The Connection Gap: Why Americans Feel so Alone - Hardcover

Pappano, Laura

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0813529794 ISBN 13: 9780813529790

Publisher: Rutgers University Press, 2001

Synopsis

Shopping online. Chatting on the cell phone. Computer games. Instant travel to wherever you want to go. Yet all these conveniences and entertainment come at a high price. By surrounding ourselves with gadgets and material comfort, we are cutting ourselves off from what matters most. Our fellow human beings.

The Connection Gap explores the new loneliness of people who are over-committing and under-connecting. Laura Pappano takes a passionate look at the pressures and desires of modern culture by drawing on personal experience, academic studies, and perceptive observations of our culture as reflected in advertising, literature, and popular magazines.

Pappano turns an unflinching eye at the benefits-and drawbacks-of life in our frenzied, technological society. When we choose to order groceries online, what happens? We miss out on the smells and sights of the food that is an integral part of life, and we no longer experience the easy-going chatting with fellow shoppers and grocery-store workers. Our children, now participating in their "leisure-time activities" through regimented classes after school, no longer play with each other in their own neighborhoods. We hire pet sitters rather than asking neighbors to help out. Chances are we barely know our own neighbors, anyway.

Yet with all these armchair conveniences, we are no happier nor more relaxed than we were decades ago. We need to engage and reconnect, Pappano states, by infusing our lives with some of the activities we have worked so hard to banish. She concludes with concrete suggestions for filling our lives once more with what's really important-spending time with each other, and less time with the gadgets around us.

About this title

About the Author

Laura Pappano is an award-winning journalist and active community leader. She is the author of Inside School Turnarounds (2010), co-author of Playing With the Boys (2008), and author of The Connection Gap (2001). Laura is a frequent contributor to The New York Times Education Life section and other publications, including The Hechinger Report and The Women’s Review of Books.

A former education columnist for The Boston Globe and regular writer for The Harvard Education Letter now defunct), her work has appeared in The New York Times Magazine, The Christian Science Monitor, The Huffington Post, The Boston Globe Magazine, among other print and online publications. Her New York Times piece, “How Big Time Sports Ate College Life,” is included in The Norton Sampler: Short Essays for Composition (8th edition, 2013).

Laura has also been a moderator/speaker at education forums, including at SXSW.edu, MSNBC’s “Education Nation” town hall, and the 92nd Street Y, among others. She has been a radio guest, including on The Diane Rehm Show.

In 2011, she founded The New Haven Student Journalism Project, which helps urban public school students learn about the craft and power of journalism. The program is supported by Yale University’s Office of New Haven and State Affairs and brings Yale undergrad mentors to work with students in grades 2-8 to produce a real newspaper, currently The East Rock Record, which is distributed throughout the city.

Laura is writer-in-residence at the Wellesley Centers for Women at Wellesley College. For seven years, she edited the FairGameNews blog, now preserved as an archive. She is a trustee of Long Wharf Theatre and serves on the board of New Haven Reads, which provides tailored tutoring to children who struggle with reading. A 1984 Yale grad, Laura was goalkeeper for the 1980 Ivy League Championship Field Hockey team. Now, she bikes, runs, and plays USTA tennis. Laura lives with her family in New Haven, CT.

From the Back Cover

Shopping online. Chatting on the cell phone. Computer games. Instant travel to wherever you want to go. Yet all these conveniences and entertainment come at a high price. By surrounding ourselves with gadgets and material comfort, we are cutting ourselves off from what matters most: our fellow human beings.

The Connection Gap explores the new loneliness of people who are over-committing and under-connecting. Laura Pappano takes a passionate look at the pressures and desires of modern culture by drawing on personal experience, academic studies, and perceptive observations of our culture as reflected in advertising, literature, and popular magazines.

Pappano turns an unflinching eye at the benefits-and drawbacks-of life in our frenzied, technological society. When we choose to order groceries online, what happens? We miss out on the smells and sights of the food that is an integral part of life, and we no longer experience the easy-going chatting with fellow shoppers and grocery-store workers. Our children, now participating in "leisure-time activities" through regimented classes after school, no longer play with each other in their own neighborhoods. We hire pet sitters rather than asking neighbors to help out. Chances are we barely know our own neighbors anyway.

Yet with all these armchair conveniences, we are no happier nor more relaxed than we were decades ago. We need to engage and reconnect, Pappano states, by infusing our lives with some of the activities we have worked so hard to banish. She concludes with concrete suggestions for filling our lives once more with what's really important-spending time with each other and less time with the gadgets around us.

Reviews

In one of the most thoughtful of the recent spate of books on the disheartening relationship between technology, consumerism and community (e.g., Cass Sunstein's Republic.com and Richard DeGrandpre's Digitopia), Boston Globe journalist Pappano examines our market-driven desire to have it all faster, bigger and better. Among her central observations: that people are encouraged to be consumers above all, developing "relationships" with familiar brands, and that we have learned to evaluate our personal lives in terms of cost-benefit analyses thinking about friendships in light of what we've invested and earned, looking for love in the classified ads. What separates this book from the pack is Pappano's careful examination of our changing feelings about technology and emotional connection. Pointing to 1950s magazines, she reveals that TV was first marketed as something that would draw families together and stimulate conversation, and that long-distance calls were touted as being "almost like a visit." (Little did we know, Pappano writes, that we'd end up passively watching TV and using Caller ID to screen people out.) Unafraid to introduce observations that might challenge her argument, Pappano notes that TV is "the only reliable common language, reference, and activity Americans participate in together." Similarly, in her fascinating critique of planned smalltown communities (such as Disney's Celebration, Fla.), she wonders if it's possible that urban design actually might change behavior. (July)Forecast: Though it may languish if shelved next to James Gleick's heavily publicized Faster, Pappano's book will appeal to readers interested in an engaging and intelligent rant against the unnecessary "necessities" of modern life.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

"Human relationships are vital to our individual and collective happiness. We need to engage and connect. We need to be inconvenienced, dropped in on, surprised, and called upon. . . . As a people, we must realize that the craze for perfection, the instinct to pay experts, and the eagerness to delegate the chores of our lives are not making living better-just thinner. As we reap what we feel are the benefits of this age of affluence, we are narrowing our experiences and cutting out interactions and opportunities for connection. It's time to reverse our collective retreat and to reinvolve ourselves in each other's lives. Certainly that's tough, especially when we are constantly presented with the tantalizing opportunity to do more while doing less. But there is good news: The Connection Gap is here not because we invited it but because we have not pushed it away. The challenge seems daunting, and yet the solution is straightforward: Only connect."-from The Connection Gap

Edition details

• Publisher: Rutgers University Press
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0813529794
• ISBN 13: 9780813529790
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 231