Big Ideas

How do we ‘connect’ in the media driven 21st Century?

How does media affect our emotional connections to each other? In time? in Space? How does media affect our connections to ourselves and the world at large?

It’s not easy to define an emotion, specifically love. Although the arts excel in expressions of love, the science of emotions is an underdeveloped field. Perhaps it is indefinable in the same way it is infinite in meaning. Love could be everything, the basis of survival. The only sense we make of love is based on our narratives. Science tells us ‘what’ happens, the social sciences reason ‘why’; psychology and media try to answer ‘how’.  Media is also telling us ‘when” with faster connecting times and accessibility. Media is expanding our ideas of identity to possibly include the world at large. Our ideas of time and space are shifting changing our narratives of love.

After 14 years studying emotions, media and the sciences of emotions, I have come to this conclusion: Love is a narrative whether it is scientific or artistically based. It is a narrative of individual and collective survival that keeps us connected and connecting. The narrative is what connects us. The narrative in this way is love.

“What is love?”  “What is a memory of Love?”

How would you answer?

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