In Defense of Compartmentalization

Sometimes it's nice to have a hermetically sealed trunk

One drawback of the modern Sports Utility Vehicle is the fact that the trunk has been truncated into non-existence. Owning a SUV is like owning a house with an open floor plan. Sure, there is more space, but it is shared space, shared with all your cargo tumbling around in the back. Sometimes you hear the cargo tumbling, sometimes you smell it wafting, and sometimes you see it levitating in the rearview mirror (depending on how much air you get going over a speed bump). With a SUV, you have to live, or at least drive, in the presence of your possessions. You can’t just stuff boots in the back of your trunk and forget about them. With an SUV, your wife would eventually smell them.

With a car, however, your options are endless. I have been riding around with a pair of manure-caked rubber boots in the trunk of my Camry for at least four weeks—and my wife has never even detected a whiff. Nor can she smell the contents of my tackle box in the trunk. I don’t go fishing much anymore, but that is exactly the point. There is fish grime and scented power baits in that tackle box that date back to the previous century. Sometimes it is nice to have a hermetically sealed trunk.

And sometimes it’s nice to have compartments in life as well. One of my laments about modern society is that we can no longer compartmentalize. Everything is always open, always on, always accessible, always wafting into our heads, always vying for our attention. Through the conduits of wires and wifi comes an onslaught of electrons—emails, notifications, texts, videos, and social media posts—that bombard and erode the walls that protect our attention, focus, and sanity. Sometimes I think we’d all be better off if we found an old sedan somewhere, popped the trunk, and tossed our cell phones in there and forgot about them for four weeks. At the very least, we wouldn’t have to live with the manure wafting up from the screens.

According to statistics, the average American checks their phones 144 times a day, and the average American checks their email every 37 minutes. I suppose I’m an above average American because I check my email every 37 seconds. I’m not sure what I’m checking it for, but I’m checking it nonetheless. Companies are now selling containers, basically lockboxes with a timer on them, so families can incarcerate electronic devices and reduce screen time for both parent and child. In other words, they are literally selling compartments so we can re-compartmentalize our lives.

Schools are also doing this. I guess educators realized that it’s probably not a good idea for students to be snapchatting with friends in English class when they’re supposed to be focusing in math class. In the past, such interdisciplinary communication was simply limited by classroom walls. Sure kids once passed notes in the hallway, but notes are a lot easier to police than electrons.

All this is to say, sometimes technological progress is a synonym for societal regress. Let’s bring back the sedan, with a nice hermetically sealed trunk.