Living in a connected world?

By Jake J. Nho

Many people think it is the best thing in the world. With their smartphones and tablet PCs, people think they have it made. They think they are connected.

In a sense, they are. They are connected. But to what? The games? The tweeting and the Facebook? Is that really being connected?

People used to tell me that I was always ahead of the times, using the most advanced electronic gadgets. So using sophisticated tools puts you ahead of the times? I really don’t know.

As I head to the office at around 7:30 in the morning, almost if not all commuters are immersed in their smartphones and other forms of smart gadgets. Very occasionally, I see someone checking up on the news, or following up on a book. And I let out a huge sigh of relief; not all people are smart freaks.

I use my mobile phone and laptop (with Wi-fi) as much as the next person. But almost all of it is work-related. You will never, in my lifetime, catch me playing Go-Stop (a kind of Korean poker) anywhere on my phone.

That is the thing. People seem to think that they are connected because they are online: They can get all types of information, play games, hook up with old buddies and exchange ideas.

I do not say that this is a terrible thing (although some of it actually is). But staying connected in the surest sense of the term means meeting with people, face to face. It may be time-consuming but from my experience, well worth the while.

I had lunch the other day with someone I hadn’t seen in a number of years, a few years my junior. He said he needed to get some depth in his English in his specialty and he had nowhere else to go.

The first thing that came to mind was that he looked me up after almost 10 years ― we had a very good lunch in a restaurant that I introduced him to ― not on the Internet, not on Facebook but with a call to say it has been a long time, ``Can I invite you to lunch?”

In my mind, you cannot be more connected than that.

There are many ways that I try to stay connected. I have lunches and early dinners with people that I work with, sometimes visit them in their offices when the lunches become difficult (many corporate executives are booked a couple of months in advance).

There was an interesting thing that I saw the other day at a family restaurant; the father of an infant was taking pictures of him or her with his iPad. I don’t know what he was thinking when he engaged in something like that, flashing around something the size of a book in front of his child and people around him. To my thinking, to be waving around an item the size of a small laptop is really not very cool. But I am sure he thought so. There are reasons why people invented the camera. The phone camera is one thing but the iPad; give me a break.

Therein lies the problem; we don’t think alike. This is not to say that I am correct and others are not. But when we are talking about connectedness ― how that father probably sent the photos to his family and friends, thinking it was the best thing in the world ― most people on the receiving end tend to delete them almost immediately for fear of inundating their storage devices.

Staying connected is great. I have friends in Canada, the U.K. and the United States who keep sending me messages on LinkedIn, one of the popular social networks, about where they are travelling as if that has a reference to our relationship. If you are going to be in Seoul, great. If I am going to be in Toronto, even better. But if not, don’t bother.

At the end of the whole thing, it is about meeting people and getting together. I have friends all over the world. But are we really connected? I don’t think so. We merely pretend that we are, but we are actually not.

I have a close friend in Hong Kong who I have promised to visit for over the past five years. Well, he didn’t come to Seoul, so we are square.

Funny thing: My younger daughter, Seung-joo (Tiffany), came and asked me if we could go to Hong Kong a couple of weeks ago and this got me really excited.

David, the guy in Hong Kong, and I were close when he worked here in Seoul and we tried to keep in touch by telephone. As time went by, this was nearly forgotten.

I called him to tell him that I was finally on my way, with my daughter, of course, and he got excited, too. Because this is really the way we stay connected. A firm handshake, kiss on the cheek and a good steak on the table. That’s how I want to stay connected.

Jake J. Nho is a journalist and a media marketing executive, having lived in Seoul for the past 27 years. He can be reached at jakenho@hotmail.com.