Is the Internet Stripping Away Human Contact?

Technology doesn’t always win when it separates us from human contact.

Because of the internet, some people believe they don’t need professionals anymore. Like, why go to the doctor when you can Google your symptoms to figure out why your $hit is F’d Up, including seemingly viable treatment options? It’s all right there in front of your eyes with pictures and everything. Because you are not a medical professional with a decade of education, and you could be wrong. You’re a fry cook at Arby’s, for crying out loud. Not only could you be wrong, but you could overlook something else potentially more life threatening.

People also think why call a travel agent when you can book airfare and hotels right there online. Because you probably won’t find the best deal, and Google doesn’t know everything. There is no substitute for a travel agent’s personal relationship with a vendor, and you don’t get that from a third-party website. Without a travel agent, without that human contact, who can you call when the (choose one or all): airline, car rental, hotel screw up?

It would not surprise me to learn that Siri hates everybody.

I imagine the day when we no longer talk to people to transact business. I already see it at airports when I travel, kiosks to tag baggage and retrieve boarding passes. Kiosks to buy that last-minute big-ticket item you’ve been putting off like whoa, look, a 75-inch television and suddenly you need to buy it, RIGHT NOW, before you get on the plane. “Reward” or “Loyalty” cards process and distribute your personal data without your awareness and market like crazy to you. In fact, it’s a little scary to see the Minority Report turned into a TV show coming this fall to FOX.

Some people also honestly believe they don’t need a Sacramento Realtor because they once ran a lemonade stand as a kid or sold flower seeds door-to-door and therefore know everything there is to know about real estate because there is really nothing to know as all the photos of homes are online, duh. These people are idiots. You can’t tell them they’re an idiot because they’re too busy trying to cut into their gut to perform liposuction on themselves, and by golly, they’ve got the vacuum cleaner handy.

The internet is a great place to do research and compile questions to ask a professional. Just pay attention to the authority of the URL. Make sure you are obtaining your information from a trusted source. The need to connect with professionals via human contact is more important now than ever. Because garbage in is garbage out.