How the Digital Age Destroyed the Information Age
The moment information changed from a sense-making relationship between a living system and its environment (i.e., the real world), the moment it moved into virtual reality, we were doomed to lose our best human qualities. We didn’t lose our ability to discern and respond intelligently—we still do have brains. We forfeited these to machines that do it faster, with more hype, more allure, more seductions. We stopped being sense-making beings and succumbed to being senseless, distracted, not-quite-recognizable versions of what a human being is.
In 2012, in So Far from Home, I wrote about the impact of distraction on both our social interactions and the brain’s physical changes caused by Internet use. I retold the story of the Titanic and the role of distraction in the sinking of the unsinkable. Less than an hour before the ship collided with the iceberg, the radio operator responded to warnings about ice in the area with “Shut up, shut up. I’m busy.”14
As shocking as that story is, our levels of distraction have gotten so much worse since 2012 as we’ve ceded control to virtual worlds and put smartphones and tablets into the hands of everyone, including children. As far back as 2013 (and there’s been an exponential rise in the use of these devices since then), the American Pediatric Association reported that children aged 8–10 were spending eight hours a day with various digital media; teenagers were spending eleven hours a day in front of screens. One in three toddlers were using phones and tablets before they could talk.15 Since then, with ubiquitous smartphones (two-thirds of teens have them), a 2015 survey found that teens are on social media nine hours a day, and two-thirds of them do their homework while online with friends.16
These figures might not startle you (they should startle all of us) if you pause for a moment and notice your own behavior and that of the young people in your life. How often do you check your cell phone? (Reports vary from 80–150 times a day on the average.) How many screens do you and your family own? How long are you in a conversation before everyone suddenly is back staring at their phones?
It’s hard not to notice the ubiquitous presence of smartphones and tablets now in every hand. I’ve imagined a visitor from outer space sculpting an image of the human body: one hand would be shaped as a small rectangular object.
You’ve probably also noted the impacts of virtual distraction on your own and others’ behaviors: memory loss, inability to concentrate, being asked to repeat what you just said, miscommunication the norm, getting lost online and wasting time you don’t have, withdrawing from the real world. The list of what’s being lost is a description of our best human capacities—memory, meaning, relating, thinking, learning, caring. There is no denying the damage that’s been done to humans as technology took over—our own Progress Trap.
The impact on children’s behavior is of greatest concern for its present and future implications. Dr. Nicolas Kardaras, a highly skilled physician in rehabilitation, is author of Glow Kids: How Screen Addiction Is Hijacking
Our Kids—and How to Break the Trance. He describes our children’s behavior in ways that I notice in my younger grandchildren: “We see the aggressive temper tantrums when the devices are taken away and the wandering attention spans when children are not perpetually stimulated by their hyper-arousing devices. Worse, we see children who become bored, apathetic, uninteresting and uninterested when not plugged in.”17
These very disturbing behaviors are not just emotional childish reactions. Our children are behaving as addicts deprived of their drug. Brain imaging studies show that technology stimulates brains just like cocaine does.
It is addictive because it increases dopamine levels (the “feel good transmitter”) as much as drugs or sex. Numerous researchers now use terms such as “electronic cocaine,” “digital heroin,” and “digital pharmakeia (drugs).”18
From his experience, Dr. Kardaras notes “I have found it easier to treat heroin and crystal meth addicts than lost-in-the-matrix video gamers or Facebook-dependent social media addicts.”
There are solutions for our children and ourselves if we ply ourselves away from screens and reestablish our relationship with the real world. It has been known for a long time that children’s healthy development requires social interactions, imaginative play, and getting outside and engaging with the natural world. The same prescription has been proven true for us adults, as I hope you’ve noticed. The things that innately give us pleasure—nature, play, being together—are the sources for us to regain our intelligence, caring, and compassion.
As we engage with life in all its brilliance, our natural capacities can be restored. These capacities have never left us. We were the ones who unconsciously forfeited them.
We left them for distractions and enticements that have distanced us from each other and from what is real. As the world grows darker and distractions increase exponentially, we need to rediscover our innate human intelligence. Sane behavior requires that we reconnect with life, that we willingly and consciously seek out information, not more distractions.
Chögyam Trungpa, one of my Buddhist teachers, said, “Someone has to plant the seed so sanity can be restored.”
I know he was talking about us.
I can calculate the motion of heavenly bodies, but not the madness of people.
Sir Isaac Newton