Since moving fully into the online world in the mid-90s, I have been intrigued by the nature of people’s dependency on technology. Their addiction developed almost immediately. Pretty much everyone reading this knows someone who is online, whether they like it or not.
As we continue into the digital age, older words like trust, truth, and love take on new definitions. These words are used in so many ways that they lose their impact. In expressing love, trust, and truth through digital means, we’ve stretched some deep-seated personal spaces.
Who do we love? Who do we tell the truth to? Who, if anyone, do we really trust?
With so many options and paths, there are more places to apply those words than ever before. Yet there’s little reason to cultivate a relationship with any single thing because there’s always another person, opportunity, or option just “over there.”
The “over there” expands its reach constantly, bringing what we desire closer in an ever-evolving definition of closeness in the digital age. Expanding day-to-day connections with people we’ve never met—and likely never will—has become the norm. When we refer to our “so-called friends on Facebook,” who are we identifying as our real friends if we rarely interact with them in meaningful ways?
The nature of relationships has changed, and so have the words we use to define them. These words are now overused to the point of vagueness. For the most part, truth itself has been shredded to such a degree that even when we claim to seek it, it seems elusive. Does it even exist if we don’t acknowledge it? Either way, trust remains a word with countless interpretations.
Information has become so central to our materialistic society that there’s never enough of it. Even those who try to avoid it can’t remain clueless for long. The same news that makes people unhappy is often the very thing they want to share, ensuring others feel bad too. Don’t you feel better?
Once upon a time, we trusted each other. Now, the number of people in our lives has been replaced by the accumulation of things. Trust isn’t lost over time; it’s people who are lost.
With the ever-present obsession with money, online financial concerns top the list of trust issues. Is this website secure? Can I trust this merchant? Can I rely on PayPal to send money to a friend’s email? Each “yes” breeds more options, as the global marketplace is always open.
Today, we trust things more than people—specifically services offered in digital containers. Can you trust this buyer or seller? Why? It’s simply how things have developed as we’ve grown more distant in a world where the “economy” has shifted conditions for almost everyone.
The days of knowing colleagues at work—enough to remember their wedding day on their 10th anniversary—are growing rarer. The digital world became the icing on the cake of a world already wild with mechanization, fueled by the emerging cyber realm.
One doesn’t need to watch the news to guess what’s happening. There’s always the main bad story, a few waiting in the wings, and countless others that probably never will happen. Floods occur. Planes crash. That’s life. These events happen regardless of how much we talk about them.
Even if you avoid news outlets and voting, you probably know what’s happening—because you’re living it daily. What else is there to know?
The point is, trust now means something entirely different. Large Facebook communities built on shared interests are a new form of trust. Trusting people I’ll never meet but have known online for years is unlike the relationships we had before the digital age. These connections, though different, can still feel meaningful, sometimes in surprising ways.
Interacting with people from diverse places—some living in challenging situations—has created the mindset of a global citizen, or an Earth citizen. This perspective gives me a sense of how we’re doing as a species. I trust that I have my finger on that pulse and will contribute as I see fit.
But trust today is scattered, not the same as it was during an era of high school reunions and steady jobs with benefits. That shift brought displacement, dissolution, and a deeper move into the energy of the virtual world.
I’ve been writing blog entries like this since 1996. Back then, it looked nothing like it does today. Some of you might remember that time, but few were doing what I was in the cyber world. I can’t imagine what it will look like 22 years from now. (To the children being born as I type this at 7:15 EST, 11/23/2019: Stand straight and look forward. You’re welcome.)
By then, trust may extend to people living in space—some possibly born there. Who knows? But it will look nothing like today.
With trust evolving so rapidly—how we do it, in what ways, and with whom—perhaps it’s best to start by trusting yourself. I often mention “the random opinions of others.” These can be interpreted in various ways, but they are, ultimately, just that: opinions.
Trust yourself. And maybe trust technology too, as it gives us access to whatever we choose to seek.