THERE was a time when an evening in Guyana could begin with somebody pulling a chair onto the verandah and end with half the neighbourhood sitting there talking. Children moved between houses as though every yard belonged to the same extended family. Someone cooked, someone brought something over, somebody else arrived empty-handed and still left with a plate, and nobody needed a group chat to coordinate the whole operation. Somehow, everybody simply knew where everybody was. We had less technology, fewer conveniences and considerably fewer ways to entertain ourselves, yet ordinary life had a richness that money could not manufacture. A coal pot could cook dinner, a transistor radio could provide music, a neighbour could provide conversation, and a yard full of children could provide an entire afternoon of entertainment. We did not need a subscription for every form of pleasure; we had people and each other for that.

Of course, nostalgia has a way of polishing the past until every old memory starts looking like it was filmed through a golden filter. Those days had their hardships too. People struggled financially, families faced problems behind closed doors, opportunities were limited, and many conveniences we now consider basic didn’t exist. Progress has changed that reality in meaningful ways, and we should appreciate it.

Guyana today has access to opportunities that previous generations could scarcely imagine. By the end of 2025, Data Reportal estimated that Guyana had about 684,000 internet users, representing 81.7 per cent of the population, while social media user identities stood at approximately 577,000, or 69 per cent of the population.

A person in Guyana can speak instantly with family in Canada, America, England or anywhere else with an internet connection. A small business can reach customers beyond its neighbourhood. A young person can learn from universities, teachers and specialists around the world without leaving home. Families can send money, photographs, voice notes and videos across oceans in seconds. Technology has given us access; it has given us speed; it has given us convenience; and it has also given us something rather amusing: the ability to be surrounded by hundreds of people online while simultaneously wondering who we can call when we actually need somebody. We have gained connection in one sense while sometimes losing presence in another.

Psychological research gives us reason to pay attention to this. A large study examining more than 87,000 social interactions found that face-to-face interactions were associated with higher well-being than computer-mediated interactions, while digital communication still provided greater well-being than having no social interaction at all.

The telephone, internet and social media are not the villains in this story. They have become useful bridges between human beings. The problem begins when the bridge becomes the entire destination. A WhatsApp message can maintain a friendship across continents. A video call can bring grandparents into a child’s birthday. A voice note can make someone feel remembered. A social media post can reconnect people who lost contact decades ago. Yet something feels different about sitting beside somebody. There is something different about hearing the laugh rather than reading “LOL”. There is something different about watching someone’s face change when they tell you a story, and there is something different about somebody showing up at your gate with a pot of food because they heard you were having a difficult week.

The old-fashioned knock on the door had an advantage that technology has yet to reproduce fully: somebody had to come to your house physically.

Aristotle understood something about human flourishing that remains relevant. His philosophy of friendship treats relationships as part of living well, particularly relationships built through shared activity, goodwill and time spent together. His conception of community also involved people participating in a shared life and caring about one another’s well-being.

A community is created through shared life. It forms when people cook together, celebrate together, grieve together, build together, and help each other through ordinary difficulties. It forms through small encounters that gradually build a sense of belonging.

Psychologists even talk about the importance of “weak ties”, meaning the acquaintances and familiar faces outside our closest relationships. Research has found that everyday interactions with these people can contribute to feelings of happiness and belonging. This means the woman who sells fruit on the corner matters; so do the man who always waves when you drive past, the neighbour who asks about your children, the shopkeeper who knows your usual order and the person you greet every morning while walking the dog. These little interactions form part of society’s invisible fabric. Modern life can make us very efficient at eliminating them, though. Nowadays, we order everything online, pay from our phones, work from home, communicate through screens, and shop without speaking to anyone. We can spend an entire day moving from one digital transaction to another without having a meaningful conversation with a single human being, and then we boldly announce that society feels disconnected. Well, darling, society has been sitting in the same room with us; we just decided to hand phones to everyone.

Eckhart Tolle has written extensively about presence and the modern pull of digital distraction. In one of his teachings, he describes technology as neutral and emphasises how consciously we use it. He encourages periods of technology-free time as a way to recover attention, creativity, and presence. There is no doubt that technology has tremendous value, and it has undoubtedly become part of modern life; the real question is who is using whom. Are we using the phone, or is the phone using our attention? Are we choosing to open the application, or have we developed the habit of reaching for it every time there are three seconds of silence? Can we sit in a waiting room without immediately filling the space with scrolling? Can we eat a meal without photographing it before tasting it? Can two people sit together for an hour and allow the conversation to become the entertainment?

Our grandparents may have had fewer devices, but they had something many of us are desperately trying to purchase through increasingly sophisticated technology: attention from another human being. The irony becomes almost delicious. We have devices designed to connect us to the entire planet, yet research continues to show the importance of meaningful social connection for health and well-being. The U.S. Surgeon General’s advisory on social connection describes connection as important to individual, community and societal health, while research also shows that social interaction can support well-being and reduce loneliness.

The Dalai Lama puts the spiritual dimension beautifully: “The greatest degree of inner tranquillity comes from the development of love and compassion.” He connects human happiness with affection, compassion and our fundamental dependence upon one another. This exact teaching takes us back to the Guyana of our memories: the neighbour who shared food was practising community, the aunt who watched the children was practising community, the family that gathered around one television was practising community, the people who contributed to someone’s funeral were practising community, and the person who gave you a ride because your car broke down was practising community. These things had value precisely because they involved participation. Maybe this is what we need to carry forward: we can have the smartphone and still visit the elderly relative; we can have the internet and still sit on the verandah; we can have online friends and still make room for the people who live next door; we can build bigger houses and fill them with conversation; we can earn more money and become more generous with it; we can develop the economy while developing the habit of looking after one another. Progress becomes beautiful when it expands our possibilities without shrinking our humanity. Can we and should we bring back some of the old-fashioned pleasures deliberately? Below is a poem to reminisce on.

When We Had Less

We had less, yet laughter stayed,

One small room, one game we played;

The night was long, the hearts were near,

And simple things felt rich and dear.

A neighbour’s door was never far,

We shared our food beneath one star;

A little given, a little shown,

And somehow nobody stood alone.

Now every hand can hold the world,

Every message can be sent unfurled;

Yet with the whole world at our call,

Sometimes we barely know them all.

We gained the speed, the choice, the more,

The things our elders wished for before;

But somewhere between the want and need,

We lost the art of simply being.

So build the house and buy the car,

Reach for the things that take you far;

Just leave a little room inside,

For human hearts to sit beside.

Call when a message would be enough,

Visit when life gets busy and rough;

Put down the phone, look up and see,

The people who are still your family.

Perhaps the wealth we need to keep

Is found in promises we choose to reap;

For all that progress brings our way,

Love still makes the richest day.

Romella Dasratt