The trailer for this movie suggested that the film would address our dependency on technical connections at the expense of the personal. I was expecting insights, and kept looking for them, but was rewarded only with banal new age platitudes. Notably, a film entitled "Connected" was in the end a DISconnected jumble of points historical, sociological, economic and emotional. It's unfortunate, because the concept for the film was potentially compelling. The director's decision to try to convert that original concept into a sort of tribute to her father proves disastrous. The film ends up being a rambling speech by the director in voice-over, accompanied by repeated clips from family home movies along with an array of stock footage from silent movies and newsreels and a large number of animated graphics which come across mostly as irrelevant distractions. The director's sloppy use of scientific terms and her irrational beliefs about radiation were distracting, but she totally lost me when she insinuated that she believed in auras. There is a certain personality type that will love this film precisely because it is so vague, disorganized and pointless. These people believe that meaning can be extracted from nearly anything. What a disappointing doc. Not recommended.

I want to say that people should go out more. I would like to follow up with my observation that the feeling of connectedness gained from being wired in to the world of short, content-less media is false. I would like to add that spending countless hours passively 'interacting' with trite images, video, and text, is condemnable as the embodiment of the avoidance of social interaction. I would continue with an impression that the current vogue of interconnectivity has not yielded any higher social awareness or pro-activity but, rather, created a new societal underclass of intellectual shut-ins and non-achievers. I would naturally add that this does not fit the hype limited text construct or in any way assuage tender under-achievers self-delusional misinterpretations of self-awareness, but such are the vagaries of actual reality. If a posted picture can speak a thousand words and the viewer only knows two words, how talkative is the picture? I would like to conclude with 'Have A Nice Day' (smiley face not implied or intended).

Connected is essential viewing for anyone who participates in, thinks about, and perhaps has some concerns about how we as humans connect with each other in this digital age. Tiffany Shlain is probably one of our most important filmmakers today – pushing the boundaries of communication and all of its implications. This film is not only a consideration of how we relate to each other as human beings in the digital age – but as importantly – how those connections – and the way that we connect affect us both positively and at times negatively. How are we transforming as a human race with our digital appendages? How can we retain what is human about us? How wonderful it is that we can connect with people across the planet in ways never dreamed of – but also what is the price of that digital connection. As a parent – this is a must – and a must to watch with your children – and gift and share with your friends and family. It should be required viewing in middle school – and should be required viewing for you.

Human responsibility is complex; priorities are often contradictory. In the Twentieth Century, postmodern writers and artists transformed mediums to allow for paradox, but it was not until the twenty-first-century film Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death, & Technology that audiences could collectively experience the visual, textual, and emotional beauty of holding complex inconsistencies while moving toward personal growth and global connection. Director Tiffany Shlain exposes the journey by which the global film she set out to make began to kick, cry, and nurse itself into being something more authentic-- more connected--than any one viewer can articulate. Perhaps there's irony in merely writing a review of a film whose visually articulated thesis proposes the new century's possibilities are unleashed by the exponential increase in access to images. Shlain's hypothesis that a technologically interconnected world exercises each individual's image centers can be evidenced now--from the drifts of snow over which Shlain's father first released her from his view to the digitally mastered web of connections that refuse to release the globe from its collective potential, the images in Connected transform viewers into visionaries who don't have to eliminate the contradictions of their connectedness.