I noticed him immediately—the somewhat questionable specimen sitting at the two-person table nearest the door surrounded by a conglomeration of stuff, a jumble of jackets, bags, and more bags. Growing up surrounded by the eclectic mix of people in Boulder, Colorado, I have encountered a fair number of “interesting characters.” That day, as I walked into the dining area of our local grocery, Alfalfa’s Market, the 5:00 o’clock sun glared through the window reflecting off the unshaven face of this homeless man. Alfalfa’s is a typical hang-out for the homeless population residing along the Boulder Creek Path and the parks nearby, but this man did not quite match the homeless stereotype. My typical schema was jolted by one flagrant fact—the MacBook Pro sitting on the table on which this man typed away furiously.

This gray-bearded, long-haired, disheveled man in a faded hoody and torn boots, hunched over this $1000-plus piece of equipment, jarred me. Trying to make sense of this confusing image was like looking for a clear face in a mirror steamed up after a hot shower. I needed to open a door to defog the mirror and understand what I was seeing. I tried to reason that this man was not actually homeless, but just another “Boulder hippie” with a quirk for taking his belongings along grocery shopping. I sat down and watched him. At one point, he got up, walked to the coffee counter, and grabbed a stack of cups, which he then shoved into the depths of his gaggle of bags. No one else seemed to notice him steal the cups, and I was at a loss for what to make of what I had witnessed. This homeless man could afford an expensive Apple computer, but not coffee cups? I spent the next four hours doing my homework and watching this man and his MacBook.

It seemed to me there was an unwritten societal rule that if you are homeless, you would want a home before a computer. But was this thinking old-fashioned? Now, looking deeper, I see that this man mirrors American society as a whole. Staring at him, I really saw a reflection, granted somewhat steamed-over, of myself. If I could not afford to live comfortably, then investing in a device that could provide access to education, work, communication, and entertainment all in one might indeed trump having a roof over my head. Our society now functions almost entirely through technology, so being technologically connected is increasingly important.

As I was mulling over these realizations, sitting there in Alfalfa’s, an employee walked by and must have noticed my unknowingly blatant staring at this “man in the mirror,” for he said to me, “He comes here every single day and sits at that table for hours and hours just typing away on that computer.”
“Do you know what his story is?” I asked.
“Nope, no idea. But he always seems to be busy doing something with that thing.”

“Always busy doing something”—this is technology’s role in our lives. It has shifted our society to one of constant motion and engagement. With the rise of television, social media, iPods, and cell phones, we rarely have a spare moment of truly free time. If we do find ourselves with a minute on our hands, we fill it with a text message, Twitter update, or headphones. More than this continual busyness, technology has given us the Internet, which defines our online world. Online banking, online checking, online classes, online shopping—what is there that can’t be done with the help of a Wi-Fi password and Google search? As technology improves, our reliance on it grows. This homeless man on his MacBook reflected our shifting norms. The old saying, “The home is where the heart is” could really mean, “The home is where all my photos, bank accounts, emails, Facebook friends, to-do lists, music, movies, and reminders are stored—on my computer.” This strange homeless man on his Apple laptop was not so different from the rest of us. He may not have had all the same material resources, but he shared the same ideals. No longer is a roof over our head of utmost importance; technology trumps it.

One may argue this one man proved nothing about society—that he was just some crazy homeless hippie who often indulged in a dinner of rice milk and crackers while wasting his days at the grocery store. However, just as a mirror viewed from different angles provides slightly different images, this homeless hippie, viewed in a shifted light, reflects society and technology in our changing world. As I watched his fingers moving feverishly over the black buttons of the keyboard, I couldn’t help looking down at my own hands resting on the laptop in front of me. His open Craig’s list ads were no less significant than the Facebook profile on my screen, yet I had placed him and me at opposite ends of the social spectrum.

A mirror is brutally honest and unforgiving, but also shows off the best parts in conjunction with the worst. Whether it be a cute new haircut or that missed week of workouts, a mirror reveals what is in plain sight that we nevertheless fail to see. This homeless man with his expensive computer revealed technology at its finest and its worst. Through him, we see the dwindling importance of the home and our loss of free time just as clearly as we see the convenience of the world-wide web and a portable search engine. Like it or not, we are shifting importance from the physical to the virtual. As children of the technology boom continue to reach adulthood, we will continue to see how previous societal norms are changing to accommodate the text-type-and-tweet mindset. Much like the homeless man’s livelihood resides in his computer, more and more our “home” may be found in technology.