The Big Disconnect from our Senses
…plus 3 very good books and one article recommendations
We, humans, evolved for thousands of years somewhere in Africa and carried out a life that, in a literal way, depended on the use of our well-developed senses. Even if humans don’t have the eyes of a falcon or the ears of a fox or the smell of a dog, our senses are pretty good overall, and we made extensive use of them to keep alive. From hearing when the grass moves, possibly indicating a predator is approaching, to smelling a piece of meat to find out if it’s edible, to touching a fruit to know if it’s ripe, every moment of our lives depended on being connected to our senses.
In the current days, however, with all this modern technology around us, we pretend we are not the same as our ancestors. We think we are better off constantly being surrounded by devices and buildings instead of nature. But deep down our bodies and minds are the same as before: we lived for so long in the African savanna that we are hardwired to that form of living, hardwired to the reliance on our senses.
Do you know why humans of many independent cultures value bright and shiny things like gold objects? It has been argued that it’s because shiny objects look like water’s surface, and water is essential to survival.
Modern life could have brought us many useful things, and young people can’t imagine their lives without the internet or cell phones. But modern life has brought also a spike in anxiety and isolation. Particularly in the last years, amplified by the COVID pandemics –but not caused by it– anxiety has reached unprecedented levels.
Some researchers have tracked down the origins of the increasing anxiety in modern society and found out that it started rising in a big way coincidentally with the introduction of smartphones in 2007. This is not to say that the smartphone by itself causes anxiety –things are more complex; the smartphone is rather an essential piece of a lifestyle that leads to anxiety and isolation.
Recently The Guardian published the article “How we lost our sensory connection with food — and how to restore it” revealing the extent to which younger generations have lost the abilities to identify, assess and enjoy food using touch, smell, and ears instead of looking at the food’s packaging labels.
Isolation is also spiking in recent years. But Noreena Hertz, in her book “The lonely century” argues that its roots can be tracked down to several decades ago. For instance, research has found that pop music lyrics in a span of 30 years use increasingly “I” and “me” at the expense of “we” and “our”. Individualism has led to a very rigid concept of a nuclear family, and this has led to the isolation of thousands and thousands of people, many of them living alone.
Social isolation can feel bad for the individual suffering from it, but in ancient times, when our minds were evolving for thousands of years, isolation was a matter of life and death, as pointed out in the book “Together”, by V. Murthy. An isolated individual –say, for instance, somebody rejected by the tribe– couldn’t possibly survive for more than a few days: for starters, tribes had always somebody awake in order to alert when predators or menacing human groups were nearby. An isolated individual, in contrast, couldn’t stay awake for more than a few days, and as soon as she or he fell asleep, became easy prey to the many menaces around. Whether we want it or not, our minds are the same as the ones of our ancestors in the savanna, so the need for connection is hardwired in our brains.
Talking about sleep, currently, our hours for sleeping and getting up are dictated by clocks and the time we should be ready to get to work, and not, as in ancient times, by the natural cycles of sunlight. No wonder so many people need pills for inducing sleep, then caffeine in the morning to fully wake up, in a not very successful attempt to trump our natural circadian cycles. This is yet another disconnect from our bodies.
Technology (not necessarily very modern, electronic one) has gradually introduced mediating barriers between our senses and the objects we deal with in everyday life. For example, instead of smelling the milk to find out if it’s still good, we look for the “good until” date in the milk package. Instead of hearing live music played by local musicians, we hear with earphones digital recordings of the music suggested by Spotify. Instead of approaching a restaurant to see and smell what’s people inside eating, we rely on Tripadvisor reviews, that we conveniently see on our smartphones.
My grandfather knew how to buy fish in the market. He explained to me a long time ago during an errand to the market that I had to check if the fish’s eyes were bright (sight) and firm (touch), and if the inside of the gills were still red (touch then see). But in most of the supermarkets, we can’t probe fish that way; even less so considering that most fish to sell are frozen.
I’m not writing this down out of nostalgia. The point is that modern life is introducing an increasing amount of disconnection from our senses, and if this continues that way, we will not only have underdeveloped senses but also live with more and more anxiety resulting from that disconnection.
I walk the dogs twice a day in the neighborhood, and on the way, I encounter many people walking with earphones plugged in; while I can’t know if they are hearing music, a podcast, or an audiobook, for sure they are not hearing the (mostly natural) sounds around, like the footsteps of other people, the chirping of birds, and the inevitable passage of cars. Needless to say, isolating from the environmental sounds would be a deadly thing to do for the cavemen who evolved into how we are. And while we pretend to be more sophisticated creatures, deep down we have the same minds and feelings as them. We don’t notice it immediately, but isolating from our senses and the (real-life) contact with others is making stress and anxiety mount.
And all of this happens before the full-blown introduction of the “metaverse”, which would be the ultimate sensorial disconnection. If sometime in the future we spend a substantial amount of our lives in the metaverse, the problems we commented on above will be multiplied by an order of magnitude.
What about talking about possible solutions? In his book “Digital minimalism”, Cal Newport suggests taking a “digital detox”, eliminating altogether for a month or so the use of every (optional) technological device, followed by a purposeful adoption of the minimal technology we can use for the accomplishment of our deepest values. This could be an individual solution, but as I see it coming, the big disconnect from our senses is propelled by very powerful companies that make big profits from it (the big tech ones in the first place), and by governments that seek economic growth at all cost.
If you don’t believe that big companies make their greatest effort to shape our behavior, take a look at the excellent book “Hooked” by Nir Eyal. Digital addiction has been carefully crafted by those big companies and is not a random vice.
A whole consumerism way of life in the service of profits keeps people in a never-ending race for getting a fancier car, a better house, the flashiest clothes, and so on.
Simpler ways of life, more in connection with our true minds and senses, and the community around us are now marginal in our society, but it hasn’t to be that way. In the old book “Tools for conviviality” the cult writer Ivan Illich proposes a “sharing economy” in the literal sense, not as in the “gig” economy.
If we give more value to the experience of our senses, looking for the real taste of real food, hearing the wind blowing, the drops falling into the water, and a hand touching ours instead of a touchscreen, then we will curb anxiety and isolation, one sense at a time.
