natural to have frequent and spontaneous social interactions among people.
Thus, people now had to go out of their way and work to overcome the road blocks to build the familiarity and social fabric that came naturally to communities in the dense environments.
Thus, the path of least resistance was a path of relative isolation. And so, most people lived relatively isolated lives by default.
This path left a void – a density void – social void – a human void.
Enter the internet. We flocked to social media – which put you in the middle of a ton of people, without leaving the house (or the car) – to fill that void.
Our computers, laptops and phones made it easy to fabricate a virtual environment of spontaneous social interactions and familiar connections that we’d lost in the (sprawling, car-dominated) real world.
Digital density.
Therefore, with the real thing so far away, it’s natural for us to depend on social media (the next best, and easiest thing) to bridge the gap and feed that vital human need.
We’re left with quiet, disjointed communities that never see or talk to each other in person, and instead spend most of their time in their cars and on their phones. The void remains.
Holes in the argument:
- I have a strong confirmation bias and blame the car for many (most) of society’s ills – this argument might have been me looking for another way to do that.
- It’s not just people in the suburbs who are dependent on social media. People who live in dense cities love them some IG, FB, Twitter, WeChat, Snap, what have you, too – but they also still have the benefits of real density.
- The divide probably would have happened anyways once the smartphone was invented. With or without cars it’s easier to talk to someone over the phone (or email, or text) than it is in person. But, in a city with local density, the real-life spontaneous social interactions still arise regularly. Though now it’s probably two people walking down the street staring at their phones bumping into each other!
- I suppose the argument assumes we have a social media problem. But maybe we don’t have a social media problem. I find a lot of value in using social media to learn from and interact with people I probably never would have been able to otherwise. On the other hand, the problem arises when we depend on it as a replacement (or crutch) for familiar, social interactions and relationships.
- Maybe car culture has facilitated new communities and social groups that people enjoy. I can’t imagine this social fabric is stronger or to the same scale as a vibrant, dense and walkable city. I also imagine that these types of groups form all the time around other stuff – if the car went away, they’d probably form groups around other things.
Sources that heavily influenced my thinking on this topic include: Walkable City by Jeff Speck; Green Metropolis by David Cowen; The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs; and Scale by Geoffrey West. All highly recommended reads.