As an educator, on any given day when I am on campus, I have the opportunity to observe how access to smartphones is impacting how students interact—or as is often the case—fail to interact in the real world. Just this morning, as I was walking to my office, I watched as a line of students sitting next to each other on a bench in the hallway. Not a single word or gesture was shared between any of them—every single student on the bench had a bent head, mesmerized by the screens of their smartphones.
Sure, it probably makes me sound old—nostalgic even, for a time in our culture that no longer exists, but I just can’t help but fantasize: what would it look like if those same students were sitting on that bench, or walking through the halls, without gripping their phones in one hand. We spend so much time now as researchers attempting to identify what the ubiquity of digital gadgets are doing to consumers and yet an equally compelling question remains unanswered. Namely, what aren’t we doing when we are interacting with our digital devices? What are we missing out on when our eyes are tied to our screens?
It is possible that we are experiencing a shift in our culture, a dialogue is opening up where we are questioning what we may be missing out with our incessant persistence in staying connected to our gadgets. Take, for instance, the announcement that former employees from big tech companies like Google and Facebook are coming together to actually challenge practices of the companies that many of them helped to build—or, as one early Facebook investor remarked, “’to correct a wrong’” (as quoted by Bowles, 2018, para 16). As reported in The New York Times:
The cohort [former Silicon Valley employees] is creating a union of concerned experts called the Center for Humane Technology. Along with the nonprofit media watchdog group Common Sense Media, it also plans an anti-tech addiction lobbying effort and an ad campaign at 55,000 public schools in the United States. (Bowles, 2018, para 2)
The article goes on to report that this group is creating a campaign titled “The Truth About Tech” to raise awareness regarding the ill social effects of social media and other technology based consumption. As former Silicon Valley insiders, this particular cohort has significant information regarding the inner workings of these widely influential technology companies. Moreover, it appears that many of them are attempting to reverse what role they may have played in the current cultural climate where tech is ubiquitous by now sounding the alarm about its potential to harm.
I have written in previous posts about the importance of renowned technology scholar Sherry Turkle’s most recent book, Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age (2015). In it, Turkle eloquently argues for the restoration of face to face interactions and the power of conversation, identifying a range of benefits from these simple practices, such as the development of basic social skills, cultivation of empathy, etc. Sadly, she also identifies through both her research and powerful anecdotes that the ubiquity of technology has led to an erosion of these basic practices that have traditionally mediated social communication and interactions. The results among high tech consumers in particular oftentimes include social isolation, alienation, an inability to focus, and reported feelings of lack of confidence or comfort in face to face social interactions.
Similarly, researchers recently predicted that if we relinquished the amount of time spent on smartphones this could easily translate to an additional 200 books an individual could complete per year. I find myself reflecting daily now as I consider scrolling through my Twitter feed if my time could be better spent picking up one of the many stacks of books (or print newspapers) that surround me both at work and at home.
The next wave in our culture surrounding our use of technology may be swept up in an ever growing backlash. Ever since the 2016 election, social media has been under continued scrutiny for the role it may have played in spreading disinformation, enabling Russian meddling in the election, and/or the extent to which bots may have flooded the platforms. It remains to be seen how these tech giants will respond to the growing criticism. I am inclined to agree with the new initiatives being proposed by the Center for Humane Technology and urge readers to consider this: next time you feel compelled to pull out one of your digital devices, reflect on the necessity of what you plan on doing with it, and ask yourself whether your time could be better spent grounded right where you are, in the real world.
Copyright 2018 Azadeh Aalai
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