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{mytwitterfacespacebook: the problem} jonathan bitz “When fast and slow time meet, fast time wins. This is why one never gets the important things done because there is always something else one has to do first. Naturally, we will always tend to do the most urgent task first. In this way, the slow and long-term activities lose out. In an age when the distinctions between work and leisure are being erased, and efficiency seems to be the only value in economics, politics and research, this is really bad news for things like thorough, far-sighted work, play and long-term love relationships.” - Vannevar Bush, “As We May Think” When I was a child, I had one particular question thrown at me, time and time again: “Are you even thinking?” I never really was certain how to answer this fit of rage. Of course I was thinking. Just my simple physical acknowledgement of their query concretized that. Many years later and I revisited this question, only to conclude something peculiar: the questioner was not asking the exact question that s/he had intended. Rather, their question should have been: “Are you thinking a complete thought?” Interesting, I have always believed, for the inquisitors had only been asking half questions afterall. Hilariously, I now see myself so smartly back: “Are you asking messy, half-questions?” + “The medievals distinguished between the intellect as ratio and the intellect as intellectus. Ratio is the power of discursive thought, of searching and re-searching, abstracting, refining, and concluding, whereas intellectus refers to the ability of ‘simply looking’, to which the truth presents itself as a landscape presents itself to the eye.” - Josef Pieper, Leisure: The Basis of Culture There is a wild difference between routine, surface thinking and more-creative, mature thinking. Epistemologists and the layman alike can agree on this. We see it everyday and find it in the idea of thinking a complete thought. This is the difference between the profound and the ground. This is the difference between “carrots” and the sweetness and crispness embodied by them. Perfected inside of them. The way that media is presented to us, is a blitzkrieg of information and images and colors and sounds. The way that our computers have furthered to this offensive onslaught of information and data – has only added to the idea that we are expected to keep up with this rifling of data. Implicit in our technologies are the assumptions that we must process the information that is coming to us in incredible speeds. Either that or, only process selective information and bits of data. Certainly, our technologies have enabled us to create more, move quicker, work faster. In essence, we should have more time to think. Clearly, we are only complicating our life, not using technology to help us simplify. We should be using these powerful mechanical aids to assist us with our rote, repetitive thinking – allowing more time for creative, mature thinking. + The FaceSpaceTwitterBook Problem: We are social creatures. We need our social interactions. Laughter, that magical potion, is particularly contingent upon our interactions with others. That beautiful thing, laughter, is not a phenomenon that typically occurs in solitary, away from any social influence. Proof of our reliance on socialization is in the drugs that our brain so deliciously laps-up, like the beta-endorphins that laughter delivers. Robert Mackey wrote that, “My fear is that these technologies are infantilizing the brain into the state of small children, who are attracted by buzzing noises and bright lights, who have a small attention span, and who live for the moment.” Certainly, when you only have a minor maximum of characters that can be used to interact (Twitter: 140 characters, Facebook: 1,000 characters), condensation is a necessity. And while condensation of thoughts and words is the art of the poets, this isn’t the primary issue with these technologies. The problem is with the user, the people; how the tools are being used at all. 1.) People are using these technologies to simply state the rote functions that they are performing (i.e., that “I am eating carrots now”). But couple these kinds of statements with the speed at which this information comes and you have a problem. For just as our media expects us to be presented with a wealth of information, retain what we can and move on – so too do these social networking tools. Instead of reading entire manuscripts – we are customizing our lives and our intake of information into these small pockets – these bright lights and buzzing noises – these rote functions of our daily lives. Embedded in these technologies is the loss of cohesive narratives which unite elements together for real world, long term significance. + Problem Number 2: People are not inherently interesting, but what they do is. Or really, is it that interesting? If Facebook is any indicator, no – people do not typically do very much that is worth sharing with the world. People eat, drink, sleep, shit, fuck, piss and moan just like you and I. Why do people share this rote information? Because we are all exhibitionists. Why do people care to follow other people’s rote tasks and daily updates? Because we are all voyeurs. Nearly all of our technologies and media forms speak to this: from newspapers, magazine and radio to television to cell phones to the internet. So what’s the problem with this, then? What if I want to just be an exhibitionist and tell everybody how delicious my meals are and what I’m watching on television? Apart from being topically silly and, for the most part, truly embarrassing – the problem is that these technologies embody the idea that we are merely remaining at levels of rote, repetitive thinking – not sophisticated, more-creative, mature thinking. + In The Tyranny of the Moment, Thomas Eriksen wrote, “Thinking is a slow-time activity in which its creative powers cannot be truncated”. Here, what Eriksen is saying is that, like Pieper, sophisticated thinking is not a one-off, pop shot. Thinking is a convoluted endeavor which takes time, skill sets and the aptitude to employ those skill sets on-the-fly, and in a real world application. In their shared etymologies, both school and scholarship possess an element of leisure, or contemplation and engagement. I find this intriguing because of how people think about luxuries like literature. Implicit in how we live our lives is the idea that we have short attention spans, that it hurts to hang onto an idea for too long, to follow a logical sequence to its conclusion. Interesting in the history of the words “school” and “scholarship” are the notions that leisure is somehow involved. And typically what I most often correlate with leisure is pleasure. However, not everyone is in the same boat. “America’s game” speaks to this – a game built on the principal of leisure – of no time frames and a Sunday afternoon at the park. Ask many if they enjoy going to the ballpark and most will shrug their shoulders. “Eh,” you’re more likely to hear, “I like football or basketball better. Something that has a little more action.” + It’s nearly axiomatic that the person you just met five minutes ago hasn’t heard much of anything you’ve said in the last several minutes. No, this person probably won’t remember your wife’s name, or where you’re from, or why you’re here tonight, at all. And nobody else really will, either. People aren’t very responsible conversationalists. Why are people, the so-called “social animal”, so awful at socializing on most real and progressive levels? This author’s hypothesis is that this is because we are not sophisticated-enough in our thinking processes. We are not taught how to think complete thoughts, be meta-cognitive and moreover, our social utilities do not place emphasis on these kinds of processes, away from academia. + Let’s get it straight – it’s not just Facebook, Twitter and Myspace that are proving caustic to our collective modes of cognition. No, there are also other modes of communication, new modes – which we are still trying to learn how to appropriately use. Both text messaging and email are prime illustrations of these new technologies that, in part, should be enhancing our lives – but instead are merely amplifying our infirmities; amplifying what we are overlooking. And what is this one notion that we are so blindly, dumbly overlooking? Metacognition. Metacognition is a thinking about one's cognitive processes. Metacognition is thinking about thinking. But it is also about the awareness which leads one to an efficient use of this self-awareness to self-regulate these cognitive processes. Text messaging is like electronic mail which is like snail mail which is like Facebook and Myspace and Twitter like all of these things are like the words that come out of your mouth and the tips of your fingers and those tiny gesticulations. In all these processes, through these technologies, this author believes in taking the time for metacognition. Why not tell me why you’re eating what you’re eating – not just the simple information about your rote task. Take this time to impart some part of your flakey skin. Your idiosyncrasies. Illuminate these process that we all share so that I may see something of myself in you. In the same way that you hear a joke. In the same way you look into the mirror. Tell me why you kissed the girl, not just that you performed the act of kissing the girl. This is not for my own amusement – but on account of using a tool appropriately. Every tool is a weapon if you hold it right. It’s how we use these tools that either makes them dangerous, or helpful. In all, these social technologies could actually enhance our lives, make our interactions more-interesting and impart the kinds of information and knowledge that we’ve been sorely lacking in our fast-paced, media-induced coma of a life. + Years ago, I believed that people were not inherently interesting – what they do, and what happens to them makes them interesting. If anything illustrates this notion any better – I know it not apart from these new social technologies. In under 140 words, tell me what moves you… |
