Creativity, Human Connection, and Chat GPT

[Listen to an audio version of this blog here.]

One of my friends hasn’t used social media in over a decade. She briefly started an Instagram account and within weeks, abandoned it entirely, “I just don’t see the appeal,” she said. I admired her casual disdain for something so many of us don’t even just want, but need. People walk around with headphones on and their noses buried in screens. We shut the world out at the same time we demand to be seen and heard, and idiotic irony at best. After all, if everyone is talking, there is no one to listen. And, since we’re all talking all of the time, it stands to reason that most of us have nothing to say.

So, I saw my friend’s point. She didn’t see the appeal because she doesn’t, and hasn’t, derived any sort of self-worth from being online, nor did she come across anyone with anything interesting to say. Being on her phone was less good than being in real life, and I loved her even more because she feels that way. Staring into the abyss of the smart phone is like searching for water in Death Valley, or like fumbling around in a pitch black basement for a light switch, when there’s only a chord hung from a single light bulb. You probably aren’t going to find what you’re looking for.

Unlike my friend, most people don’t find the smart phone abyss unappealing. The less we can…