The Journey to Elsewhere, U.S.A.

A professor explains how new technology drastically altered the modern American family unit.

  • By Abigail Tucker
  • Smithsonian.com, January 29, 2009, Subscribe
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Woman at work with her child
New technology, with all of its conveniences, has created a new society called Elsewhere, U.S.A., according to professor Dalton Conley. (morganl / iStockphoto)

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Professor Dalton Conley

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What is an “intravidual,” as opposed to an individual?

It’s the notion that whereas once we had a coherent, private self that we had to discover and then use to guide our choices, values and actions, the intravidual is about learning how to manage multiple selves and respond to multiple data streams in virtual places. The idea is not to find a core of authenticity but to learn to balance.

You talk about the stigma of leisure, and how leisure has become something for the poor.

It used to be as your income rose you bought more leisure – leisure was like a color TV or a car, a good you consumed, time you took off. Now when you earn more money you think about how much more it costs you to take off because you’re worth more. Opportunity cost trumps the desire to take time off. Standing still means falling behind.

What did your field trip to the Google headquarters teach you?

They were really ahead of the curve in terms of making their work environment very homey. They provide everything a 1950s housewife would have provided. Do your laundry. Give you a massage. Great food for free. At first glance it seems like a very expensive strategy, but I think it’s brilliant. People don’t want to go home. There’s a volleyball court and board games around. It feels like a college campus. And Google gets more out of each worker.

You mentioned the urinals at Google.

In English or Irish pubs they pin the sports pages over men’s urinals so you can read while relieving yourself. At Google they put up coding advice. It felt a little 1984.


What is this distracted, rootless place, where kids eschew stuffed animals in favor of online avatars, buzzing iPhones interrupt family dinners and the workday stretches late into the night?

Dalton Conley, a social sciences professor at New York University, calls it, simply, “elsewhere,” and his new book tracks the social and economic changes of the last three decades that landed us here. Elsewhere, U.S.A.: How We Got From the Company Man, Family Dinners, and the Affluent Society to the Home Office, Blackberry Moms, and Economic Anxiety shows how the death of the old ways (auto workers’ unions, coal mines) and the birth of new (air conditioning, tip jars and the three-bathroom home, for starters) have contributed to our present predicament, where no one has the time or presence of mind to concentrate on anything at all, even our children’s voices. Even so, the author took a few moments to speak with us and guide us through this new and lonely landscape:

Where is Elsewhere, USA?

Elsewhere, U.S.A. is, ironically, everywhere. It’s really about a state of mind, (where you are) occupying multiple nonphysical locations at one time, managing data streams not only in your immediate environment, but from a laptop or BlackBerry or iPod, having emails come in and at the same time being on Facebook. All the spheres – home, work, social life – have collapsed into each other. It’s a different texture of life.

How did Mr. 2009, as you dub modern man, and Mrs. 2009 get into this mess?

I don’t think they had much choice. There is, of course, the changing technological landscape: the beeping, buzzing, flashing machines around us, demanding our attention. Those are the obvious things. The other forces include rising economic inequality and the increased labor force participation of women, especially moms.

How will their children cope?

It’s really my generation – I’m about to be 40 – that’s the most discombobulated by all this. People in their 70s are in their pre-techno bubble, doing things they way they’ve always done. The kids have no collective nostalgia or sense things were different once, because this is all they’ve ever known. They’re toggling back and forth between games and talking to friends and they have an enormous amount of overscheduled structured activities. And maybe that’s what they need. That’s what it’s like to be an American today, to be overscheduled, behind on work, and managing multiple data streams. So we are preparing them well, so to speak.

What is an “intravidual,” as opposed to an individual?

It’s the notion that whereas once we had a coherent, private self that we had to discover and then use to guide our choices, values and actions, the intravidual is about learning how to manage multiple selves and respond to multiple data streams in virtual places. The idea is not to find a core of authenticity but to learn to balance.

You talk about the stigma of leisure, and how leisure has become something for the poor.

It used to be as your income rose you bought more leisure – leisure was like a color TV or a car, a good you consumed, time you took off. Now when you earn more money you think about how much more it costs you to take off because you’re worth more. Opportunity cost trumps the desire to take time off. Standing still means falling behind.

What did your field trip to the Google headquarters teach you?

They were really ahead of the curve in terms of making their work environment very homey. They provide everything a 1950s housewife would have provided. Do your laundry. Give you a massage. Great food for free. At first glance it seems like a very expensive strategy, but I think it’s brilliant. People don’t want to go home. There’s a volleyball court and board games around. It feels like a college campus. And Google gets more out of each worker.

You mentioned the urinals at Google.

In English or Irish pubs they pin the sports pages over men’s urinals so you can read while relieving yourself. At Google they put up coding advice. It felt a little 1984.

You discuss “two-rooms,” day care centers-cum-office buildings where parents can watch their children while working. How else will the physical architecture of Elsewhere be changing in the near future?

I might imagine that you’ll find more integration of housing and firms, the return of the 19th century “company town.” A place like Google could start building housing, like dorms, around their campus, for underpaid programmers, rather than have them waste all this time commuting. They could just live there.

How do we return from Elsewhere?

It’s not an option, I’m sorry to say. It’s not going to go in reverse. It could be that we have lower inequality because of the decline of the stock market and so on, but I think that will be a temporary blip. What we’re really going to see is this trend going forward.

Can’t we just turn off our BlackBerrys? What about free will?

I have heard stories of people who sell the business and pack up and move to rural Maine, and I think it’s interesting that people would do something so drastic. I guess that’s what it takes. But for most of us it’s more about managing these flows than turning back the clock.


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Comments (6)

Lightweight technologies like Gadgets and Widgets have become increasingly popular on the public web. In 2010, enterprises will more intently use them to build tactical solutions ("quick wins") and then slowly migrate to more strategic options. So portal vendors will not only support these frameworks but also will start providing a roadmap for moving from Gadgets to Portlets, and vice-versa.

Posted by alex on January 29,2010 | 06:25 AM

The article mentions that people used to be able to develop a strong inner core of self to navigate from. I disagree. In my youth and in generations earlier, people from low income families went to work way to young in factories and coal mines, or if female, as babysitters or day care workers where they had to mind the boss and do what was expected of them. Child labor laws are fairly recent in human history. Not everyone worked on a family farm where they were lovingly guided by adults who taught them things. Females, especially, were taught very little of anything other than cooking and cleanining, taking care of other siblings and the elderly. When I was growing up females were not allowed to play organized sports, take shop classes, participate in any of the professions or trades and had no core self, they were merely domestic servants for the family until they could be married off. They went from being subservient to their father and the male members of the family to being subservient to a husband. Females are by far better off today than at any other time in history, and this may be the first time in history where famales are allowed to develop a self.

Posted by Susan Geckle on February 25,2009 | 09:15 AM

I am a senior in high school and belong to a somewhat lesser type of crowd--the kids who are into Oscar Wilde, eighteenth-century Russian literature, National Geographic, and who on the rare occasion they do decide to watch television turn on MythBusters or a PBS documentary about the Medici in Florence while we do our Art History homework. The subculture of 'learning' is not one that is entirely lost--and technology certainly aids this process. We Google and Wikipedia and all sorts of other things; we Facebook and we iPod and we even sometimes (gasp) YouTube. But that doesn't mean this entire generation is plugged in and can't turn off. Agiven the average American teen right now is more interested in their electronics and comfortable lifestyle playing a different sport every week, but there are entire subcultures of American youth who value education for what it is. And from my own experience, I hope to God they're the ones who are in charge in the future, or else we'll all end up with Bluetooth headsets permanently implanted to our skulls and forget the smell of books.

Posted by Kellie on February 24,2009 | 10:13 AM

Dear Sir. All this is like Prometheus, whose exploits in turn will bring him misfortunes. There is no way to avoid the continuing advance of knowledge and is ever more difficult to overcome the challenges that brings. Trying to return to the past is as illusory as wanting to bathe in the same river. This leads us to reflect on the role of the individual, family, community and the state, according to the civilization in which we live. There are many people who have jumped on stage and faced the modern life even without experimenting the ancient. Consumerism is installed in communities living on subsistence and boredom abounds in affluent societies. As has always been in all periods of history, sought answers outside of man. The men quickly seek a God. Before the God was located in heaven, now lies in technology. http://alonsosarmiento.googlepages.com

Posted by Alonso Sarmiento on February 12,2009 | 02:05 AM

Um... I'm on the computer looking up potential homeschool lessons, hoping my kids are actually getting ready to go to the park --you know, the one that has cell phone reception.

Posted by Christa on February 9,2009 | 01:10 PM

What amuses me most is that a social science professor celebrates the integration of workplace and home as something new and extremely extraordinary. I remember my grandparents describing their childhood. Not as much as they lived in the same house with their cattle, but children were involved in the farm’s daily chores right from the beginning, each age with different tasks and growing responsibilities. The practical lessons of life were taught while working and its relevance nothing to be questioned, when calculating the crop per acre—mathematics, hatching eggs—biology, planning the work load—economics, forecasting whether changes—meteorology, gauging the soil—geography, singing and dancing—cultural education and so on. As everywhere some families, in this process, were more successful than others, and so by a process similar to natural selection an extremely effective way of integrating children’s upbringing and production evolved. These skills got almost lost over the past 50 years or so. Why this happened is the most pressing question whose answer would help to understand our present days problems, too.

Posted by Fred on February 3,2009 | 03:08 AM



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