No man is an island
(No, nor woman neither, though I’m not keen on rewriting John Donne’s words.) This post is a reflection on isolation (the word ‘isola’ means island) and a discussion about whether social media (and public relations) are part of the problem, or offer potential solutions to social fragmentation.
Consider life in pre-industrial societies (if this sounds remote, remember that we’ve all come from one just a few generations back and much of the world is still in this stage of economic development). The focus of activity is agriculture; this is often a communal effort and each individual is firmly rooted in their community (family, village, tribe). The downside of a subsistence economy is the lack of opportunity (it’s thought that a typical English peasant living at the turn of the first millennium might only have met one hundred people in their whole lives; then there’s the lack of healthcare, education, wealth and social mobility.) The upside is the strong ties of kinship and place. You don’t need TV and magazines and celebrities: there’s enough to gossip about in your everyday life.