Former TNG contributor, Edward Jackson, is a DC based photographer who has been published in Amnesty International Magazine, V Magazine for Women, Washingtonian.com, and “DC Cowboys Wet & Wild” 2009 Calendar. His work can seen at www.ejacksonphotography.com.

I was on my way home when a gentle sprinkle turned into a punishing down pour. I started taking pictures as people pulled out their umbrellas, which I saw as a metaphor for the ubiquitous presence of technology. Instead of being glued to an MP3 player, cell phone, or some other gadget that provided them with an excuse to ignore the human being standing next to them, the umbrellas were like impenetrable shields covering their faces, providing a false sense of security and allowing them to exist in their own world.

Compassion and empathy have become victims of our increasing dependence on technology, and there are even studies which show that the collective emotional intelligence of human beings is in decline:

As the world grows smaller and more connected, the role of empathy grows larger and more important than ever. Where no empathy exists, conflict breeds. However, as our technological connectedness has increased, there does not appear to be a proportionate increase in global empathy. Instead, we are living in a time of relatively decreasing empathy, compared to our connectedness to the greater world. Its lack can be found all around us, be it in our wars, crime, inequality, anti-social behavior and even the lack of social consensus within previously homogeneous cultures and the myopic behavior of the “me generation.”

A couple of months ago I was at a birthday party and had a really great conversation with a brilliantly smart and funny guy who was glued to his iPhone. I didn’t mind because he managed to strike a balance between checking whatever he was checking and being genuinely engaged in our discussion.

Of course the issue of dependence on technology came up, and I remembered something Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said in 1965:

“Through our scientific genius we made of the world a neighborhood, but we failed through moral commitment to make of it a brotherhood, and so we’ve ended up with guided missiles and misguided men. And the great challenge is to move out of the mountain of practical materialism and move on to another and higher mountain which recognizes somehow that we must live by and toward the basic ends of life. We must move on to that mountain which says in substance, ‘What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world of means — airplanes, televisions, electric lights [, digital age technology] — and lose the end: the soul?’”

We chat, text, tweet, and otherwise use technology in ways that limit and, in some cases, completely render unnecessary face-to-face human interaction, and, as a result, we are actually losing our own humanity. Technology has made it possible to receive data from a satellite orbiting Mars, but, here on Earth, we increasingly find ourselves feeling isolated and alone–in our own worlds.

To see the entire series, please visit, “In Their Own World.”