Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age by Michael Bugeja. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 226 pp. $20.00 pb.

Reviewed by Tom Howard

   In the 1960s, Marshall McLuhan proclaimed that "The medium is the message," and an entire generation of radicals and activists took up the rallying cry. Television was changing the way people viewed the world, and in response, McLuhan prophesied a "global village." Unfortunately, he was unable to foresee the impact of an ever-increasing technology.

   In the introduction of Interpersonal Divide: The Search for Community in a Technological Age, former Ohio University journalism professor Michael Bugeja carefully distinguishes between a digital divide, based on access to media and consequently information, and the displacement that occurs when technological "tools" substitute for human interaction. His is a frightening vision of a society on the path to self-destruction.

     Bugeja's basic thesis is that technology in all its forms has become so overwhelming that people no longer feel the need to participate in their communities. Given television, the Internet, cell phones, and all the other trappings of modern life, many individuals retreat to virtual space rather than face the inconvenience of interacting with other people face to face. One of the most chilling examples of this isolation concerns families who exist in separate rooms in the same house, each connected to an electronic drug of choice. Even worse are those parents who, while in a car with their children, spend their entire time talking and text messaging on their ubiquitous cell phones, completely ignoring not only the outside world, but also the children they have chosen to raise.

   The blurring of the line between "work" and "leisure" is another aspect of this displacement from the community. At one time people went to their jobs for a certain number of hours, and the rest of their time was spent interacting with their families and with the people in their neighborhoods. Now, with the ability to contact employees at any moment, work has become a twenty-four hour commitment. The technology that McLuhan thought would liberate people to enjoy their leisure time has instead enslaved them--there is no escape from work short of turning off all of the devices that tether them to the virtual world, and even the concept of losing that connection leaves many people lost and adrift.

   The most disturbing aspect of Bugeja's analysis of contemporary society is the realization that most people today prefer to rely on technology rather than interact with the people in their physical environment. He cites the example of a young woman in Columbus, Ohio, who finally quit her job at a drive-through because so many of her customers were too busy talking on cell phones to even acknowledge her presence. Technology beckons, and the real world and real people cease to exist.

   The result of this displacement is that no one today learns the value of conscience and consciousness, virtues that define us as human beings and that can only be learned from other human beings. Why fail in the real world--and perhaps learn a lesson about how to survive in the community that validates us--when it is so much easier to succeed in a virtual world? The once liberating vision of a global village has become a nightmarish reality of isolation and an inability to cope with the day-to-day joys and frustrations that allow us to be human.

   Although in simplification much of the information in Interpersonal Divide is--or should be--terrifying, Bugeja actually opens up in clear and concise terms a discussion about the role technology plays in our lives. The book is well-written and thoroughly documented. At the end of each chapter, he provides a series of journal exercises that are cumulative and that reiterate the main points of his thesis in personal terms. He also provides discussion/paper ideas based on a short list of relevant texts. These features make Interpersonal Divide ideal for a college-level ethics text, but also provide a starting point for an ongoing examination of what is necessary to regain our place in our communities and to reclaim our humanity. It's an important book, one that should be read by anyone who has an interest in making the real world a better place.