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< | Digital connection VS. Personal connection | >
> | Digital connection VS. Personal connection | | | | |
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< | -- By DanielaWeerasinghe - 08 Dec 2021 | >
> | -- By DanielaWeerasinghe - 09 Jan 2022 | | | | |
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< | The unnoticed dichotomy between self-connection and digital connection. | >
> | The unappreciated dichotomy between self-connection and digital connection. | | | | |
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< | For the first time in probably ten years, I switched off my iPhone for ten hours and entirely disconnected myself from the Internet (including on my MacBook). This real-time in Cognito; experience was surprisingly gratifying for it reinvigorated a "connection to myself" i.e., in the sense that I was in my own thinking bubble, capable of thinking through my thoughts until the ending, without constant interruptions or temptations to disrupt myself by checking WhatsApp? , Instagram, Gmail and co. By disconnecting from smart devices, I realized how much power (and indeed free time) I have regained over myself and thus how much I misconceived the benefits of carrying around my iPhone everywhere I go. This in turn made me recognize that I have voluntarily (!) let those gadgets, and by extension Apple and Meta in particular, assume power over me, throughout the past decade. The magnitude of the damage caused is unquantifiable but not yet irreversible. | >
> | For the first time in probably ten years, I switched off my iPhone and disconnected myself from the Internet for ten hours. This real-time in Cognito experience was surprisingly gratifying, for two reasons: it reinvigorated a connection to myself, while also nuancing my appreciation of the concept of time. Without constant notifications or temptations to disrupt myself by e.g., checking WhatsApp? , Instagram, Gmail, the weather report, or Google, I could stay in my own thinking bubble and execute the things that were most important to me that day and at my chosen pace. Going online to procrastinate was not possible. I was forced to listen and respond to myself and not to whatever I come across on smart devices. | | | | |
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< | Why nobody notices the resulting dearth of individualism and authenticity. | >
> | Having been separated from the online social world, yielded more time in the real world which I spent more mindfully. For instance, I was able to enjoy moments that I would have otherwise missed had I been on my phone. In brief, I realized that I miscalibrated the benefits of bringing smart devices everywhere I go. The magnitude of the harm caused from my addiction to smart devices is unquantifiable but perhaps not yet irreversible. | | | | |
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< | Ayad Akhtar tied Kahneman’s seminal work on the effectiveness of unconscious priming to today's screens, by conceptualizing them as the "delivery system for unconscious priming", engineered for maximum engagement by so-called "attention merchants". In addition, she argues that smart devices have a "confirmation bias as the default setting". This is to reassure, soothe, and reinforce the views that you have been primed to believe – to of course, keep you engaged, which symbolizes a "profound technological support for primary narcissism". (The Singularity is Here, the Atlantic, November 5, 2021). I agree with this analysis. | | | | |
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< | I realized that it is not targeted advertising that is my immediate “visible” concern of smart devices, but their ability to subconsciously exercise a monopoly on my attention and thought process. This, in turn, interferes with my autonomy and my personal development, in the uncanniest manner plausible. For example, when I was in primary school, I got a Nokia phone (my first phone), purely in case I had to make an emergency call to my family. That is, I would only use the device when really needed. Today, I use my iPhone almost every second, for no objectively important purpose or reason. I would automatically default to mindlessly scrolling on it or sending messages to friends. In other words, I do not use the iPhone but it uses me and constantly wins in getting my attention due to its deliberately addictive design. Yet, there is an inertia towards remedying this self-harming and default tendency to resort to smart devices. | >
> | Why the resulting dearth of human authenticity goes unnoticed. | | | | |
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< | And beyond the immediate harm on the thought process, there is this looming shadow of collected data being used against me without knowing about it: | >
> | Ayad Akhtar tied Kahneman’s seminal findings on the effectiveness of unconscious priming to today’s scrolling culture (i.e., irrespective of being aware of having seen a word, that word affects one’s decision-making). That is, Akhtar conceptualized screens as the “delivery system for unconscious priming”, engineered for maximum engagement by so-called “attention merchants”. She also argued that smart devices have a “confirmation bias as the default setting”. This is to reassure, soothe, and reinforce the views that you have been primed to believe to keep you “engaged” – which symbolizes a “profound technological support for primary narcissism”. (The Singularity is Here, the Atlantic, November 5, 2021). | | | | |
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< | "Google, Facebook, and Amazon have amassed combined valuations in the trillions of dollars by building empires of omniscience. These firms know our deepest fears, our best friends, and our favorite toilet paper" (Derek Thomspon, Why Surveillance Is the Climate Change of the Internet, The Atlantic, May 9, 2019). | >
> | I agree with Akhtar and realized that it is not targeted advertising that is my immediate “visible” concern of smart devices, but their ability to subconsciously exercise a monopoly on my attention and dictate my thought process. For example, when I was in primary school, I obtained my first Nokia phone, purely for emergency calls to my family. That is, I would use the device only when really needed. Once I received an iPhone in high school, my usage frequency rose exponentially – after all, chatting on WhatsApp? and posting on Instagram became “normal”. The past decade, I have been using my iPhone almost every second, admittedly rarely for an objectively important purpose, but chiefly out of addictive habit catalyzed by the perceived convenience of using smart devices. I tend to default to mindlessly scrolling and lose track of time more easily than when offline. Put bluntly, I no longer use the phone as I did in primary school, but the iPhone uses me and consumes my ever-shrinking attention span. As a corollary, smart devices interfere unconsciously with my day-to-day autonomy which in turn sabotages my relationship to myself, in an uncanny manner. | | | | |
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< | A quote from Jeffrey Rosen captures this paradox eloquently: "This is about as rational as allowing a camera into your bedroom in exchange for a free toaster" (The Eroded Self, New York Times, April 30, 2000). | >
> | Why it is hard to break up with my iPhone. | | | | |
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< | Why the concept of "convenience" needs to be reinvented. | >
> | Yet, even after the positive 10-hour-offline experience, there remains an inertia towards fully remedying this autonomy-compromising default tendency to resort to smart devices. Prior to that offline experience, I thought it was impossible to exist without an iPhone and the Internet. Now that I know it is possible and indeed gratifying, I have made progress. However, not yet at a breakthrough level, for since December 8, 2021, I repeated the offline experiment only once, and one month later. Interestingly, both times I felt reluctant to return to my online life, while simultaneously feeling excited and curious to see what I had missed. “This is about as rational as allowing a camera into your bedroom in exchange for a free toaster” (Jeffrey Rosen, The Eroded Self, New York Times, April 30, 2000). | | | | |
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< | As I understood, Eben Moglen's theory characterizes convenience (i.e., the surrender of anxiety to the machine) as the key driver for our usage of smart devices. Once inside the Apple, Google, Facebook cult, we are locked into a vicious circle of endless, free social media consumption in exchange for endless, targeted advertising and behavior modification. My thought was this: what if we used the same weapon of "convenience", employed by so-called digital feudalists, and repurposed it to lock our usage of smart devices into a positive, harmonious circle that "serves us, not them". This approach would be threefold: | >
> | I read Jaron Lanier’s “Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now” one year ago. Now I comprehend the workings of what Lanier referred to as “the allure of mystery” i.e., “somewhat random or unpredictable feedback can be more engaging than perfect feedback”. I never know what to expect when I log into my social media accounts. And even though I know that I usually end up emotionally depleted and “robbed of time”, I still resort to the online world. As Lanier explained, randomness is “a terrible basis for fascination”, for: | | | | |
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< | (i) SELF-GOVERNANCE: breaking the habit of mindlessly succumbing to our smart devices, by realizing that self-connection and real-life, social connections trump digital connection, not vice-versa; | >
> | “The allure of glitchy feedback is probably what draws a lot of people into crummy “codependent” relationships in which they aren’t treated well. A touch of randomness is more than easy to generate in social media: because the algorithms aren’t perfect, randomness is intrinsic.” | | | | |
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< | (ii) USING THE INTERNET ON OUR OWN TERMS: setting anonymous and private browsing as the default, convenient option (via proxy browsing or switching from Safari/Google Chrome to Firefox with the TrackMeNot? extension, which would inter alia permit using the Google Search engine in an encrypted manner); and | >
> | Reclaiming the painting brush. | | | | |
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< | (iii) REGULATION: prohibiting both the collection and usage of data for advertisement or innovation purposes. | >
> | As pointed out by Eben Moglen and others, we are the last generation to have experienced both a world with and without smart devices and are thus uniquely positioned to understand and harness the pros and cons of living in each of those worlds. I am not advising to become a digital vegan or vegetarian, i.e., quitting entirely or partly the digital world. What I am suggesting is to adopt a thought-through approach towards one’s usage of smart devices. One could think of this as creating a customized nutrition plan: start with a strict diet (e.g., digital detox) and/or switch to a non-smart phone (e.g., Punkt) to resist the constant temptation of resorting to it and allow the necessary mental space to flourish in the real world and authentically. | | | | |
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< | Step I would safeguard your freedom of thought "internally", while step II will do so "externally", i.e., making sure nobody harvests your data or targets you with advertisements that subconsciously modify your perceptions and behavior. Consequently, digital feudalism would be deprived of their key means to exist: their capacity to monopolize your attention and thought process and to obtain your data. Step III would be to enforce rules that render the monetization of human data illegal, which, in the grand scheme of things, could be seen as akin to prohibiting human mind trafficking. As a result, both the chief incentive (=money/power) and ability to surveille you would be removed. The omniscience of the tech empires would gradually erode, while our independent minds and human experience would be restored.
Reclaim the painting brush.
As pointed out by Eben Moglen and others, we are the last generation to have experienced both a world with and without smart devices and are thus uniquely positioned to understand and harness the pros and cons of living in each of those worlds. I am not advising to become a digital vegan or vegetarian, i.e., quitting entirely or partly the digital world. What I am suggesting is to adopt a thought-through approach towards your usage of smart devices and social media platforms. Think of this as creating your customized nutrition plan: you could start with a strict diet (e.g., digital detox) and/or switch to a non-smart phone (e.g., Punkt) to resist the constant temptation of resorting to it and allow mental space to flourish in the real world.
All this from one ten-hour pause?
In late 2000, as my father was dying, I told him "In the 21st century, the greatest luxury will be the ability to disconnect from the Net." If that was the first time you paused that long in ten years, it was .01% of the decade. It might be reasonable to expect someone with all your social and economic advantages to be able to afford more.
How can an observant Jew be disconnected for one day in seven, and one ten-hour pause seem so profound a break to you? Perhaps you could try concentrating on the change in the meaning of time for the next draft. Without needing to propose policy for prohibiting use of behavior data for innovation (which is not likely to be politically popular, to say the least), or taking on any macro-subject, that one aspect of our changing human condition might produce valuable learning for you.
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> | In conclusion, the two 10-hour-Internet-pauses were this profound to me, because the benefits of being offline transpired astonishingly immediately – even though, comparatively, I spent less than 0.01% of the last 10 years offline. Once back online, however, going offline again feels like a luxury that is difficult to afford. But as with all luxuries in life, one will find a way to afford them, if one really wants to. | | |
You are entitled to restrict access to your paper if you want to. But we all derive immense benefit from reading one another's work, and I hope you won't feel the need unless the subject matter is personal and its disclosure would be harmful or undesirable. |
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