A World Where Nothing Gets Lost
A World Where Nothing Gets Lost
Despite decades of medical and cosmetic innovations, we haven't quite yet reached Never-Never Land, where no one ever grows older. But we're not that far away from a related place, Never-Lost Land, where no one and nothing gets lost. Thanks to G.P.S, Bluetooth, and the Internet, it is, day by day, becoming harder both to become lost and to lose things. I used to end up lost in the wilderness with a certain regularity, but it’s been years since that happened. These days, our phones can find themselves, and our keys and our wallets can all have little Bluetooth dongles attached. This summer, I look forward to putting a G.P.S. receiver on my bicycle so I can chase down anyone who might try to steal it, probably with a samurai sword in hand.This generation could be the last to have a real sense of what it means to get lost or to lose treasured objects. "Get lost" will become an archaic expression, like calling someone "Pecksniffian." Like most people, my first reaction to that possibility is relief. Yet it seems worth wondering whether something will be lost in Never-Lost Land, in a world without such a common and universally defining experience.There’s a difference, of course, between loss and destruction. The former is a really an informational problem, which is why we can come close to solving it with our mastery of information technology. That lost ring or remote control still exists; the problem is merely that its exact coördinates happen to be unknown. With the right information, or good luck, there is always the possibility of a reunion.Such miracles do sometimes happen. One of my most glorious memories was the day that, using a borrowed scuba mask, I retrieved my wedding ring from the bottom of the Yampa River, in northern Colorado. The story of Roar the Lion, a stuffed toy who was found and returned to his owner through Twitter, has the power to move even the most jaded.Of course, for every story with a happy ending, there are many more that don’t end in reunion. Instead, that very hope of finding a treasured object may actually prolong the agony by nurturing a quiet pain that can last for years, or even decades. I have a close friend who, as a child, lost a beloved toy dog, named Toby, while on vacation at Disney World. She remains upset about it, and at some level still wants to find it. "I think that, since losing Toby, I've never cared as deeply about other things, because I might lose them, too," she told me.While no one wants to lose their dog, or treasured object, maybe there’s something to be gained by losing things, in the right dosage, at least. It helps toughen us, and it helps us understand the way the world actually is, which is to say, at times, really quite indifferent to our well-being. Maybe we grow up a little bit, or somehow become less attached to the material world. I like to think that maybe I grew a little that last time I was truly and terrifyingly lost in New Mexico, with no idea of which way to turn. At the very least, I gained a better appreciation for Jack London.I also have a nagging suspicion that we'll never really make it all the way to Never-Lost Land. (It is, after all, only a year since the world tragically lost an entire airplane.) Instead we'll make it to Nearly-Never-Lost Land, where loss will be less common but, when it does happen, even more traumatizing. It is, after all, much more dangerous to be lost in the wilds with a dead G.P.S. than with a map and compass. We’ll be never lost until we lose our tools, and then we’ll be much more lost than ever before. It may be that the generations after us are, like sheltered children, less used to loss and therefore suffer even more from it than we do now. It is something of the paradox of technological progress that, in our efforts to become invulnerable, we usually gain new, unexpected vulnerabilities, leaving us in vaguely the same condition after all.This is Part V in a series on technological evolution. Part I was “If a Time Traveller Saw a Smartphone.” Part II was “As Technology Gets Better, Will Society Get Worse?” Part III was “The Problem With Easy Technology.” Part IV was “How To Live Forever.”