Community and isolation

My sister Yolanda pointed me to this article on community and isolation.

"We live in strange times. While we have more ways and opportunities to communicate than ever before, we are more lonely and less communal than ever before. The technologies that promise closeness instead drive us further from one another. We live in over-crowded and polluted cities - often far away from our families - where we do not even know our neighbors.

We favor pseudo-community over real community. We instant message instead of converse. We date online instead of in person. Instead of enjoying the natural (conversation, family, marriage, community, land), we are dependent on the mechanical (computers, drugs, telephones, cars, corporations).

We are surrounded by lonely, unhappy, and depressed people. The drug industry continues to grow as more and more people turn to anti-depressants and other drugs to solve their loneliness and despondency. In the past, people turned to family, friends, community, and church. But we have willingly cut ourselves away from all these things: families hardly talk; friendships are shallow; community interaction is outdated; church attendance continues to decline.

Generally, we prefer to avoid those around us - unless it is to wave a finger at another vehicle. We have an entire range of entertainments ready to distract and isolate ourselves at the first sign of boredom: personal mp3 players, PDAs, portable video games, portable movie players and, of course, our ever-present (and ever-ringing) cell phones."

Read the rest of the article here.