Failed Solitude

From Sherry Turkle, an MIT professor and author of Alone Together, a book about technology and the self … “If you get into these online Facebook thumbs-up/thumbs-down settings, a paradoxical thing happens: even though you're alone, you get into this situation where you're continually looking for your next message, so you can have a sense of approval and validation. You're alone but looking for approval as though you were in fact together, the little red light going off on the Blackberry to see if you have somebody's validation. I make a statement in the book that if you don't learn how to be alone, you'll always be lonely, because loneliness is failed solitude. We're now raising a generation that has grown up with constant connection, and only knows how to be lonely when not connected. The capacity for generative solitude is very important for the creative process, but if you grow up thinking it's your right and due to be tweeted and re-tweeted, to have thumbs up on Facebook … that is losing your personal capacity for autonomy, both intellectual and emotional.”

What folly it is, living and dying by what others say to us or about us. Perhaps it is more the purview of the young, but it is of no use whether it is driven by technology or psychology … there is simply less value in “waiting by the phone” than in doing something productive and learning, even if alone.

I have not heard of the concept of “failed solitude” but it hit a nerve with me, as a writer and a bit of a loner. Thinking about it, it is a scary concept … it is a failure of resolve and of the self. It is unnecessary, even for an extrovert. To me, it feels like a lack of interest … and for some, a waste of valuable time and energy.