All alone together in our grumpiness

The other morning, I just missed the bus. I huffed and puffed up the hill and the bus moved off when I was almost within touching distance.

And then a truck pulled up. A stranger lowered the window and said he would give me a lift to catch the bus up.

I have lived on his kindness for the two weeks since.

And, conversely, witnessing a piece of grumpiness in the morning darkens the rest of the day.

I may be wrong but grumpiness seems to be on the rise.

There is some evidence. The insurance company Budget Direct tries to measure attitudes of drivers, and found what it called "aggression on the rise".

"Our latest survey update found that, for male drivers, those who reported being in a road rage incident in the previous 12 months leapt from 38 per cent in 2021 to 48 per cent two years later.

"Of those, more than half (51 per cent) admitted to having shouted, cursed, or made rude gestures at another driver, up from 40 per cent in 2021. Alarmingly, the proportion confessing to harming or threatening to hurt another road user or someone with them doubled in the two-year period."

The economist Chris Richardson offered a theory: "Why is Australia so grumpy? Because the pain is severe. Our living standards peaked in late 2021, and they've fallen almost 10 per cent since then."

But I think there's more to it than that. I blame social media.

The American sociologist Sherry Turkle came up with a brilliant phrase: "alone together".

She interviewed 300 children and 150 adults to analyse the way people interact (and the way they don't).

Her conclusion was that people who devote large portions of their time to connecting online were more isolated in their non-virtual lives, leading to emotional disconnection, mental fatigue and anxiety.

In other words, inaptly named social media gives the illusion of being part of a group but actually isolates. We increasingly find ourselves "alone together" - and it's very damaging.

We - or some of us - have come to see our phones as our primary way of communicating (in every way except speech, it seems to me). Some text during dinner. Some communicate via texts to people nearby. Mothers text as they walk children in prams.

Mothers in America have been been spotted texting while they breastfeed.

The psychologist Michael Price said in a journal of the American Psychological Association that this could harm the mother-baby relationship: "In feeding an infant, so much more is going on than giving nutrition to a baby. There is the emotional exchange on the most primitive level, the feeling of gratifying someone and being gratified in return.

"A mother made tense by text messages is going to be experienced as tense by the child. And that child is vulnerable to interpreting that tension as coming from within the relationship with the mother. This is something that needs to be watched very closely."

My advice: ban phones from schools (they've done it, editor). Come off social media. Talk to people in-the-flesh, face-to-face.

Try it. It's nice.

HAVE YOUR SAY: Do you have any thoughts on "alone together"? How do we stop social media ruining our ability to make human contact? Email your response to echidna@theechidna.com.au.

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IN CASE YOU MISSED IT:

- Police are ramping up their holiday-period presence at Australia's main airports to deal with travellers who behave badly. "The holiday season is the end of the year typically," Canberra Airport police commander Tanja Catalinac said. "And so you see people who are trying to wind down from the year that was and that could be a stressful year, it could be a negative year, and people might not have the patience going forward into the holiday season.

- The producer behind a TV report on Brittany Higgins' claim of sexual assault did a "good job", but more could have been done to probe her version of events, a consultant has admitted. Peter Meakin worked with the team at Network Ten on The Project broadcast, which aired an interview with Ms Higgins in February 2021.

- Record rainfall caused flooding in north Queensland. A tropical cyclone caused a year's worth of rain on some areas. Pictures showed cars under water at Cairns airport. A crocodile was seen in the middle of a town. People left their homes in boats.

- A car collided with a parked SUV that was part of US President Joe Biden's security motorcade, a Reuters eyewitness said. Television footage showed secret service agents escorting Biden to his car after the impact.

THEY SAID IT: "We expect more from technology and less from each other. We create technology to provide the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship" - Sherry Turkle.

YOU SAID IT: John mused on not being able to put a name to a face, and the embarrassment which that causes.

You had your own embarrassments - and ways out of them.

Monica recounted how someone who clearly knew her well greeted her in a supermarket. But Monica just couldn't remember her apparent friend's name. "I should have confessed my lack of recognition then and there - but was too embarrassed. Years later l still haven't worked it out. Every time I meet her now the embarrassment continues and now it's too late to own up."

Andrea said "in bewilderment": "Recently a man came up to me in a public place, gave me a big hug and launched into conversation while I wracked my brain trying to work out (a) whether I had ever seen him before and (b) assuming I had, who the hell he was. That time it came to me from what he was talking about and I could hold up my end of the conversation.

"Sometimes I'm not so lucky and just have to fake it."

Joan had an admission: "I saw a former boyfriend across in the other side of the local swimming pool. He was smiling at me and I floated/glided fetchingly across to say hello. As I got there I realised it wasn't him at all so apologised with a blush, 'Oh sorry I thought you were someone else.' Only to realise as I swam off that it was actually Bill Peach of TV fame."