To understand is to perceve patterns. Now of course what this means is that true comprehension comes when the dots are revealed… and you see the big picture.”
TO UNDERSTAND IS TO PERCEIVE PATTERNS from Jason Silva on Vimeo.
Connected, But Alone [Ted Talk]
“I’m still excited by technology,“ says Sherry Turkle in her TED talk, “but I believe, and I’m here to make the case, that we’re letting it take us places that we don’t want to go.” Turkle is a psychologist and author most recently of the book, Alone Together.
Over the past 15 years, I’ve studied technologies of mobile communication and I’ve interviewed hundreds and hundreds of people, young and old, about their plugged in lives. And what I’ve found is that our little devices, those little devices in our pockets, are so psychologically powerful that they don’t only change what we do, they change who we are. Some of the things we do now with our devices are things that, only a few years ago, we would have found odd or disturbing, but they’ve quickly come to seem familiar, just how we do things.
So just to take some quick examples: People text or do email during corporate board meetings. They text and shop and go on Facebook during classes, during presentations, actually during all meetings. People talk to me about the important new skill of making eye contact while you’re texting… Parents text and do email at breakfast and at dinner while their children complain about not having their parents’ full attention. But then these same children deny each other their full attention.”
The Allure Of Connecting When You Want, How You Want, With Whom You Want
Why does this matter? It matters to me because I think we’re setting ourselves up for trouble — trouble certainly in how we relate to each other, but also trouble in how we relate to ourselves and our capacity for self-reflection. We’re getting used to a new way of being alone together. People want to be with each other, but also elsewhere — connected to all the different places they want to be. People want to customize their lives. They want to go in and out of all the places they are because the thing that matters most to them is control over where they put their attention. So you want to go to that board meeting, but you only want to pay attention to the bits that interest you. And some people think that’s a good thing. But you can end up hiding from each other, even as we’re all constantly connected to each other.”
Across the generations, I see that people can’t get enough of each other, if and only if they can have each other at a distance, in amounts they can control. I call it the Goldilocks effect: not too close, not too far, just right. But what might feel just right for that middle-aged executive can be a problem for an adolescent who needs to develop face-to-face relationships. An 18-year-old boy who uses texting for almost everything says to me wistfully, “Someday, someday, but certainly not now, I’d like to learn how to have a conversation.”
Over and over I hear, “I would rather text than talk.” And what I’m seeing is that people get so used to being short-changed out of real conversation, so used to getting by with less, that they’ve become almost willing to dispense with people altogether.”
The 3 Fantasies Of Connections Based On Technology
These days, those phones in our pockets are changing our minds and hearts because they offer us three gratifying fantasies. One, that we can put our attention wherever we want it to be; two, that we will always be heard; and three, that we will never have to be alone. And that third idea, that we will never have to be alone, is central to changing our psyches. Because the moment that people are alone, even for a few seconds, they become anxious, they panic, they fidget, they reach for a device. Just think of people at a checkout line or at a red light. Being alone feels like a problem that needs to be solved. And so people try to solve it by connecting. But here, connection is more like a symptom than a cure. It expresses, but it doesn’t solve, an underlying problem. But more than a symptom, constant connection is changing the way people think of themselves. It’s shaping a new way of being.
The best way to describe it is, I share therefore I am. We use technology to define ourselves by sharing our thoughts and feelings even as we’re having them. So before it was: I have a feeling, I want to make a call. Now it’s: I want to have a feeling, I need to send a text. The problem with this new regime of “I share therefore I am” is that, if we don’t have connection, we don’t feel like ourselves. We almost don’t feel ourselves. So what do we do? We connect more and more. But in the process, we set ourselves up to be isolated.
How do you get from connection to isolation? You end up isolated if you don’t cultivate the capacity for solitude, the ability to be separate, to gather yourself. Solitude is where you find yourself so that you can reach out to other people and form real attachments. When we don’t have the capacity for solitude, we turn to other people in order to feel less anxious or in order to feel alive. When this happens, we’re not able to appreciate who they are. It’s as though we’re using them as spare parts to support our fragile sense of self. We slip into thinking that always being connected is going to make us feel less alone. But we’re at risk, because actually it’s the opposite that’s true. If we’re not able to be alone, we’re going to be more lonely. And if we don’t teach our children to be alone, they’re only going to know how to be lonely.
So, How Can Better Relationships Be Formed?
I see some first steps. Start thinking of solitude as a good thing. Make room for it. Find ways to demonstrate this as a value to your children. Create sacred spaces at home — the kitchen, the dining room — and reclaim them for conversation. Do the same thing at work. At work, we’re so busy communicating that we often don’t have time to think, we don’t have time to talk, about the things that really matter. Change that. Most important, we all really need to listen to each other, including to the boring bits. Because it’s when we stumble or hesitate or lose our words that we reveal ourselves to each other.
Technology is making a bid to redefine human connection — how we care for each other, how we care for ourselves — but it’s also giving us the opportunity to affirm our values and our direction. I’m optimistic. We have everything we need to start. We have each other. And we have the greatest chance of success if we recognize our vulnerability. That we listen when technology says it will take something complicated and promises something simpler.
So in my work, I hear that life is hard, relationships are filled with risk. And then there’s technology — simpler, hopeful, optimistic, ever-young. It’s like calling in the cavalry. An ad campaign promises that online and with avatars, you can “Finally, love your friends love your body, love your life, online and with avatars.” We’re drawn to virtual romance, to computer games that seem like worlds, to the idea that robots, robots, will someday be our true companions. We spend an evening on the social network instead of going to the pub with friends.
But our fantasies of substitution have cost us. Now we all need to focus on the many, many ways technology can lead us back to our real lives, our own bodies, our own communities, our own politics, our own planet. They need us. Let’s talk about how we can use digital technology, the technology of our dreams, to make this life the life we can love.”
Ego – From Birth to Adulthood
By Irene Rudnev
We are an old species! Nobody knows where we came from, but we certainly have a long history – by our standards at least. Scientists tell us we started as goo, while creationists insist we were sculpted from clay by the divine hand. But regardless of how we began, it was from one seed, one lump of clay, or one puddle of goo. And if dust is what we all are returning to, then there is going to be one cloud of it flying around the earth. No matter the matter, this is what we are all about – oneness.
Either way, once we took human form, we became mankind and embarked on exploring the allotted dimension. We floated on Tatum’s[1]back through infinite celestial waters, dwelled on a vast, lavish island carried by three giant elephants[2], and roamed virgin flatlands resting on three cosmic whales[3]sleepless in their sacred duty. All these empyrean colossi were doing an excellent job until we found ourselves on the round globe, where point A has the same address as point Z. The primordial beasts were laid off and their phantoms discarded. We finally reached point Z, and a millennia long, blindfolded journey came to an end.
The bandeau concealing reality was removed, and we entered a round world, which turned out to be surprisingly small – in fact, perhaps even smaller than our previously occupied, flat habitats. At least in those bygone days, we could still dream about some distant terra incognita[4], filled with imaginary wonders and captivating riches, where we would be able to move one day, in case we got tired of our neighbors, relatives, government, or the grass. Although the latter was getting greener behind another’s fence, border, and “NO TRESPASSING” sign even then, it still didn’t vex us too much, since space and novelties were plenty, and all we had to do was seek, find, and claim a portion of it, in order to fulfill a lifelong desire and make one sweet dream come true.
Moreover, once we had a chance to look about and tally ourselves, we couldn’t but feel proud of being admirably obedient to the order to multiply. After we had failed “Project Babylon”[5]and flipped on our collective faces, we got conveniently separated by languages and self-imposed borders, to demonstrate our newly discovered and well-defined differences, all of which we found great pleasure in, since our bursting, evolving desires demanded what we didn’t quite feel before – hate. We developed in color, character, behavior, and mentality and spread around the globe, to take a designated spot under the sun, as far as possible from our neighbors – so that we didn’t have to see their ugly faces and covet their still greener grass.
Since then, desires have swelled; the brain has blown up to service them; languages have bred countless offspring to distance us even farther. Now, the differences are monumentalized and the borders – legalized, to confirm once and for all: we own a piece of the world, and nobody else is entitled to its possession, because we spotted it first. What a peculiar species we are indeed! Just because we want something, we immediately think we are entitled to it, and would do whatever it takes to get what we want. And so we have.
But while we were claiming our domains, we were still undergoing the common stages of human development: infancy, toddlerhood, childhood, and adolescence. We bit and broke teeth; we grabbed and got punched; we touched and got burnt; we played and got tricked; we fought and got knocked out. As we grew, we felt weary and bored, so we switched gears and turned on the creative mode. We built art museums, conservatories, philosophy schools, and science academies. And that was quite fun, until we lost interest in it as well and went back to flexing muscles, but always better equipped. After all, there is no stress, longing, or melancholy that a war party can’t fix…
Since ego’s evil eye never sleeps and conscience does, we got convinced that all our problems are due to the flaws of “the others” and if we got rid of them, life would be perfect. But since we never really could live without one another, we had to hold each other’s attention by any means possible, whether it would be love or hate; and so, teasing each other mercilessly, we entered adulthood.
By then, we had had some basic traditional education and studied ourselves in the books written by us, swanky little sapience. We thought we learnt all there is to know about what everybody needs, and in order to prove that we are the most skilled at harmonizing dysfunctional ties, we decided to demonstrate our care and irrefutable magnificence, by making everyone happy – with or without their consent.
And boy, did we demonstrate! We would try anything to earn one another’s respect, recognition and admiration. We’d bring not a few but a horse-load[6]of gifts! (Why do we squirm at hearing the word “Trojan”? As if we had other alternatives but to shove those trinkets down their ungrateful throat.) We never gave up and kept thinking of more valuables to offer: culture, freedom, democracy – let us refine your tastes, liberate you from ignorance, and teach you how to govern your arrogant selves! But the blessed barbarians wouldn’t accept our charity. What were we left to do if not make them? We couldn’t waste a perfectly good intention. But they wouldn’t understand…
When all our courtesies and advances failed, we decided to impress them full force and go as far as to share with them our God – a priceless and heart-guarded treasure. We were certain that this gift couldn’t be ignored and from then on we would be eternally loved. We dressed ourselves up and joyfully landed in our neighbors’ harbors. How shocked were we when we learned they already did have a God and claim they had a better idea how to please Him! That would tick anybody off. How dare they? Of course we had to punish the brutes! Poor little sapience: how love-sick and immature we are in our courtship. We come in peace and go in pieces…
And so we’ve kept playing this game, breaking each other’s hearts and noses, making up afterwards, and starting it all over again once we couldn’t reconcile those good intentions we had for each other from time to time. While we were at it, Mother Nature patiently watched us, in amusement and with deep sympathy for her evolving humanoids. When we got especially naughty, she would give a gentle shake, splash with a bit of cold water, or puff some hot air on us, just to remind us to play fair and be nice to each other as siblings we are. She knew we were just growing up and the time would come when we would mature and take responsibility for each other and…her. It’s about time we did as she expects, but we are trying our best to avoid just that. And Nature, who is no longer amused by our repetitive and infantile behavior, has begun to contract our “personal” space, forcing us to come out of blood drunken stupor and acknowledge our primordial genetic connection, which roots in oneness.
So, here we are, all 7, 000, 000, 000 of us, tied by gravity to a three dimensional firmament that we would gladly jump off of if there were a greener lawn nearby; but there is none. We want a divorce, but we cannot move out. We look at each other with spite and suspicion while we yearn to leap forth and unite in a longed-for embrace. It seems to be as easy as it is impossible; the gear is heavy, artillery is on the line…and we were told we look stupid with roses.
Now, we are standing on the brink of being squeezed out of our three dimensional spherical crib onto a new grid of existence designated for conscientious, accomplished adults. Our relationship has to mature, which means that all our narcissistic, compulsive obsessive, histrionic, anti-social, and paranoid behaviors have to go. Mother Nature doesn’t intend to beg that we honor the Cosmic Family Law – she demands it, and resistance is futile.
Therefore, if we are as sapient as we claim to be, we must show the ability to read between Nature’s lines and heed the unyielding wisdom of the eternal sage. We are being graduated to a higher degree of consciousness, where “sapience” is more than a book-learned intelligence and a millennia-long competition of wills. We must take off the gear and put down the arms, for we are entering the era of the meeting hands – the age of amalga-nation!
[1] World Turtle supporting the flat earth – a metaphor representing a popular notion of a primitive cosmological myth.
[2] Mythical animals supporting the earth in Hindu cosmology.
[3] Cosmic sea mammals carrying the flat earth in Russian mythology. [4] Latin for “the unknown land”
[5] A humorous reference to the biblical account of a united humanity speaking a single language and invincible due thereof, but who were confounded in their speech and scattered upon the face of the earth by God, as a reprimand for their arrogant attempt to build a tower to Heaven to demonstrate superiority of their collective ego.
[6] According the Greek legend, the Greeks conquered Troy by tricking the Trojans with their gift – a wooden horse they build, manned, and left outside the city. Hence saying -“Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.”
Connected
Have you ever faked a restroom trip to check your email? Slept with your laptop? Or become so overwhelmed that you just unplugged from it all? In this funny, eye-opening, and inspiring film, director Tiffany Shlain takes audiences on an exhilarating rollercoaster ride to discover what it means to be connected in the 21st century. From founding The Webby Awards to being a passionate advocate for The National Day of Unplugging, Shlain’s love/hate relationship with technology serves as the springboard for a thrilling exploration of modern life…and our interconnected future. Equal parts documentary and memoir, the film unfolds during a year in which technology and science literally become a matter of life and death for the director. As Shlain’s father battles brain cancer and she confronts a high-risk pregnancy, her very understanding of connection is challenged. Using a brilliant mix of animation, archival footage, and home movies, Shlain reveals the surprising ties that link us not only to the people we love but also to the world at large. A personal film with universal relevance, Connected explores how, after centuries of declaring our independence, it may be time for us to declare our interdependence instead.