It’s Fine to Be Alone Together

Ian Bogost of The Atlantic writes:

“When my mother was still alive and she would visit my family from out of town, or we would visit her, the question of what to do would always come up. And she would inevitably say, “It doesn’t matter. I just want to be here with you.” That wasn’t true; Mom was always stir-crazy and couldn’t stand to sit still! But she wanted to be able to enjoy the presence of company absent action.

Being together is usually understood as a symmetrical act: The people present are doing the same thing—cooking, eating, conversing, playing cards, watching television, whatever—and that shared experience becomes a medium for communion.

But another kind of togetherness exists, one built on asymmetry instead. You are there doing something, and someone else is doing something else—reading a book in the keeping room while someone else prepares a meal, or doing the accounting on the computer while a child completes a craft. Parallel occupation can feel more intimate than a shared activity because it demands a certain trust. One needs to feel comfortable enough with someone else to simply coexist.

The MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle famously criticized modern technology because it encourages people to be alone, together. Turkle argued that screens provide an illusion of companionship. But I’d counter that that’s not quite right. All intimacy is mediated—by telephones, by couches, even by the sensation of touch. Some mediators are more detrimental to connection than others. But the intimacy of doing different things in the same place is still intimacy.”