25 Apr 2014
The premise of In Your Eyes is that Dylan and Rebecca share a telepathic bond; they can see what each other sees, feel what each other feels, regardless of distance. For them, it’s world-shaking.
But I’ve had this for years.
It started when my then partner bought her first smartphone, in 2009. Text messages moved from ‘slow, expensive, and rare' to 'fast, free, and constant', and quickly we became proficient enough with the onscreen keyboards that we used them all the time. The nature of a smartphone is that it’s always within reach, and we fell into a new pattern of constant messaging whenever we were apart, rather than a once-a-day full-sync on getting home from work.
And since then the connection’s moved on; different people, different platforms, but the same basic mode. If we see something, feel something, notice something, think of something, we talk about it straight away. We ‘talk’ a dozen times a day or more, synchronously or asynchronously, briefly or in depth, but never more than an hour or two from each other’s minds.
It happened gradually, but like everything you do every day, this pattern became identity. If the link is broken, whether through misunderstanding or technical issues, it gets strange and painful within a matter of hours. The link destination may change, or be changed, but there’s always one.
The ability of the latest messenger apps to send images, almost seamlessly, takes this a step further. Now, we really can see through each others’ eyes. I don’t have a Google Glass, yet, but I bet that is an even larger leap - and perhaps this telepathy is the killer app for it.
I don’t know whether this is a good thing or a bad one. It’s so normal, now, that I don’t think it matters.