Anomie

Definition

In everyday life, the modern vehicle and the daily commute is one of the most isolated moments an urban human can experience. The highway space is a modern anomie: nowhere is family, or connectedness established. Though individuals are connected in traffic, this connection is generally one of mutual frustration. The annoyance, while communal, pits each vehicle driver against one another’s irregularities and driving styles. Contact between drivers on the highway is generally one of misfortune or anger.

In his Phenomenon of Man, Pierre Teilhard de Chardin wrote that connectivity equals life, and isolation equals death. Being connected is a luxury. Modern individuals can transcend non-places like highways or airport terminals by the use of mobile telephony. A cell phone provides a virtual ‘vacation’ from the isolation of modernity. An online social network helps relieve the feelings of Anomie caused by one's nearby geography. In this respect, mobile technology can help prevent feelings of isolation that suburbia and other technologies provide.

To escape from modernity for a little while gives the human a tiny bit of power over their incarcerated state. Through the subject and the technology combined, the subject can become an Actor on the larger Actor Network.