Op-Ed

I was told once that there were no cases of schizophrenia before the industrial revolution. This was allegedly because, suddenly, people were thrust into factories all and then had their family life at night. This was a great change from agrarian life, where one would live and work on the farm and only wear one face every day.

In the fourteen years since Prozac was introduced, the anti-depression market generates 12 billion US Dollars annually. What major social changes have cause this acceptance of depression as a common illness, like the flu or a cold?

Minutiae—that’s what.

Rapid technological developments have inspired uncontrollable social change. Marketers have convinced people that they cannot live without iPods or SUV’s or Facebook accounts. We no longer give each other distinct meeting places or times because we all have cell phones. There are less secretaries out there because they have been replaced by PDA’s and desktop publishing.

Therein lies the rub. Our meager human faculties, by their nature, are imperfect. And, because of digital technology, perfection is required to maintain employment in the information age. Perfection, of course, meaning attention to minutiae, is now essential to our survival.

During the industrial revolution, people developed their professional personalities to deal with coworkers and managers, and spouses and children. This began questions about identity. Doctors researched the meanings of personality and intelligence and emotions. A whole science was born: psychology.

The logical next step is that, for people to use psychology as a crutch to solve personal problems. Ideas of “normal” and “acceptable” were established. People desire success, so they desire to be acceptable and adhere to norms, no matter what is really in their heads. In turn, behavioral drugs were developed, valium prescribed and labels placed on people from childhood.

The next socio-economic age, The Information Age, has been characterized by the importance of managing, organizing and presenting information (thus the name, information age). We are required to manage minute bits of information and follow a myriad of instructions on a daily basis. One line of code wrong, one bit of text off, and we are working overtime and missing out on personal time. We wear many more faces then a nineteenth century factory worker could dream of.

We have our Facebook pages. Our YouTube videos. We blog and we post pictures on Snapfish. We keep in touch with old friends and distant relatives using Skype. Millions of advertisements are in our emailboxes, physical mailboxes and on walls, TV screens—anywhere our eyes look. Our social circles are larger. Our headphones blot out reality so we lose the ability to deal with the big picture of our lives. How depressing!

We are missing our humanness for the minutiae. I think I need a beer. . .and a Prozac.

Ed Eibel is Ed Eibel has written for Seattle Dining.com, Sound Rider and Sounds of Seattle. He engineered the live music show, The Live Room, on KEXP in Seattle for three years before moving to Asia. He now is desperate for opportunities to speak in English and is happy to share with you the insight into the Western World he has gained while not living in it. First off, traditional Asian toilets suck. Otherwise, it's the end of the world as we know it.
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