Missives from the void: Part 3

On attention, social cohesion and community

Hello again. I’ve been thinking a lot about some of the topics I mentioned in my last post – on building movements, but particularly on community, and the link between community, technology and social cohesion.

I grew up in a small village, and whilst we weren’t super close with everyone, there was a sense of community with both our immediate neighbours and the wider village community. There was a village fete every year, a little music festival that I helped out with, a small community wild-space... it felt like people looked out for each other.

The social fabric is wearing thin

That feeling is something I increasingly find lacking where I live now. Speaking to those around me, I’m far from alone. The sense of social cohesion is slipping – people don’t know their neighbours as much, people take less care in public spaces. I’m sure we’ve all had that experience with someone playing music or TikTok videos out loud on their phone in a crowded place, oblivious to the irritation of those around them. Shared spaces are something to be traversed, and other people are an inconvenience, background noise to be endured.

As tempting as it is to blame the person playing videos out loud, they’re but a symptom of what feels like a much larger underlying problem – we’ve stopped feeling part of a community. We’re more connected than ever, but also more isolated – we’re glued to our phones but fail to connect to those we’re sitting next to. We’re here, but we’re not present. What’s especially jarring is that I don’t think any of us want this.

So what?

At this point, you may be thinking – sure, but what does this have to do with climate change?

Well, aside from the need for community in the face of giant, systemic problems, as I mentioned last time, I think there’s at least one other parallel. In surveys about climate change, the vast majority of people, across demographics, believe that climate change is real, that it’s a massive issue, and that we should do something about it. However, we also massively underestimate how much other people care about this. So we all spend our lives in quiet, isolated frustration, bemoaning the lack of action, but not realising we’re surrounded by others who feel the same. Seeing the similarities yet?

I think many of the causes are also similar. We’ve been sucked into our phones, and we drift away from those around us, and that means we don’t realise how much we have in common with so many of those we live and work with. Modern technology is amazing, and particularly for those of us who are marginalised in one way or another, it can be a way to find others like ourselves, but it is also often hollow – it’s easy for outrage to build, for polarisation to ramp up.

There’s a simplicity to online connections that flattens a lot of the nuance and complexity of human interaction. It’s easier to ghost someone, to react with anger or sarcasm, to take an extreme position or say something that we’d never dream of saying to someone face-to-face. We push away rather than leaning in – it’s easier, it’s lower risk, and besides: there’s always more fish in the sea.

Add that to the design of many social media platforms, which mine engagement, for views, clicks, and shares (no matter how deleterious that may be social cohesion), and you’ve got a recipe for disaster.

Little and large

Again, the parallels with climate change are rife. This is a problem with an individual and a collective lens. The design of many tech platforms is designed for maximum engagement, for addiction, for attention grabbing. It’s really hard for us as individuals to break out of patterns designed by a lot of very smart people to be as addictive and compulsive as possible.

The big change needed is for platforms to change their designs and their feed algorithms, but given that directly links to their business models and bottom lines, there’s no way they will willingly do that – bored, isolated and lonely people make good consumers! They will need a push, through collective action – a shift in the law, or revoking their social licence until they act.

However, that doesn’t mean that we can’t act on an individual level. It’s not easy, but we can take our attention back, and focus it elsewhere. A piece I read recently has a sentence I love, that I’ve shared so many times since as it rings so true to me:

Attention is the unit of love. Whatever has your attention quite literally has your love, whether you mean to give it or not.

For most of us, we spend our attention on worrying about the past – what we did wrong, how things could have gone differently – or the future – what’s going to happen. If attention is the unit of love, most of us love our smartphones and our worries and stresses far more than we love our friends, our families, our communities.

The fix is hard, but so necessary. We need to step away from the dopamine rush of our feeds, from the adrenaline spike of the latest headlines or social media outrage. To be present – take time to sit with our feelings, to notice the beauty in the world around us, take joy in the small things, to really (re)connect with those we love.

Humans are messy, and complicated, and so are our relationships, and so is building community. There’ll be misunderstandings, disagreements, there’ll be friction. But that’s OK, because the end result is soooo worth it. Tech convinces us that everything should be frictionless, simple, but in simplifying, it removes the complexity that makes us human. Many of us have come across the phrase ‘To err is human’, but the full quote is:

To err is Humane; To Forgive, Divine

(An Essay on Criticism, Part II – Alexander Pope, 1711)

We all make mistakes. We sometimes need a reminder that that’s OK, and we can and should forgive each other, learn and grow and connect. That’s how we build community.

If you enjoy these sorts of musings, consider subscribing. I’m sure I will be writing more along these lines in the future :)

Until next time,

Nix