Science and Technology

“Is the Internet Driving Us Mad?”: Attempting a Sane Response

~ L. M. Sacasas ~ 2 Comments

It’s Newsweek’s turn. Perhaps feeling a bit of title envy, the magazine has shamelessly ripped off The Atlantic’s formula with a new cover story alternatively titled “Is the Internet Driving Us Mad?” or “Is the Internet Making Us Crazy?”

You can probably guess what follows already. Start with a rather dramatic and telltale anecdote — in this case Jason Russell’s “reactive psychosis” in the wake of his “Kony 2012” fame — and proceed to cite a number of studies and further anecdotes painting a worrisome picture that appears somehow correlated to heavy Internet use. You’re also likely to guess that Sherry Turkle is featured prominently. For the record, I intend no slight by that last observation, I rather appreciate Turkle’s work.

Before the day is out, this article will be “Liked” and tweeted thousands of times I’m sure. It will also be torn apart relentlessly and ridiculed. Unfortunately, the title will be responsible for both responses. A more measured title would likely have elicited a more sympathetic reading, but also less traffic.

There is much in the article that strikes an alarmist note and many of the anecdotes, while no doubt instances of real human suffering, seem to describe behaviors that are not characteristic of most people using the Internet. I’m also not one to go in for explanations that localize this or that behavior in this or that region of the brain. I’m not qualified to evaluate such conclusions, but they strike me as a tad reductionistic. That said, this does ring true:

“We may appear to be choosing to use this technology, but in fact we are being dragged to it by the potential of short-term rewards. Every ping could be social, sexual, or professional opportunity, and we get a mini-reward, a squirt of dopamine, for answering the bell. “These rewards serve as jolts of energy that recharge the compulsion engine, much like the frisson a gambler receives as a new card hits the table,” MIT media scholar Judith Donath recently told Scientific American. “Cumulatively, the effect is potent and hard to resist.”

Of course, it all hinges on correlation and causation. The article itself suggests as much right at the end. “So what do we do about it?” the author, Tony Dokoupil, asks. “Some would say nothing,” he continues, “since even the best research is tangled in the timeless conundrum of what comes first.” He adds:

“Does the medium break normal people with its unrelenting presence, endless distractions, and threat of public ridicule for missteps? Or does it attract broken souls?

But in a way, it doesn’t matter whether our digital intensity is causing mental illness, or simply encouraging it along, as long as people are suffering.”

Dokoupil concludes on a note of fateful optimism: “The Internet is still ours to shape. Our minds are in the balance.” In truth, whatever we make of the neuroscience involved, there is something to be said for the acknowledgement that we have choices to make about our relationship to the Internet.

After we cut through the hype and debates about causation, it would seem that there is a rather commonsensical way of approaching all of this.

If the article resonates with you because it seems to describe your experience, then it is probably worth taking it as a warning of sorts and an invitation to make some changes. So, for example, if you are sitting down to play video games for multiple hours without interruption and thus putting yourself in danger of developing a fatal blood clot … you may want to rethink your gaming habits.

If you are immediately reaching for your Internet device of choice before you have so much as opened your eyes in the morning, you may want to consider allowing yourself a little time before diving into the stream. Pour some coffee, have a nice breakfast. Give yourself a little time with your thoughts, or your loved ones. If you find that your thoughts are all incessantly begging you to get online and your loved one’s faces are turning disconcertingly into Facebook icons, then perhaps you have all the more reason to restore a little a balance to your Internet use.

If you take an honest inventory of your emotions and feelings, and you find that you’re anchoring a great deal of your self-worth on the replies you get to your status updates, tweets, or blog posts, then perhaps, just maybe, you might want to consider doing a little soul searching and re-prioritizing.

If “‘the computer is like electronic cocaine,’ fueling cycles of mania followed by depressive stretches” somehow resonates with your own experience, then it may be time to talk to your friends about getting a better grip on the way you’re ordering your life.

None of this is rocket science (or neuroscience). I’d like to think that most of us have a pretty good sense of when certain activities are tending toward the counterproductive and unhealthy end of the spectrum. There’s no need to get all apocalyptic about it, we can leave that to the media. Instead, take inventory of what is truly important — you know, the same old sappy but precious and indispensable stuff — and then ask yourself how your Internet use relates to these and take action accordingly. If you find that you are unable to implement the action you know you need to take, then certainly get some help.

What’s Really At Stake When We Debate Technology

~ L. M. Sacasas ~ Leave a comment

What does the critic love? More specifically, what does the critic of technology love? This question presented itself to me while I was thinking about some comments left on a recent post. The comment questioned whether mourning or celebrating technology was proper to the role of the critic. Naturally, I wrote about it. It was, as is often the case, an exercise in clarifying my thoughts through writing.

I’ve thought some more about the work of technology criticism today, and again it was thanks to some online interactions. Let me put these before you and then offer a few more thoughts on the matter.

Evan Selinger tweeted the following:

And then:

Selinger, whose doctoral work was advised by Don Idhe, echoes Ihde who wrote:

“… I would say the science critic would have to be a well-informed, indeed much better than simply well-informed amateur, in its sense as a ‘lover’ of the subject matter, and yet not the total insider …  Just as we are probably worst at our own self-criticism, that move just away from self-identity is needed to position the critical stance. Something broader, something more interdisciplinary, something more ‘distant’ is needed for criticism.”

Later on, Nathan Jurgenson made the following comment during an exchange about his recent essay:

“while it is technically true there has been a “loss” of sorts, i think it might be better to say at this juncture there has been a “change”; a change in how our reality has been augmented over time via various information technologies.”

I replied:

“Change” is certainly a more value-neutral way of putting it than “loss,” and depending on rhetorical context it certainly has its strengths. Sorting better and worse, of course, entails a normative framework of some sort, etc.

All of this began coalescing in my mind and what follows are some of the conclusions that emerged. Of course, I’m not claiming that these conclusions are necessarily entailed by the comments of others above. As the “Acknowledgements” in books always put it: I’m indebted to these, but any errors of fact or judgment are mine.

There is a reason why, as Selinger and Ihde put it, each in their own way, the critic must be something of an outsider. Criticism of technology, if it moves beyond something like mere description and analysis, implies making what amount to moral and ethical judgments. The critic of technology, if they reach conclusions about the consequences of technology for the lives of individual persons and the lives of institutions and communities, will be doing work that necessarily carries ethical implications.

In this they are not altogether unlike the music critic or the literary critic who is excepted to make judgments about the merits of a work art given the established standards of their field. These standards take shape within an established and institutionalized tradition of criticism. Likewise, the critic of technology — if they move beyond questions such as “Does this technology work?” or “How does this technology work?” to questions such as “What are the social consequences of this technology?” — is implicated in judgments of value and worth. Judgments, it might be argued, of greater consequence than those of the art or literary critic.

But according to what standards and from within which tradition? Not the standards of “technology,” if such could even be delineated, because these would merely be matters of efficiency and functionality (although even these are not exactly “value neutral”). It was, for example, a refusal to evaluate technology on its own terms that characterized the vigorous critical work of the late Jacques Ellul. As Ellul saw it, technology had achieved its nearly autonomous position in society because it was shielded from substantive criticism — criticism, that is, which refused to evaluate technology by its own standards. The critic of technology, then, proceeds with an evaluative framework that is independent of the logic of “technoscience,” as Ihde called it, and so they becomes an outsider to the field.

The libertarian critic, the Marxist critic, the Roman Catholic critic, the posthumanist critic, and so on — each advances their criticism of technology from the perspective of their ethical commitments. Their criticism of technology flows from their loves. Each criticizes technology according to the larger moral and ethical framework implied by the movements, philosophies, and institutions that have shaped their identity. And, of course, so it must be. There is no avoiding this, and there is nothing particularly undesirable about this state of affairs. It is true that prior to reaching conclusions about the moral and ethical consequences of technology, careful and patient work needs to be done to understand technology. But I suspect this work of understanding, particularly because it can be arduous, is typically driven by some deeper commitment that lends urgency and passion to the critic’s work.

Such commitments are often veiled for the sake of appearing appropriately objective and neutral within certain rhetorical contexts that demand as much, the academy for example.  But I suspect that there are times when debates about the merits of technology would be advanced if the participants would acknowledge the tacit ethical frameworks that underlie the positions being staked out. And this is because, In such cases, the technology in question is only a proxy for something else — the object of the critic’s love.

Don Ihde on Technology’s Resistance to Criticism

~ L. M. Sacasas ~ Leave a comment

“Why Not Science Critics?”, philosopher Don Ihde’s essay that was brought to my attention by a reader’s comment on a previous post, offers some interesting insights into the challenges faced by critics of what Ihde calls technoscience. Take a look at whole thing, but here are a few notable excerpts.

Ihde takes as his point of departure observations by Langdon Winner on the resistance of technology to criticism:

“Writers who venture beyond the most ordinary conceptions of tools and uses, writers who investigate ways in which technical forms are implicated in the basic patterns and problems of our culture are met with the charge that they are merely “antitechnology” [or “antiscience”] or “blaming [technoscience]”. All who have stepped forward as critics in this field–Lewis Mumford, Paul Goodman, Jacques Ellul, Ivan Illich, and others–have been tarred with the same brush, an expression of a desire to stop the dialogue rather than expand it. (Winner, Paths of Technopolis, p.3)”

Ihde adds the following on the knee-jerk charge of Luddism (remember the Borg Complex!):

“The contrast between art and literary criticism and what I shall call ‘technoscience criticism’ is marked. Few would call art or literary critics “anti-art” or “anti-literature” in the working out, however critically, of their products. And while it may indeed be true that given works of art or given texts are excoriated, demeaned, or severely dealt with, one does not usually think of the critic as generically “anti-art” or “anti-literature.” Rather, it is precisely because the critic is passionate about his or her subject matter that he or she becomes a ‘critic …. The critic–as I shall show below–is either regarded as an outsider, or if the criticism arises from the inside, is soon made to be a quasi-outsider.”

Among the reasons for this resistance to criticism, Ihde cites the historical emergence of technoscience as an alternative to religion, really as an alternative religion:

“The most obvious barrier to the formation of an institutionalized technoscience criticism lies in the role of late modern technoscience itself. Technoscience, as institution, began in early modernity by casting itself as the ‘other’ of religion. Its mythologies, drawn from Classical pre-Christian and often materialist (Democritean/Epicurean) sources; its anti-authoritarianism, including the Galilean claim to have exceeded the Scriptures and Church Father’s insights by replacing these with the new sighting possible through his telescope; and the much stronger later anti-religiousity of the Enlightenment which cast religion as ‘superstition’ and science as ‘rationality,’ all led to the Modernist substitution of what I am calling technoscience for religion. 
In the process, science–whether advertently or inadvertently–itself took on a quasi-theological characteristic. To be critical of the new ‘true faith’ was to be, in effect, ‘heretical’ now called ‘irrational.'”

Finally, I’ll throw in Ihde’s discussion of whistleblowers in the scientific community, which challenges the popular image of scientific objectivity:

“The second instance is one which begins with the critic as in insider, a “whistle blower” example: I suspect everyone here remembers the news coverage of the l99l “Gulf War.” It was a trial run on one of our “Star Wars” developments, the anti-missile missile, the “Patriot.” The newsbroadcasts showed over and over again the presumed ‘interceptions’ and claimed hits up to 95% effectiveness. If, then, you followed the more critical analyses to follow, you will probably recall that there was an admission that effectiveness or ‘hits’ declined to about 24%. Part of this admission was due to the early-on analysis performed by Theodore Postal, a ballistics expert and MIT scientist who took news videotapes used to make the hit claims and subjected them to magnified, enhanced, and computer image techniques which on closer inspection showed that claimed hits were not hits at all. Eventually, he concluded that there may not have been a single, verifiable hit which had been made by a Patriot! Needless to say, this claim was not appreciated by Raytheon, the manufacturer of the missile, nor by his colleague, Shaoul Ezekiel, who had advised Raython, and eventually not even by MIT itself which got caught in the cross-fire of claims and anti-claims. 
The battle turned nasty: Raytheon implied that Postal had actually doctored the tapes, but later reduced this to the claim, suggested by Ezekiel, that the grain structure and imaging of video tapes was simply too gross to draw the conclusions drawn. The battle continues to this day, particularly between Postol and Exekiel concerning ethical conduct, with MIT trying to shy away due to the large amounts it gets annual from Raytheon. (see Science, 23 February l996, pp. l050-l052). 
Nor is this some isolated instance. In a study of the “costs of whistle blowing’ Science (5 January l996, p. 35) reports that more than two thirds of whistle blowers (within science as an institution) experience negative effects ranging from ‘ostracism’ through ‘pressure to drop allegations,’ to the actual non-renewals or losses of jobs. The long drawn out ‘David Baltimore’ case is another of these scenarios, in which the whistle blower–not the offender who faked the notebooks–was fired. The insider critic is isolated and, if possible, often separated and thus made into an outsider or ‘other.’ 
While the above scenario would not be much different for business corporations, neither would we be surprised about this ostracization from the corporate sector within business, but for the popular image of science as being more like a Church in the claims about critical concern for truth, this may come as a surprise, although not for those of us close enough to realize that science-as-institution is today much more like the corporate world than it is a church!”

Defining Technology

~ L. M. Sacasas ~ 2 Comments

Defining technology can be a challenging business. In a sense we might say of “technology” what Augustine said of time: “What then is time? If no one asks me, I know what it is. If I wish to explain it to him who asks, I do not know.”

In any case, here is a pretty good go of it from David M. Kaplan’s Ricoeur’s Critical Theory. It comes from a brief section in which Kaplan discusses Ricoeur’s take on technology and politics:

“Technologies are best seen as systems that combine technique and activities with implements and artifacts, within a social context of organization in which the technologies are developed, employed, and administered. They alter patterns of human activity and institutions by making worlds that shape our culture and our environment. If technology consists of not only tools, implements, and artifacts, but also whole networks of social relations that structure, limit, and enable social life, then we can say that a circle exists between humanity and technology, each shaping and affecting the other. Technologies are fashioned to reflect and extend human interests, activities, and social arrangements, which are, in turn, conditioned, structured, and transformed by technological systems.”

What Does the Critic Love?

~ L. M. Sacasas ~ 3 Comments

In a recent fit of self-disclosure, I confessed to my deeply rooted Arcadian disposition. I went on to add, “The Arcadian is the critic of technology, the one whose first instinct is to mourn what is lost rather than celebrate what is gained.” This phrase prompted a reader to suggest that the critic of technology is preferably neither an Arcadian nor a Utopian. This better sort of critic, he wrote, “doesn’t ‘mourn what is lost’ but rather seeks an understanding of how the present arrived from the past and what it means for the future.” The reader also referenced an essay by the philosopher of technology Don Ihde in which Ihde reflected on the role of the critic of technology by analogy to the literary critic or the art critic. The comment immediately triggered a series of questions in my mind: What exactly makes for a good critic of technology? What stance, if any, is appropriate to the critic of technology toward technology? Can the good critic mourn?

First, let me reiterate what I’ve written elsewhere: Neither unbridled optimism nor thoughtless pessimism regarding technology foster the sort of critical distance required to live wisely with technology. I stand by that. It is true that I am temperamentally Arcadian and so inclined toward certain forms of pessimism. But I don’t regard that temperamental inclination to be normative and I try to keep it in check.

Secondly, it is worth asking, what exactly a critic of technology criticizes? The objects of criticism are rather straightforward when we think of the food critic, the art critic, the music critic, the film critic, and so on. But what about the critic of technology? The trouble here, of course, stems from the challenge of defining technology. More often than not the word suggests the gadgets with which we surround ourselves. A little more reflection brings to mind a variety of different sorts of technologies: communication, military, transportation, energy, medical, agricultural, etc. The wheel, the factory, the power grid, the pen, the iPhone, the hammer, the space station, the water wheel, the plow, the sword, the ICBM, the film projector – it is a procrustean concept indeed that can accommodate all of this. What does it mean to be a critic of a field that includes such a diverse set of artifacts and systems?

I’m not entirely sure, but this is not exactly what I care to sort out right now. Let’s say, for present purposes, that critics of technology find their niche within certain subsets of the set that includes all of the above. The more interesting question, to me, is this: What does the critic love?

If we think of all of the other sorts of critics, it seems reasonable to suppose that they are driven by a love for the objects and practices they criticize. The music critic loves music. The film critic loves film. The food critic loves food. We might grant that a certain variety of critic probably loves nothing so much as the sound of their own writing. But does the technology critic love technology? Some of the best critics of technology have seemed to love technology not at all. What do we make of that?

It is true that the music critic might detest certain expressions of music, while yet loving others, and so with the other standard set of critics. Then we might conclude that the technology critic may very well hate a number of specific instances of technology while yet loving others. But I think you might agree that there is still something odd about that analogy. It does not quite work. In part it fails because of the difficulty involved in circumscribing the phenomenon in such a way that we might arrive at an ideal form.

What then does the critic of technology love that is analogous to the love of the music critic for music, the food critic for food, etc.?

Perhaps there is something about the instrumental character of technology that makes completing the analogy difficult. Music, art, literature, food, film – each of these requires technology of some sort. There are exceptions: dance and voice, for example. But for the most part, technology is involved in the creation of the works that are the objects of criticism. The pen, the flute, the camera – these tools are essential, but they are also subordinate to the finished works that they yield. The musician loves the instrument for the sake of the music that it allows them play. It would be odd indeed if a musician were to tell us that he loves his instrument, but is rather indifferent to the music itself. And this is our clue. The critic of technology is a critic of artifacts and systems that are always for the sake of something else. The critic of technology does not love technology because technology is never for its own sake.

So what does the critic of technology love? Perhaps it is the environment. Perhaps it is an ideal of community and friendship. Perhaps it is an ideal civil society. Perhaps it is health and vitality. Perhaps it is sound education. Perhaps liberty. Perhaps joy. Perhaps a particular vision of human flourishing. The critic of technology is animated by a love for something other than the technology itself. Returning to where we began, I would suggest that the critic may indeed mourn just as they may celebrate. They may do either to the degree that their critical work reveals technology’s complicity in either the destruction or promotion of that which they love.