Deresiewicz Summary

It is no secret that technology has had an immense impact on modern society with regard to connectivity. In just the last decade social networking sites have become the norm in everyday activities. Nearly everyone is already on a social networking site, Facebook alone has one billion users, about 1/7 of the world's total population. Even without social networking, people are still interconnected through texting and video chat. If someone goes abroad for a business trip, they will have never really left loved ones behind because they can speak face-to-face with them on a mobile device. Some may say that this is a hindrance to human kind because we need to be in some form of solitude at certain times. What is not known is that to what extent
is not being in a state of solitude harmful to oneself? In the following paper, I will evaluate William Deresiewicz’ argument that technology is leading to an “End of Solitude” as stated in his article “The End of Solitude” in The Chronicle Review. Even though Deresiewicz claims to believe technology is depriving us of our solitude, I will convey my point that such conclusions do not justify the claim that it is harmful to someone. In his essay, Deresiewicz starts off by going through technology and its different forms.
He then presents the reader with his claim that because we live with such close connections with people from around the world, we are losing our sense of solitude. He alludes to the past like Puritanism and Henry David Thoreau to support his idea that solitude has always been around. It is easy to spot that Deresiewicz is using allusions to relate solitude with great thinkers or eras of mankind. He moderately says to the reader that these great thinkers or eras are great because of solitude. He says that solitude is a religious value as well as a tool to achieve greater self-knowledge. It inherently comes up that Deresiewicz claims that with modern technology, solitude is diminishing and the reader is left with the question of whether or not this effect is
harmful. Deresiewicz relates solitude with religion in his writing. He depicts solitude as a time when one can relate with God at any time of the day. He then explains that “You cannot hear God when people are chattering at you” (1). This can be true, but people normally know when and where to have their spiritual moments. Technology seems to come into play here because technology is seen as a tool that takes us away from religion. Our modern society is trending more and more towards not believing in a religion or not associating with a particular religion. Who says that to have a relationship with God, one needs to completely isolate themselves from the outside world? More importantly, how would not having time alone with God going to hurt oneself? Deresiewicz does not address this in detail. Instead, he just presents to the reader that there is a lack of alone time with God. It could be said that by Deresiewicz’ lack of explanation, he leaves the reader with something to think about. But I see a flaw within that argument because when someone is trying to convince others, they need to adequately provide details and explanation. Deresiewicz also touches on the diminishing amount of time that people spend alone to improve their levels of self-knowledge, or meditation.
He explains that people are not making the time to focus on themselves because they are focused on others. Deresiewicz himself goes against his own claim when he mentions that “Man may be a social animal,” (1). He seems to think that the lack of self-knowledge is a bad thing, when in fact, people have always been social creatures. The more time we spend connected, the more our society advances with respect to sociability. Exposing a young child to a telephone might make them more open to meeting new people once they reach adulthood. It is a matter of how we treat technology with regard to if it is really a hindrance at all. Humans have an innate trait that makes them want to explore, this is shown in our current interest in space and in history during the Age of Exploration. Just like physical exploration, humans also want to explore and reach new people. Deresiewicz’ main claim is that not being alone will harm us because we will not be prepared for solitude when we come into contact with it. This claim cannot stand for long because humans are ever-learning and will adapt to new things; therefore, Deresiewicz does not supply the reader with sufficient information to prove that lack of solitude is harmful. Humans will eventually disregard the notion of solitude because we would have never experienced it and would not need it any
longer. His argument that most people today do not know the feeling of solitude is valid, but it won’t be a big deal because we will most likely never have to experience solitude. To conclude, solitude is a mere state of being that should be forgotten about all together as time and society progresses. Deresiewicz said it himself, “Solitude has traditionally been a societal value” (1). Traditions and societies end up adapting to the ethical and moral values that societies put into place themselves. It is very possible that society is trying to remove solitude by having technology connect everyone. Technology is the tool that is slowly pulling people away from ever having to feel a negative type of solitude, what Deresiewicz mostly thinks solitude is, negative. He implies that lack of solitude leads to some sort of negative end result, but he fails to explain why it does so.