Human Intimacy in the Digital Age

i want to introduce you

to someone his name

is kazushike nishida and seen here

he’s having dinner with his family

nice right but let me tell you something

it’s not his family because he rented

them

he rented these mere strangers to

pretend to be his family

for fifty dollars an hour

now why would anyone ever want

to rent a family according to the

american psychologist abraham maslow

intimacy is a human need

as much as we need food water warmth

we need a sense of belonging

but according to the u.s census 28

percent

more than a quarter of the entire

american population are living alone

and that’s a 10 increase within the past

decade

and because of this loneliness

industries like rent a family exist

allowing people like nishida and many

more like him

to rent families rent friends friend

bosses

but the question is do we really

want to live in a society with the need

to rent

companionship if loneliness

is the issue that invigorated this need

for human connection

then what is causing this increase in

loneliness

hello my name is vassen shantipaporn

and today i want to talk about how and

why

loneliness is increasing in an age with

social technology

surrounding us with 3.484 billion social

media users and 60 billion messages a

day

we’re more connected than we’ve ever

been in the history of mankind but still

more and more people are feeling lonely

despite the various tools allowing them

to connect

in fact health resources and service

administration reveals

that one in five americans say they’re

socially isolated

that’s 65.4 million people

and loneliness isn’t just detrimental to

our mental health but plays a havoc on

our physical health as well

according to julian holt lundstad

experiencing loneliness can be as deadly

as smoking

not one not two but 15

cigarettes a day

so why is loneliness increasing in an

age with social technology surrounding

us

firstly imagine imagine a notification

just popped up on your phone and you can

feel it buzzing in your pockets right

now

what is chemically happening in your

brain

a surge of dopamine is released in the

brain’s opioid system as you anticipate

you anticipate who sent you the message

and what the message is about and here’s

the key part

the anticipation causes us to feel a

pleasurable sensation

and when we experience this pleasure

over and

over and over again the pleasure turns

into cravings

and then addiction

and this process is better known as the

dopamine driven feedback loop and

through this

loop our society has grown to interact

less because our attention is turned

away

from face-to-face communication

even top executives at social media

companies like facebook are feeling

guilty

the former vice president of user growth

at facebook said this

i feel tremendous guilt

the short term dopamine driven feedback

loops that we have created

are destroying how society works

without a doubt the addiction to social

media

has deteriorated real life conversations

and even even when we even if we do

interact

through text online it’s not as

meaningful as real life conversations

because it’s not real time

sherry turkle reveals that teenagers

avoid making telephone calls in real

time communication

because they’re fearful that they might

reveal too much

and because of this 61 percent

of teenagers rather text than talk face

to face

so with a society with

less interaction and addiction it’s no

wonder that our society

has become more disconnected but in the

future

not only will social media play a role

in how we humans interact

but also artificial intelligence

in fact there are already ai

applications that are trying to solve

our loneliness issues

for example replica is an ai chatbot

a chatbot that is your friend that you

can text anytime

24 7 and guess what they respond to you

back

instantly

and because of things like this our

society may become something like this

a society dominated by robots

we may be able to program these robots

to be our faithful companion

to learn all our preferences to play

games with us

fulfill emotional needs and with robots

we don’t need to set aside schedules

from our busy lives they’re always free

we don’t need to experience that awkward

science when talking with real people

we don’t need to try to understand its

feelings

but even with this amount of control

with the problem of loneliness be solved

no matter what humans need

some sort of intimacy from other humans

somewhere somehow

if i were to tell you today that

technology diminishes human relationship

and it’s the pure causation to

loneliness i’d be telling a lie

because that’s not true in fact

i think technology has great potential

to

enrich our lives but only if we know how

to use it

in a modern society so that it doesn’t

take away face-to-face

conversation no one wants to live in a

society with the need to rent

companionship

no one wants to live in a society with

the need to talk to robots

at the expense of meaningful

conversations

so stop texting and start

talking before it’s too late

and all you can do is to live in a

society with the need to rent families

at fifty dollars an hour thank you