Saman.KNew technologies have new benefits, but like always there are unintended consequences that we are not aware of when we use them. One of the big consequences is the sudden emergence of (what I call) synthetic relationships in everyone’s life. Is that a healthy relationship? Can we live on those types of relationships?
I will first try to explain what a synthetic relationship is and what it feels like to be in one. I will explore the tools that help us find or trap us in a synthetic relationship. I will try to explore this topic but this will not be an exhaustive exploration but to start the conversation.
What is a synthetic relationship?
A relationship that is maintained with a communication proxy. A proxy that is built ground up to plug into our social needs. For example, social media or any relationship that uses a proxy medium for maintenance. I also include relationships with AI as a synthetic relationship as AI is trying to mimic humans over a logical proxy. I will use the word “relationship” in a broad term.
Exception.
People can have a similar relationship while being physically close to each other, In such a case one or both partners are projecting their own fantastical character onto the other’s body without updating as they learn more about each other. This will create a relationship that is not between 2 people but what they think the other person is or could be. But this is more towards a dysfunctional relationship that is not related to a proxy part of the synthetic relationship. I will not talk about these kinds of relationships as it is not the focus of this essay.
What does it feel like? How can we detect it?
In a synthetic relationship, we are not getting the full benefits and constraints of a real relationship (edit: Organic relationship is the best description of the opposite of a synthetic relationship). A synthetic relationship will leave us having a relationship with ourselves and our imagination without the full feedback of the person we think we are in a relationship with. Our intuition is limited by the proxy medium, we are left to make magical fantasies, going to the negative or positive imaginations that could be distanced from reality. That can also mean the interaction that is between both parties is lacking half of what it could be and the part that is there could be intense but superficial. The intensity will come from us having to bridge the communication gap of a superficial relationship with our own imagination.
The intense part of the relationship has the same texture as a film, it is real as long as we are convinced of its reality, but no more. In an intense part of the relationship, everything can be left to be interpreted by each party. The desire for intimacy will never get fulfilled, but it only makes one feel they are in the process of getting their needs met.
The maintenance of the relationship is where the important events of the relationship happen, and if that is done over a proxy medium I consider that a synthetic relationship. If the dose of maintenance and bonding in reality (face to face) is low enough for the partners to grow distance and build a distorted image of each other it would be a synthetic relationship. In such a case it would be difficult to tell whether the dysfunction was because of the proxy part of the relationship.
In our age, it is difficult to avoid synthetic relationships as we are more connected than we know what to do with them. We feel like “we are connected with people”, “we are in touch with them” but we still feel we are far apart and we are far alone. Anytime we’re in silence, we look at our phones, to find more excitement in our lives, to have a more intense connection. It feels like sugar, when the rush ends you want more… We often convince ourselves we are getting our needs met from the synthetic relationship because it is easier to see it that way than to face the reality.
Tools that enable synthetic relationships…
On social media…
Social media is one of the bigger categories for making synthetic relationships possible. We have been sold that social media keeps us socially connected. But as time passes we are finding out it interferes with social development and makes us feel anxious about being lonely. Young people’s motives will shift from experiencing joy to grabbing attention. Because of the global nature of social media, people no longer can be themselves but what the global trends accept them to be. This will trigger in people’s deep feelings of loneliness as most will be the followers of the few social trends and that’s just for the natural desire to be accepted. Groups and trends will be celebrated and individuation will be rare. Individuation will only happen when one moves away from the collective. When the collective is at your fingertips, we will no longer be able to think for ourselves or build the courage to individuate. Synthetic relationships are one-way; you will struggle to have enough detail on the level of understanding of the other person; you are left to interpret what is happening in the other person’s head. Now If we make this communication between multiple people, we will be guessing what everyone thinks and what everyone feels. The nature of social media only allows basic and primal emotions which is fuel to the emergence of a synthetic relationship.
The social media problem captures mostly girls but more boys will be addicted to porn which I also categorise as social media… Here is a study that has looked into “Gender differences in the associations between age trends of social media interaction and well-being among 10-15 year olds in the UK” (https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12889-018-5220-4). The research finds that the use of social media impacted the later well-being of both sexes: “…higher social media interaction at age 10 was associated with declines in well-being thereafter for females, but not for males.”. But synthetic relationships in this scale will affect both sexes and our ways to find partners.
By using social media we are voluntarily submitting our time and attention to become the products of the social media companies, and they will sell our attention to the advertisers as they please. These sorts of platforms profit from being a middleman in our relationships. Their business model is to sell our attention for advertisements, which makes an incentive for them to make us socially starved and addicted to the platforms. These platforms do their own internal study on the effects they have and they employ psychologists to help them become more profitable. Here is an article on a leaked Instagram internal research (https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/15/22675130/facebook-instagram-teens-mental-health-damage-internal-research). Here is a debate between Jonathan Haidt and Robby Soave on social media:
They will talk about the good and bad of social media.
On porn…
I call any platform that tries to bridge social gaps social media (I consider porn platforms social media companies). Porn can morph sex to the point that people who have watched porn for a long time treat sex like masturbation with someone else. This is also a form of synthetic relationship as porn is made to plug into our need for sex and simulate that. We are at the point that is difficult to find people who don’t watch porn for us to study this topic. We don’t know what is the consequences of this level of detachment from nature en masse. But we know that erectile dysfunction in young men was nonexistent before the introduction of high-speed internet porn. The trend that suggests young adults have less sex and start their sex life later in their life (commonly known as The Sex Recession) does not give confidence in the sexual health of the society (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/12/the-sex-recession/573949/). These patterns in the young generation are closely correlated to high-speed internet porn and Social media, but correlation does not equal causation. Here is a book on the effects of porn (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/23121356-your-brain-on-porn).
Upcoming technologies with synthetic relationships at the core…
All my examples above have a human on the other side but what if we remove all humans from the equation? Could AI and care robots bring a new form of relationships?
I am trying to look into the future as we don’t have widespread use of these technologies. I differentiate AI and care robots by the physical presence robots have. Care robots often have AI installed on them and they can take care of our social and physical needs.
On artificial intelligence…
We often think technology can make our life easier and safer, but can we overdose on that? Often when we talk about AI or care robots of the future, we think of a personal assistant or potentially cure for our loneliness. In the film Her (2013), we see an average man who was recently divorced from his wife and falls in love with his AI operating system. I believe this film shows us how new technology can have unintended consequences on our social life, just like social media. After finding out, Theodore’s ex-wife tells him “…you always wanted a wife without the challenges of dealing with anything actually real…”. This is a depiction of the problem we will face in the future, to find someone we can compromise with and build something beyond two individuals or, give up and have a relationship with ourselves with no challenges to overcome and no growth as a result of that. AI and robots are not fulfilling our need for relationships but they merely plug into the main drives to seek relationships, and as results slow the growth that we naturally seek.
On care robots…
This video shows care homes that are using robots to entertain and create an emotional bond with the elders. It looks like it is a great idea, and it is, but only short-term. When we have one lonely person who needs caring it is a great idea. But this great idea will fail as soon as we consider generations of people. As the first generation of care homes adopt this, there will be a low number of people using this service. But as time passes and this sort of technology becomes more established, we will see the push from those who are financially incentivised to sell as many care robots as possible to the health system. When care robots become commonly available, our attitude will change toward taking care of the people who took care of us. Our attitude will change in the same trend that has been changing from taking care of our elders in our own homes to delegating that to an outside party. Care robots merely enable us to take this to the next level.
Because of our short-sightedness in seeing only short-term benefits, we would like to give this technology to everyone who can use it, from elders to the chronically ill to the disabled but it will be mostly adults.
Does anything stop us from using care robots on our children?
After all, care robots are robots programmed to simulate human care. Of course, orphan children and children with abusive parents should be first in line to get a care robot. We can replace the parents who are bad at parenting with care robots, surely that’s good for the kids. To judge good and bad parents, we give children the option to choose their parents and the parents to opt-out of parenting, In the same way, we let our children make irreversible medical choices. But as time passes, we will see magnified short-term benefits in these kinds of robots and we might buy one so we can bring up our children. The same trend that has been going on for the past 100 years or so will continue from taking care of our children to delegating that task to an outside party, schools.
It would not be much of a change to have a care robot at home for domestic tasks as we already have our children addicted to tablets, phones, online social games, and digital assistance; the portals to synthetic relationships. Everyone can do a reality check themselves: in public places, almost all the children have a phone or tablet at their disposal when they need comforting or they are bored.
Sex robots Have the same problem as both Care robots and porn. They will plug into our drives for sex and socialising which stunt our development and could guide us to a lonely society.
Final thoughts…
Over the past 2 years, most people experienced remote work and remote relationships, and they have tried to navigate the maze of potential misunderstandings. This has only highlighted the problems with synthetic relationships. But this is bigger than that, we are now seeing the new generation who are having difficulties with face-to-face relationships and find it easier to be in synthetic relationships.
Synthetic relationships are not new as we have had long-distance relationships with letter exchanges, but they rarely replaced our real-life relationships if any. With the emergence of the Internet, these forms of relationships are not only possible but easier to create and maintain.
This could well be the largest out-of-control experiment with the biggest impact on us. We will have a hard time finding out what part if any is related to tech, but the absence of evidence does not mean evidence of absence. Any path we take will have downsides, from continuing the path and making virtual friends to potentially isolating oneself and feeling left out from the mainstream.
I think this has created a large gap in our need to socialise and compromise with people. I don’t know if the good outways the bad but certainly the bad can bring our civilization to its knees.
Any path we take will have downsides, from continuing the path and making virtual friends to potentially isolating oneself and feeling left out from the mainstream. It is up to each individual to take their own path. I think this conversation has to be continued to find the best path to this problem.
So what do you think? Is this anything we should be concerned about?
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