ArcaMax

Free things are now being colonized across social spaces and public squares. Since 2020, for example, togetherness at work retreated to the private virtual sphere.

There's no better time to beware the social price we pay for privatizing time, water, air, news, and human attention and conversation.

America is enmeshed in a loneliness epidemic, says the surgeon general. Teens, especially girls, suffer anxiety, and one in three have mental health issues and suicidal thoughts.

"Social" media is too much upon us and them.

Walking on the avenue, I'm often accosted by some dude wearing earbuds walking with his head in his phone. He's listening to a podcast or a song more vital than the Zoo neighborhood. The sidewalk over the bridge is there just for him, nobody else.

It's the same on the metro or on the bus, with everyone looking at a phone, like yours truly. No chance for chance conversations with fellow travelers.

Have you noted nobody asks you for the time of day anymore while we wear Apple watches and use various brands of phones? With our stylish gadgets and devices, we don't look to grand outdoor clocks anymore.

Just the sight of clocks built for everyone at the same time gave a unifying rush. You still see them in train stations but not airports.

Big Ben, the Great Bell, shall always chime and keep time. The British preserve the past a bit better.

Here's another thing, small as it seems. Public water fountains are growing scarcer. Free, clean and cold water should be available everywhere in the United States as a public health measure, especially in a summer, when the climate burns across the country.

In the Midwest fountains are called "bubblers," and they saved many a day for a girl playing tennis under the sun.

Vast swaths of Americans buy fancier brands of water than their faucet brand. Glacier, spring, sparkling and mineral water have a significant social cost, however, in filling land with used plastic bottles.

As a journalist, I long to live in a country where the straight news is news -- facts that everybody reads, watches and agrees on.

Truth cannot be fractured into a thousand little pieces by supposed experts or bloggers. Nine years ago, Donald Trump poisoned the public trust in the press with his hostile chants of "fake news!" Recently, Fox "News" had to settle an election defamation suit for $787 million.

In an age when anyone -- including political candidates -- can say or post anything, no matter how low, ugly or wrong, you wish to call up James Madison, author of the Constitution, and ask: Is this what you meant by freedom of speech? Really?

At Trump's behest, internet chatrooms were the way a violent mob organized a conspiracy to attack the Capitol on Jan. 6.

Online was once terra incognita. Now we practically live there. I've made new friendships and renewed old ones, don't get me wrong.

Yet, during the pandemic, white-collar workers became remote. That became a habit, for better or worse. I'd argue worse, as I thrived on the bells and whistles of a city newsroom. Workplaces are missing a buzz now.

Amazon reinforced our collective turn inward. Millions ordered stuff to come to their doors, instead of going out to Main Street to shop. Everyday contact is lost in transition.

My contention: Zoom calls and Amazon clicks serve in some cases but can't replace the art of live conversations and relationships. Facial recognition in real life is great. Try it sometime.

This great change echoes "enclosure" in England, around 1800, when open common land -- for freely walking, planting, grazing, gathering wood -- was taken over and fenced by private landowners.

Reckoning with the social harm of "social" media is near. Schools are banning cellphones. Adults may feel that constant texting and screentime is changing our brains and behavior.

As Matthew Gasda writes:

"People ... can't read a novel anymore, sit through a film without looking at their phones, sit through a TV show without pausing it to check their emails, finish an article online -- in short, can't really do anything without multitasking."

We can master our virtual universe. Can't we?

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The author may be reached at JamieStiehm.com. To find out more about Jamie Stiehm and other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, please visit creators.com.

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