I struggled with Gmail. Every day my emails try to write themselves, and every day I try to prove that I’m smarter than an algorithm.
Take Sunday, for example. I was responding to a Craigslist ad for a coffee table, and I started asking, “Is the table still available…” and Gmail’s new “Smart Compose” feature finished my sentence, with a pop-up ” available” and what. it was like a satisfied smirk.
So instead I deleted the whole line and found: Does your item still want a new home? And then I hit send with a little more swagger. Google doesn’t know me at all.
And yet, with his ever-growing store of data on human behavior, he knows me – he knows everyone.
Google wants to save me time, which I appreciate in theory: it knows when “th” means “thank you” and can predict very well how “Rendons-nous Satur” should end. When Gmail tries to write entire replies with its exclamation point-heavy “Smart Reply” suggestions (“It was great to see you too”; “Oh no! Feel better”; “Yum!”) , it’s one less thing to worry about. But what kind of compromise am I making?
Communication has already become less personal. We email and text, even when we’re sitting at the table in front of a real, living human being with a mouth that can speak. Meanwhile, talking on the phone becomes the conversational version of a four-way stop – an awkward, hesitant affair, as people seem somehow out of practice. Technology has encouraged us to converse in short, responsive bursts, and while outsourcing this mindless work to one of the most powerful companies in the world seems like an obvious next step, I also feel like a part of my brain no longer matters.
Technology has already made my ability to memorize phone numbers and my knowledge of directions obsolete; he can even take my driver’s license, for all I care – call on self-driving cars. But there can’t be my words.
The word communication comes from the same root as commune, communal, common, community. Words are meant to bring us together and bridge our divisions, something you may have noticed? – are deeper than ever. So it makes sense that when we move away from our words, we also move away from each other. It’s hard to imagine that this will improve if our interactions are based on an algorithmically generated set of Mad Libs.
Gmail’s new bells and whistles feel like a continuation of the Facebook extension you can add that automatically sends happy birthday wishes to every friend. As if it wasn’t easy enough to post a quick note to someone’s wall after being instantly reminded of their special day, this extension allows users to appear thoughtful without having to actually think. It’s never been easier to look like you care.
Being foolish becomes the norm. Text messages and emails are easy to send, so we constantly send them thinking less about what we’re actually saying. I’m as guilty as anyone. I love dancing lady emoji and crying Michael Jordan gifs, but when I think about how quickly these shortcuts have become ubiquitous, I’m speechless (although Google might have a suggestion for me). TO DO).
Before becoming a journalist, I studied poetry writing and, for me, the economy of words was everything. Not all of us have the capacity to sustain “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” and besides, I love verses that cut like splinters – making readers cry (or at least wince) just as effectively as possible. I used to agonize over every syllable, squinting at my computer screen like I was solving a puzzle, struggling to turn three words into one. Today, as editor of Book World, I spend my days reading words written on top of other words, and a critic’s frequent criticism is that a poor scribe couldn’t turn language into emotions. The best writers can provoke a sob or a burst of laughter with a single brilliant sentence.
This is why I feel particularly sensitive to the “innovation” of Gmail. Technology is a stark reminder that our interactions have become something so meaningless that a robot could do them. The era of bound letter collections is over: when you had to prepare the ink, sharpen the quill, and remove the sealing wax, what you said had better be important. My sympathies are with future historians who have their work cut out for them, sifting through endless digital archives of “sounds good” and “lol” in search of something – anything – of significance. Taking a few moments to think about an email to a stranger about a coffee table isn’t going to turn the tide, of course, but it seems like a step in the right direction toward more mindful communication.
After all, it’s a difficult time to shake off the need to think about our words, with far-fetched conspiracies ricocheting across the Internet and a president who lies more than a kindergartner.
Ultimately, I decided to stop my power struggle with Gmail. I turn off the Smart Compose feature, and not just because I feel like it makes me dumber. Instead of wasting time trying to outsmart a computer program, I’m going to use my precious moments to think about what I’m writing. I won’t completely abandon my emoji habit – a well-placed pig snout says it all. But words deserve special attention, even if they don’t demand it – and so do people.
© The Washington Post 2018
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