This column will be mostly a review of Jia Tolentino’s interesting and informative article, “Eye Candy” in the April 29 issue of the New Yorker magazine where she points the reader toward the book, “In Digital Minimalis: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World” by Computer Science Professor Cal Newport. She quotes from Newport’s book to bind her views on the responsibility of the user and not just the government to regulate the Internet and she mentions the many schemes and websites she uses to avoid being sucked into the black hole the Internet has become.
Tolentino begins with the 1654 quote by Blaise Pascal, “All of Humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” I would agree but for the omission of the underlying causes of this inability noted by Franz Kafka: laziness and impatience --- although I would argue that impatience is just another instance of laziness. But I digress...
As an example, she notes that her daily phone activities use too much of her time: “Ninety minutes of texting, one hour of reading. Another hour of email, yet another hour of social media, and about seventy “pickups”, meaning that I check my phone about four times per hour. I carry my phone around with me as if it were an oxygen tank.”
Moreover, she quotes from Michael Goldhaber’s article in Wired magazine, “...the Internet drowns its users in information while constantly increasing information. This makes information a scarce and desirable resource --- the natural economy of cyberspace”. ( Another metaphor is that the Internet is like drinking from a fire hose.) It is unsettling that this was written over twenty years ago but seems truer every passing day.
Interestingly, she uses fire to fight fire using privacy software to protect herself from nosey corporate software used by Facebook, Twitter, Amazon and Google who are all competing for her attention. As a retired professor of computer science I was gratified to learn about Freedom and Mastodon and indieweb.org that allow you to set up a personal (rather than corporate) website. Now that I have retired and I can no longer rely on my students to inform me of cool new software (now called apps) to look at I appreciate writers like Tolentino keeping me updated.
So, what is the core issue here? I believe that it is trying to solve the ancient question, “What is the Meaning of Life?” --- and no, it’s not just 42. It used to be the case that the main justification for using computers was that “they saved time”. It took the Internet to show us that we will gladly use computers instead to kill time. Is that what we really want?
There is a Zen Buddhist parable that tells the story of a monk who is invited to the city to speak to the local sangha. He is met at the subway station by a member of the congregation who says that they could walk to the sangha and save some time by cutting across the park. As they approach the edge of the park, the monk finds a bench, sits down and starts to feed peanuts to the squirrels. His guide, worried that they may be late asks, “What are you doing?” “Oh” replies the monk, “I’m just using some of the time we saved”.
What shall we do with the time we save? Tolentino suggests we not squander that precious resource; we should instead be cutting back on time spent with Internet connections and using more of our time making human connections. She is not so radical as to claim that the Internet is basically evil and we should cut all ties with it. She urges us to use the Web mindfully and become more conscious of why we use it. There is nothing wrong with texting a friend when thinking about them or using Skype or Viber to talk with family in the Philippines or playing Scrabble while waiting for the bus so long as we realize what is actually important to us and why. The business models of Google Facebook, Amazon and Twitter rely on capturing your attention for as long as possible --- the longer the better for them because that’s how they make their income from businesses, large and small, that want to draw your to their ads so you can buy their stuff and, hopefully, continue to buy their stuff. Their number one priority is sales, not our well being.
Two aphorisms from folk wisdom come to mind: “Everything in Moderation” and “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”
There is a Zen Buddhist parable that tells the story of a monk who is invited to the city to speak to the local sangha. He is met at the subway station by a member of the congregation who says that they could walk to the sangha and save some time by cutting across the park. As they approach the edge of the park, the monk finds a bench, sits down and starts to feed peanuts to the squirrels. His guide, worried that they may be late asks, “What are you doing?” “Oh” replies the monk, “I’m just using some of the time we saved”.
What shall we do with the time we save? Tolentino suggests we not squander that precious resource; we should instead be cutting back on time spent with Internet connections and using more of our time making human connections. She is not so radical as to claim that the Internet is basically evil and we should cut all ties with it. She urges us to use the Web mindfully and become more conscious of why we use it. There is nothing wrong with texting a friend when thinking about them or using Skype or Viber to talk with family in the Philippines or playing Scrabble while waiting for the bus so long as we realize what is actually important to us and why. The business models of Google Facebook, Amazon and Twitter rely on capturing your attention for as long as possible --- the longer the better for them because that’s how they make their income from businesses, large and small, that want to draw your to their ads so you can buy their stuff and, hopefully, continue to buy their stuff. Their number one priority is sales, not our well being.
Two aphorisms from folk wisdom come to mind: “Everything in Moderation” and “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”
