11 Things I’m Trying To Do In Order To Achieve a Sane, Healthy, and Marginally Productive Relationship With the Internet

~ L. M. Sacasas ~ 40 Comments

It’s fair to say that when I write about the Internet or digital devices, my tone tends toward the cautionary, and that’s probably understating the case. But, as my wife would be quick to confirm, I don’t always practice what I preach.

I wanted to do something about this, so I created a list of digital disciplines that I’ll be trying to stick to in a serious, but not quite puritanical fashion.

Of course, I don’t think these digital disciplines will be universally applicable. You may find them entirely implausible given your own circumstances, or you may find them altogether unnecessary. All I’m claiming for them is this: given my priorities and my circumstances, I’ve found it helpful to articulate and implement these disciplines in order to achieve what I would characterize as a healthy relationship to Internet culture.

[Aside: I’m using the awkward expression “Internet culture” as shorthand for the whole range of diverse artifacts and practices that accumulate around the Internet and the devices we use to access it. I realize that the very idea of “the Internet” is contested¹, but trying to delineate it here in a rigorous academic manner would be even more tedious than this aside.]

Before getting to the digital disciplines, though, let me first lay out some basic underlying assumptions. You’ll probably find some of these debatable, but at least you’ll know where I’m coming from.

  • Time is a limited resource, and I would rather treat it as a gift than as an enemy.
  • While I have no interest in denying the authenticity, much less the reality, of online experience, I do privilege face-to-face experience (or “fully embodied experience,” which is not to say that online experience is disembodied), all things being equal.
  • Relatedly, we are not less than our bodies; so how our bodies, not just our minds, interact with the Internet and Internet-enabled devices matters.
  • While it may be difficult to articulate a precise theoretical distinction between online and offline experience, the terms attempt to get at real distinctions with practical consequences.
  • Trying to “keep up” online is a joyless, Sisyphean undertaking that is best abandoned in principle.
  • “All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone.” (Blaise Pascal)
  • I don’t go in for the whole trans-/post-human/cyborg thing. As Douglas Rushkoff recently put it, “I’m on team human here. Call that egotistical, but it’s the only team I know.”
  • “A life spent entirely in public, in the presence of others, becomes, as we would say, shallow.  While it retains visibility, it loses the quality of rising into sight from some darker ground which must remain hidden if it is not to lose its depth in a very real, non-subjective sense.” (Hannah Arendt)

Make of those what you will. Here, finally, is the list. Remember, I am the primary audience for this advice.

1. Don’t wake up with the Internet. Have breakfast, walk the dog, read a book, whatever … do something before getting online. Think of it as a way of preparing – physically, mentally, emotional, morally, etc. – for all that follows.

2. Don’t remain ambiently connected to your email account. Close the email tab/app. Check in two or three times a day for a fixed period of time. The same holds for FB, Twitter, etc.

3. Sit on a link for a few hours or even a day before sharing. If it’s not worth sharing then, it probably wasn’t worth sharing in the first place. Don’t add to the noise.

4. Don’t take meals with the Internet. Log off, leave devices behind, and enjoy your meal as an opportunity recoup, physically and mentally. If you’re inside all day, take your lunch outside. Enjoy the company of others, or take the chance to sit in silence for a few minutes.

5. Breathe. Seriously.

6. Do one thing – one whole, complete thing – at a time whenever it’s reasonable to do so. If writing an email, write it all at once. If reading an article, read it straight through. If a task can’t be completed in one sitting, at least work on it for a reasonable amount of time without interruption. Resist, in other words, the allure of the multitasking myth. It’s the siren song of our age, and it will shipwreck your mind.

7. Clear the RSS feed at the end of each day. If it didn’t get read, life will go on. This is a hard one for me; I want to read it all, stay on top of things, etc. If I don’t clear the feed, though, I end up with a pile of information that eventually snowballs to unmanageable proportions anyway. What’s more, deleting potentially interesting, unread items each day functions as a happy, cathartic gesture of liberation.

8. Turn off all notifications that threaten to interrupt or distract. Mentally, we tend to respond to these with Pavlovian alacrity. Emotionally, they are not unlike our own little versions of Gatsby’s green light. In either case, it’s a ruinous habit.²

9. Turn devices off when spending time with others. Also, shut the laptop when speaking to another person. This may seem quaint or reactionary or nostalgic or antiquated or judgmental or curmudgeonly. I see it as a way of remaining minimally civil and decent, whether or not I’m accorded the same civility and decency in return. If you must attend to a call or text, politely indicate as much and do so. Better that than surreptitiously attending to your device while still attempting to give off the impression of attentiveness. That’s a meaningless charade, and everyone involved knows it.

10. Log-off of social media sites after visiting them. The extra step to log-in makes it slightly less tempting to click over when a craving for distraction strikes. Don’t underestimate the effectiveness of these little digital speed-bumps.

11. Don’t go to bed with the Internet. Here’s why.

A few years ago, Umberto Eco said, “We like lists because we don’t want to die.” Perhaps that’s a bit too melodramatic for this particular list. Certainly, I’ve attached no death-defying hopes to it. But I do think following through on these digital disciplines will help me make better use of this life and take more pleasure in it.

If you’ve got your own similar list of digital disciplines, share them in the comments below. If they’re useful to you, chances are others would find them useful too.

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¹See the comment thread on this post on Nick Carr’s blog.
²Self-plagiarism alert. I’ve used this language before, here and here.

Using, Rather Than Being Used by Our Devices

~ L. M. Sacasas ~ 10 Comments

walden

Long before the Internet and the smartphone, Henry David Thoreau – who, incidentally, was born this day, 1817 – decided to go off the grid. Granted, there was no “grid” at the time in the modern sense and he didn’t go very far in any case, but you get the point. Overwhelmed and not a little disgusted with the accoutrements of civilization, Thoreau set out to live a simple life in accord with nature.

In the first chapter of Walden, Thoreau explained:

The very simplicity and nakedness of man’s life in the primitive ages imply this advantage, at least, that they left him still but a sojourner in nature. When he was refreshed with food and sleep, he contemplated his journey again. He dwelt, as it were, in a tent in this world, and was either threading the valleys, or crossing the plains, or climbing the mountain-tops. But lo! men have become the tools of their tools.

Thoreau is the patron saint of all of those who have ever thought about quitting the Internet and lobbing Smartphones into a pond if only we could find one. This means most of us have probably lit a candle to Thoreau at some point in our relentlessly augmented lives.

Within the last few days, stories about the Walden-esque Camp Grounded, sponsored by a group called Digital Detox, have been popping up. Already, you’ve guessed that Camp Grounded was an opportunity to spend some time off the proverbial grid: no cellpones, no tablets, no computers, and no watches.

Writing about the event at Gigamon, Matthew Ingram offered what has by now become a predictable three-step response to these sorts of events or programs, or to most any critique of the Internet or digital devices.

Step 1: Illustrate how similar concerns have always existed. People have felt this way before, etc.*

Step 2: Deconstruct the line between offline and online activity. Online activities are no less “real” or “genuine” than offline activities …**

Step 3: Locate the “real” problem somewhere else altogether. It’s not the Internet, it’s _______________.***

Pivoting on the case of Paul Miller, a writer for Verge who spent a year sans Internet only to discover that there are also analog forms of wasting time, Ingram concluded,

Is it good to disconnect from time to time? Of course it is. And there’s no question that the pace of modern life has accelerated over the past decade, with so many sources of real-time activity that we feel compelled to participate in, either because our friends and family are there or because our jobs require it. But disconnecting from all of those things isn’t going to magically transform us into better people somehow — all it will do is reveal us as we really are.

But here’s the thing. While there are limits to the malleability of our character and personality, who “we really are” is a work in progress. We are now who we have been becoming. And who we are becoming is, in part, a product of habits and dispositions that arise out of our daily actions and practices, including our digitally mediated activities.

The problem with the three step strategy outlined above is that it doesn’t really erase the difference between online and offline experience. While it waves a rhetorical hand to that effect, it nevertheless retains the distinction but dismisses the significance of online experience and digital devices.

But online experience and digital devices, precisely because they are “real,” matter. Ingram is right to say that “disconnecting … isn’t going to magically transform us into better people somehow.” But for some people, under certain conditions, it may in fact be an important step in that direction.

Long before the Internet or even Walden, Aristotle taught that the mean between two excesses was the ideal to aim for. So, between the excesses of gluttony and ascetic deprivation, there was the ideal use of food for both pleasure and nutrition. This ideal use stood between two extremes, but it wasn’t simply a matter of splitting the difference. According to Aristotle, the mean was relative: it depended on each person’s particular circumstances.

But the point wasn’t simpy to hit some artificial middle ground for its own sake — it was to learn how to use things without being used by them. Or, as Thoreau put it, to learn how not to become the tool of our tools.

That’s what we’re looking for in our relationship to the Internet and our digital devices: the sense that we are using them toward good, healthy, and reasonable ends. Instead, many people feel as if they are being used by their devices. The solution is neither reactionary abstinence, nor thoughtless indulgence. What’s more, there’s no one answer for it that is universally applicable. But for some people at some times, taking extended of periods of time away from the Internet may be an important step toward using, rather than being used by it. The three-step rhetorical strategy used to dismiss those who raise questions about our digital practices won’t help at all.

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*Sometimes these historical analogies are misleading, sometimes they are illuminating. Never are they by themselves cause to dismiss present concerns. That would be sort of like saying that people have always been struck by diseases, so we shouldn’t really be too worried about it.
**A lot of pixels have already been spent on this one. E.g., here and here.
***I’ve actually written something similar, but the key is not to lose sight of how devices do play a role in the phenomenon.

Meta-Medium

~ L. M. Sacasas ~ 1 Comment

As you know, I’ve been playing around with a new writing platform called Medium. A few days ago, I wrote up some thoughts on the platform in post titled, “Meta-Medium.” If you’re curious about the platform, give it a read. If you do, make sure to open up the notes by clicking on the small icon to the top right of each paragraph. Admittedly, I may have gotten a bit note-happy; I found it a very tempting feature. In any case, some important points are contained in them.

Google Glass and the Symbolism of Technology

~ L. M. Sacasas ~ 12 Comments

Recently, I’ve been coming across more and more links to pieces written at Medium, a relatively new platform created by some of the folks behind Blogger and Twitter. Finally, I was curious enough to sign up for an account and request an invite to post. Once I got set up, I cross-posted a couple of items that I’d already written here just to get a feel for the interface. As promised it’s clean, attractive, and very easy to use.

Today, I wrote up a new piece on Medium that I just published: “The Technological Symbol of Our Age: How Google Glass Crystalizes Our Fears and Aspirations.”

It takes Henry Adams’ famous discussion of the Virgin and the Dynamo as a point of departure to talk about how certain technologies take on a symbolic, sometimes quasi-religious significance. It wraps up with a discussion of how Google Glass might be just such a technological symbol. It also includes some interesting stuff on the early history of the airplane in America. Click over and give it read.

Oh, and of course, this blog remains my primary online home.

Relay Failures

~ L. M. Sacasas ~ 10 Comments

Years ago I heard someone say that many arguments would be averted if only we would use the word merely more often. Case in point: I titled my last post “Don’t Be a Relay in the Network.” My point could have been more appropriately stated, “Don’t Be Merely a Relay in the Network.”

The difference is not insignificant. Being a relay in a network is not necessarily problematic. We receive and pass along information, digital and otherwise, all of the time. Problems arise when we function merely as a relay, or, even better, when we function merely as a passive relay.

My concern stems from the habits I felt taking shape as a result of my own online reading practices. I found myself reading not for the enjoyment or value of reading, but simply to have read. I owe this formulation to Alan Jacobs, who, in The Pleasures of Reading in an Age of Distraction, observes that we sometimes read simply to be able to claim that we have read something.

Jacobs had in mind lure of the prestige attached to being known as the sort of person who has read War and Peace or In Search of Lost Time or whatever happens to be trendy at the moment. There’s that, to be sure, but I have in mind the desire to have read which translates into seeing my RSS feed at zero. It is reading motivated by the pressures of keeping up with the digital news feed or fear of missing out.

When this sort of reading is coupled with the desire, variously motivated, to share what has been read, then it becomes reading to have shared. And it’s not just reading, of course. All forms of online content are subject to this dynamic. When this sort of dynamic drives our experience with online content, then we are acting merely as relays in a network. There’s something of Eliot’s “Hollow Men” in this dynamic: we’re shaped by the network, but we have no form of our own. Stuff passes through us, but we remain hollow.

Thoughtless passivity is one of the problems that attends being a mere relay in a network. The pattern of habitual receiving and sharing within the temporal horizons of digital culture tends to preclude the possibility of internalizing the information so that it is appropriated as genuine personal knowledge. Apart from this sort of internalization that is, in part, a product of time and method, what we are left with is a vague, generic awareness that we have at some point come into contact with some information. “Oh, I think I read about that a few days ago” or “I saw a link to that on Twitter” or “Didn’t someone post that on Facebook not too long ago.”

I would go so far as to suggest that the apathy or inaction in contemporary culture that many lament is partially a function of this kind of ambient awareness that does not quite sink in and become personal knowledge. Involvement and action are a product of personal knowledge. The ambient awareness that comes from functioning as mere relays of information lacks the power to motivate, inspire, outrage, etc.

The other danger is what we could call the conditioned passivity of being merely a relay. This describes the subtle temptation to pass along information that will be well-received by your audience. This is not unlike the “filter bubble” problem in which our personalized streams of digital information enclose us within a filter bubble or echo chamber that mirrors and reinforces our prejudices and blind spots. The risk of being passively conditioned when acting as a mere relay arises from the temptation to share and disseminate what will resonate or play well with the audience we’ve fashioned for ourselves. The temptation, in other words, is to tacitly bend to the shape of our bubbles or tune our online voice so as to achieve maximum echo.

None of this necessarily follows from reading online or sharing information through social media; but it is a temptation and it is worth resisting.