Digital Crack and a Busy Mind
Every time I find myself with a spare moment, be it at the grocery store check-out line, in the elevator, stopped in traffic, or waiting for ANYTHING, I am glued to my iPhone; I am checking e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, re-finishing the Internet (again), etc. I am compulsively connected to the electronic world during most “idle cycles.” Phone in hand, thumb flicking up and down across the screen, eyes focused on my next digital fix, I am completely addicted to the information and the technology that feeds me this technology. It’s digital crack for me.
I know that legions of businessmen, geeks, techno-fetishists, and the like have been hooked on their Blackberry’s and PDA’s and other devices for over a decade now, but I think that with the proliferation of more consumer-targeted products I imagine that my experience will become less and less uncommon. You’ve already heard recent stories of high school kids amassing tens of thousands of text messages in a single month:
The California man’s 13-year-old daughter, Reina, racked up an astonishing 14,528 text messages in one month. The online AT&T statement ran 440 pages.
“First, I laughed. I thought, ‘That’s insane, that’s impossible,’ ” the 45-year-old dad said. “And I immediately whipped out the calculator to see if it was humanly possible.”
He found it was – barely.
It works out to 484 text messages a day, or one every two minutes of every waking hour.
Idle times. With availability comes accessibility. And really, anything worth it’s salt is worth abusing, right? More is better? Why should I ever be disconnected ever again? I had the following exchange just yesterday on Facebook:
It got me thinking a little bit about what exactly it is we do during these idle times and how NOT doing it in the future would effect our psyches (for lack of a better word). I can’t help but think that IF these moments of meditation are helping me hold it together for the long haul and I am replacing the proverbial meditative state with a constant flood of information, miscellaneous stimuli, and instant gratification, then that might be a bit problematic. That staring blankly into a rack of Red Bull at the grocery store is a necessary and critical part of one’s existence and any prolonged disruption of that could be subtly harmful. Right? I dunno.
Like many of my thoughts, I don’t really know where I’m at or going with any of this and I certainly am not going to use any of the insight I’ve gained by the exercise to change my habits. I trust my unsubstantiated instincts, but am I willing to give up my iPhone? Pff. I just know that our culture is changing very rapidly alongside technology and I wonder how long it will be before we see its effect.
I can already see the effect on me. I’ve made reference that I’ve been mesmerized by “The Ricky Gervais Podcast” and the inane ramblings of their village idiot (named Karl). What’s beginning to scare me is that while Karl’s thoughts are completely idiotic, he’s outpacing me in the sheer number of his thoughts, and for the sake of the human race, I need to start competing. There was a time when a Pringles can outside of a monastery would have me wondering about the process of its placement, but those days are few. I agree – we’re spending so much time staring at a screen (at work, on our phone, at home, at the gym, at the gas station, on a date, at dinner, etc) that we have no times to originate thought. I think that this is sure to result in an uninspired, over-medicated race of pale and overweight drones.
In other news, I can’t wait to get my iPhone…
Maybe we are in the midst of a period in history where there is a miraculous consumption of information, knowledge, trivia, etc and upon pacifying this hunger it’ll digest and be brought back into the cycle of human thought.
I too am a digital crack addict. I can only hope that you’re right and that one day all this information we have digested with cycle back into human thought. In the meantime, I will sit back and succumb to the crack with zero guilt…well… almost no guilt.
Jesse – I wish I were, like you, able to use some of these observations to make it a point to not be so isolated all the time. I’m just not sure I can do it. It’s the self-indulgence. It’s the doing what *I* want to be doing at any given moment. Usually, what I want to be doing is not necessarily meeting a stranger at a coffee shop, DESPITE the obvious cultural gratification that may follow.
A lot of my activity on my phone is community based (Facebook, Twitter, e-mail, etc). I wonder if you could argue that while although one appears to be isolated in a physical sense, maintaining connections with friends and family through this portal could be considered a social activity as opposed to a solitary one. In other words, maybe my head is down and I demonstrate no interest in speaking to you at the grocery store, BUT I am actually in mid-conversation with a close friend of mine via Facebook.
What are the consequences of strengthening your bonds with existing friends (i.e. incessantly stalking them over the internet) as opposed to creating temporary, casual relationships with people you meet on the street?
What are the consequences of never having a quiet moment free of stimulus?
Vanessa – I think that people our age and older can really make it work both ways. Just a few years ago we didn’t have access to all this information and technology and so we had to make due. Maybe carry a conversation. Perhaps actually think about something.
If you are born in the post-Information Age and have no other experience to draw from, I wonder how that works out.
@Alvin
I would argue that Facebook, Twitter, et al strengthen friendships as deeply as the interface used to connect. If we make were to consider Facebook and Twitter posts and updates as pushups, this might mean the relationship is strengthened by one pushup at a time several times a day. I think that a digital interface between friends can be good in helping establish nuance and rhythm to relationships, but I don’t think that it necessarily makes relationships stronger.
I get your point, and while we won’t become friends with everyone we meet, I think that there are lessons to be learned and stories to be shared that 140 characters won’t touch. But I’ll take your comment as a dare: my next blog post will be the story of a conversation I initiate with a complete stranger at a coffee shop.
If I can pull anyone away from their digital interface that is…