Faceoff: You are not a gadget & everything bad is good for you
I’m reading two books with opposing philosophies simultaneously: You Are Not A Gadget by Jaron Lanier and Everything Bad is Good for You by Steven Johnson. The former argues that technology is reducing humanity to bits of information, and the latter argues that technology is contributing to mental evolution. As my reading progresses, I’ll post some highlights from both books (provided my brain doesn’t explode).
Let’s start with Mr. Lanier, who presents the following themes in the Preface and Chapter 1: Missing Persons.
Lock-in
Technology (software, file formats, web platforms, etc.) that is inflexible in design and isn’t adaptive to a range of future possibilities can lock-in patterns of human behavior that are reductive rather than expansive and can stunt the overall course of social evolution. (Lanier uses MIDI as an example of a pervasive standard format that has unintentionally limited the potential for digital music because it is too hard to change.)
Fragmentation
Digital technologies stimulate different potentials in human nature, and current Web 2.0 designs are trending toward the reduction of users (people) to fragments. The way people engage with platforms like Twitter and wikis, by providing bits of succinct information, is ultimately toying with social engineering and changing how humans express meaning.
And the counterpoint, Mr. Johnson’s Introduction.
The Sleeper Curve
Despite the assumption that culture is being dumbed down, today’s video games, television shows, and movies are far more nuanced and advanced than those previous, and they ultimately encourage cognitive complexity that is causing culture to grow more sophisticated, not less.
Games vs. Books
Reading books is not necessarily more cognitively complex than playing video games. Video games have open ended narratives that require probing and telescoping (probe, hypothesize, reprobe, rethink), which is a basic procedure of scientific inquiry.
RELATED LINKS GALORE:
• An excellent story, Text without Context by Michiko Kakutani in the 3/17/10 issue of NY Times.
• The forthcoming book by Nicholas Carr, The Shallows, explores how the Internet is affecting our brains.
• A transcript of Caleb Crain’s talk on How the Internet is Changing Literary Style.
andrea, i’ve not read the steven johnson’s book but been aware of it. hasn’t that book been out for a while? as in, before twitter was invented? wonder if he still feels the same. determining the exact right criteria from which to judge the benefits/detriments of new technology has been something i’ve been interested in for a very long time. still don’t have one but. ultimately i usually end up erring on the side of intuition and fun. if i enjoy it and it interests me, i’m inclined to think it’s not going to be bad for me. may be a foolish approach, but….
Right you are, Randy! Everything Bad Is Good For You is from 2005 (ancient by technology standards). But Johnson remains an advocate of technology’s positive impact. (Here’s a recent pro-twitter article he wrote in Time). I think all tools are only as good as the person who uses them. I often imagine that John Cage or Buckminster Fuller would be using twitter in radically expansive ways, not just to retweet the latest celebrity news or CNN headlines. What do you think Warhol would do with twitter or facebook? So nice to hear from you, Randy.
“I often imagine that John Cage or Buckminster Fuller would be using twitter in radically expansive ways, not just to retweet the latest celebrity news or CNN headlines.”
But they’re long dead and right now, because of it’s ubiquity, because it’s easily consumed and digested (like an engineered meal from Kraft) and because at the end of the day it is the ultimate populist method for entry into the national or global consciousness, today it’s hard for anyone to use these new technologies for anything dramatically substantive because right now the crowd keeps turning the lens back on the 21st century’s great new art form, Celebrity (or at the very least, popularity as measured by number of hits.) I say right now because it may change. But I kind of doubt it.
50% of those CNN headlines are about celebs anyway. And the other half of the news is being provided by celebrity seekers sending in news via their phones or responding to meaningless one-off opinion polls via twitter or facebook. Are you glad L.A. commited resources to saving the dog caught in the viaduct flood? Y or N. (I watched this riveting “breaking news” on CNN in the airport as it was being broadcast from someone’s camera phone. Slow news day I guess.)
This is no way shape or form meant to suggest the technology is not beneficial in many amazing ways. Video games may be just as engaging if not more engaging than books. I doubt it, but they might be. And twitter might be more valuable than verbal human interaction. Or it might not. Network proliferation is not without consequence. Technology tends to democratize where it is applied and tends destroy the formalism of the day. Vox populi! But never forget the dictum that follows as once formal disciplines and pursuits are made available wholesale to the general public…”No one ever went broke underestimating the taste of the American public.” (H.L. Mencken) Simply change American to “global media consuming” to update for modern times.
Viva Neil Gabler!! :)
Superb website you have here but I was wanting to know if you knew of any discussion boards that cover the same topics talked about in this article? I’d really love to be a part of group where I can get suggestions from other knowledgeable people that share the same interest. If you have any recommendations, please let me know. Kudos!