A short YouTube monologue (by Clegg) responding to a viewer question about which human rules are immune to technology. The speaker argues that physical human contact (e.g., hugging) and the deep sense of safety produced by expressing vulnerability to another person cannot be replaced by technology. Technology can create parasocial, one-way relationships (e.g., with celebrities, social media, or AI therapists) that feel familiar but do not return genuine human emotion; broadcasting vulnerability online yields validation (likes) but not true safety and can become addictive. The speaker urges balancing broadcasting with face-to-face emotional expression.
Chapters
Hey everyone, every now and then I like to log on and answer some of the questions that are sent in to me. This is one of those times. So what are some of the rules of humanity you would consider to be immune from the influence of technology? Well, that's such a good question, the way I'm interpreting that. It's not that the human, that the rules of humanity are immune from technology. I mean, here's one touch, you know, the joy of being hugged, the joy of hugging somebody in a, in a, in a celebration, in a difficult moment. Technology is not replacing that ever, ever, ever. Technology creates parasocial relationships. So even if you have an AI therapist, for example, that's a parasocial relationship, meaning the relationship is only in one direction. This is like the relationship we have with celebrities, you know, we're in first name basis with Brad and Angelina, for example. But we don't know them and they don't know us. But we think we know them because they're familiar and we read about their lives in magazines and we have love for them and we have emotions for them. But it's a one way relationship. So it's the same that when we have a relationship with social media, when we have a relationship with AI, it's a one way relationship. We project all of the emotions, but we're not really getting human emotion back. The thing that I think is more important is that technology can sometimes hijack and make us think that there is something real there. Nothing replaces the intense feeling of safety that is produced by expressing our vulnerability to another human being. I've talked about this before. You know, we've very often confused vulnerability with broadcast. You know, turning on your phone by yourself in your room and talking about the pain you feel because you got dumped or a difficult emotional situation that you're dealing with.
And then putting it online and then being validated because you get a lot of likes for that video. That's not vulnerability, that's simply broadcasting. And it is a lot easier to do that than it is to sit down with another human being and say those exact same words. But nothing can create the real sense of safety, which is different than validation. The real sense of safety that comes from somebody holding a container for you to express yourself fully to be your weak, vulnerable self and feel safe doing it. And so though broadcast can validate things, it doesn't actually give us the feeling of security that we need as human beings. Worse, it actually can become addictive and just the only way we're dealing with things is from external validation versus that feeling of real relationship. So that's where I think we have to be on guard and find the right balance of broadcasting, but also actually expressing our feelings to another human being.
