As Digital Technology Steps In To Help Us Connect And Communicate During The Coronavirus Crisis, One Of The Devices Most Exquisitely Designed For Connection And Communication Breaks Down And Fails Us

The coronavirus has sent us rushing to technology, most of it relying on the filters of the internet, because, above all else, human connection and communication is important.  There are, of course, concerns about the internet, how data is scraped and compiled on us as we are surveiled.  I wrote about that and other concerns of where living with the virus was pushing us back in late March.  (See: Reflections On What It Means To Be Retreating More Into Virtual Existence In Fear Of A Virus.)

March was before we all started wearing masks everywhere.  Now we’ve started covering our faces.  One of the best designed devices for human connection and communication that was ever created is the human face.  Now we are masking it.  We are not only maintaining our “social distance” physically–  think of how, in addition, we are also emotionally socially distancing ourselves by shutting down our ability to communicate with the rest of the world with our faces that were so exquisitely designed for this purpose evolving over the millennia precisely toward this perfection?  One facial expression is worth a thousand words. . .

. .  We communicate with our facial expressions even before we have words.  We communicate with our facial expressions when we lose our words.  When our words lie, our facial expressions is where the truth still wends out to the world.  When we talk about trying to conceal our emotions we talk about “masking” them; that’s a direct reference to hiding our faces, hiding our expressions.

As we all  amble the streets our in our masks, I thought about the charts that you you often see them magnetically affixed to refrigerators, designed to teach children to recognize their emotions.  Adults also enjoy these charts too for the way it encourages and sets them free them to be more relaxed in an easier self recognition of what they are feeling.  I was on the street surrounded by masked people when the visual that illustrates this brief post sprang into my mind . .

. . . How much less meaningful things are when we lose that face to face contact with others– Unfortunately, I can’t let you tell me that the jerky back and forth of unnaturally lit videos from people feeling confined to their apartments is a substitution for the real same thing. –  It isn't, I mean, let's face it (pun intended).