Enjoyed Katrina Onstad’s article on “Why Are We So Scared of Eye Contact” today over at the Globe and Mail.
It’s not surprising that such an article has recently been penned given
the unquestionable breach of personalization which has occurred with the advent
of personal tech devices. I think of the
issue often and particularly in the context of much learning that I undertake
on the state of the human condition.
It’s hard
to put a finger on the exact cause of one’s propensity to interrupt joyous
interpersonal communication for the alarms and chimes of tech devices but I
suggest that there is an issue of esteem at play which drives an individual to
react instead of control. Eye contact may be less apparent due to a preoccupation with reacting to tech signals. New laws have necessarily been created to cope with humanity's loss of common sense when deploying tech toys.
Then there's the complex internal processing of a world where more demands, oftentimes self imposed, are swirling in the brains of one who may otherwise be sojourning in the now.
Unfortunately, bad news carries front page
headlines and as much as we wouldn’t like to admit, there is probably some meager
correlation between aberrant evil stories of mankind and the way we address
perfectly sincere strangers. We
do seem to be more brash and paranoid in general.
The blip like elevation in vibration received from a simple
nod or meeting of the minds from respectful eye contact is perhaps not yet a fully fledged thing of the past. Is there a savior in the likes of a modern era finishing school, which
teaches etiquette in our world where younger generations have no concept of the
meaning of the word, upon us?
