Social Media

         I've written a lot in these posts on social media and Facebook in particular and I do consider them both to be a blight upon the American people. Are there redeeming qualities in them? Possibly a few but naming them would almost be like saying that at least the first half of the Titanic's voyage was fun. Oh, I've heard the typical defenses such as it gives moms a chance to see pictures of their grandchildren every day but I think that mom might be wiser to be concerned about how her grandchildren are growing up rather than just seeing pictures of them!!!
        I have a lot of allies in this but came across another somewhat unlikely one recently in the children's music guru from the 70's and 80's....Raffi.....or Raffi Cavoukian. I say unlikely only because his other passions are not ones that I would necessarily share. You can read about them in Raffi's new book which I came across at a book convention of sorts. The title that I'm heartily recommending to you is....Lightweb Darkweb, Three Reasons To Reform Social Media Be4 It Re-Forms Us. I'm not nearly as optimistic on change as he is but very close to him in realizing the dangers that social media presents to our children.
          Some call them "Beluga Grads," children who grew up to the music of Raffi. If you are a parent of a young man or women in at least their twenties you probably knew his music geared to children. Our son might be called a "Bullfrog and Butterfly grad" for our main musician, Barry McGuire, was Christian oriented, but we are very familiar with Raffi Cavoukian also. 
          Social media has given us a generation with a smartphone either glued to their ear or in the palm of their hand as a divining rod as they walk along.  Raffi's book has numerous cover blurbs to offer, one of whom was from Nicholas Carr, the author of the Pulitzer Prize finalist book The Shallows, What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brain, a book that I previously reviewed and is added on below this post. Raffi calls social media "a crises of epochal proportions" for young users primarily but one that effects adults also. He writes that our youth are growing up in two worlds...one real and the other virtual, a world he labels the iWorld.
          This world "alter(s) our sense of reality" and "affects our brains." He brings other experts into the discussion to support his case and challenges the opinions of opponents particularly Mark Zuckerberg whose Facebook he effectively takes to task for its effect on children. He writes, "An estimated 200 million under-17 users of Facebook and similar sites." Raffi will hit upon data mining, identity theft and even WiFi microwave radiation. He questions the fact that Facebook doesn't put one face-to-face with anyone and while admitting that there is not a whole lot of evidence on the topic that the evidence that does exist points to this being a "bad thing."
          Quoting a June 2011 Consumer Reports Raffi writes that "Of the 20 million minors who actively used Facebook, 7.5 million-or more than one third were younger than 13 and (they) are not supposed to be able to use the site," and also that 5 million of those were under ten. He writes that parents, even if they were willing, are not able to keep up with the changing technology to safeguard their children and wants us to rethink the value of online actively for these children. He writes about the negative effect on the formative intelligence of children and points here to the testimony of psychologists and teachers for evidence. Raffi admits that an accurate description of children overall today may not be one of being "mentally ill" but is also not one of being "mentally healthy."
         Raffi is an advocate of taking computers out of school and offers information from a New York Times story where various well-known tech corporation officers send their children to schools that are computer free! He argues that the tools offered in the computer world of cyberspace are of no use if the student cannot use the English language, nor dialogue, nor even reason. He follows the evolution of an idea that has gone astray and so far refuses to correct itself.
          It seems as if every few pages Raffi offers another area of our society that takes advantage of our children through our fascination with this new medium. He is passionately asking questions here and even offering advice to fix the problems, but how does one change the minds of those who are making enormous amounts of profits? Few walk away from such a lucrative career, and design plans for the future are actually seeking more children...and even younger children!

The Shallows.......November 2010

         Nicholas Carr begins and ends his book The Shallows, What The Internet Is Doing To Our Brains with thoughts on HAL from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. "Dave, my mind is going...I can feel it. I can feel it" were the computer's last words as the astronaut disconnected circuits. Carr follows with... "I can feel it too. Over the last few years I've had an uncomfortable sense, that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory."
         Marshall McLuhan appears throughout the book with warnings from years ago that we would experience the "dissolution of the linear mind" and that we were "breaking the tyranny of text over our thoughts and senses." Carr says that he is no Luddite and points out that because of the Web, "research that once required days in the stacks or periodical rooms of libraries can now be done in minutes" but that this boon comes at a price for it "shape (s) the process of thought"
          His book gives us a history of the written word and dissemination of books throughout the world in general. Likewise there's a history of the computer, it's ever increasing use along with some fascinating anecdotes. He spends considerable time on the latest discoveries on the human brain, memory, the processes of learning and cognitive thought...all very readable for the layman. He also gives a caveat on social networking and  companies such as Google. 
          Since Gutenberg's invention, according to Carr, "the linear, literary mind has been at the center of art, science and society." The "heightened consciousness" of the elite in earlier times and most people in more literate times has devolved into computerized minds today that experience cognitive overload from the massive input of semi-related data which eliminates deep thought. Books once "enhanced and refined people's experience of life and of nature," writes Carr but this is being replaced by the shallows as the new technologies can displace but not replace the written word and linear mind. Carr details how his own normal  usage of the PC became a dependence upon it and its services. He (the author) had first been turned into a "human word processor" and then "something like a high-speed data processing machine, a human HAL," and laments "I missed my old brain" then set out on research that resulted in this book.
         We get a fair amount of history and philosophy, from Gutenberg's invention to Nietzsche's use of a typewriter prototype after he went blind but these are only morsels, for the main course is the human brain, how it functions and how it ultimately became dependent on the technology that it invented. We read thoughts on wisdom from Socrates and Aristotle to McLuhan and Henry David Thoreau. This topic isn't new to me and I've recommended Arthur W. Hunt's book The Vanishing Word, The Veneration Of Visual Imagery In The Postmodern World a few times. I recommend both books here but Hunt writes of God's design of the written word as a primary method of communicating with man, whereas Carr barely mentions the biggest selling and most powerful book, and source of all wisdom, the Bible. 
         I'm mentioned in the book! Well, not me personally but the millions of bloggers who "wield a keyboard like a magic sword, sending their thoughts into cyberspace." The statistics are there to prove his assertions that extreme computer usage tends to lowers intelligence. It may increase "knowledge" but neuters what intelligence can do with it.  Carr writes "The Net's cacophony of stimuli short circuits both conscious and unconscious thought, preventing our minds from thinking either deeply or creatively. Our brains turn into simple signal-processing units, quickly shepherding into unconsciousness and then back again....If our brains are computers, then intelligence becomes indistinguishable from machine intelligence."   Numerous experiments are referenced showing that the hypertext-laden usage of the Internet is producing that cognitive overload. 
          Carr writes.... "research continues to show that people who read linear text comprehend more, remember more, and learn more than those who read text peppered with links." He quotes a certain Rhodes Scholar who is "comfortable admitting not only that he doesn't read books but that he doesn't see any particular need to read them" and Carr cites a digital expert in that we have been emptily praising  great writers of the past. Carr asks "Why bother, when you can Google the bits and pieces you need in a fraction of a second." The Net is "making us smarter he writes only if we define intelligence by the Net's own standard."
          Carr explores the phenomenon of Social Networking but saves his greatest concerns for Google, "Google's Silicon Valley headquarters-the Googleplex-is the Internet's high church," he writes, and the religion that it practices is nothing more than long established theories on how to improve efficiency in industry transferred to efficiency in the circuitry of the mind. He quotes Google's CEO Eric Schmidt in that the company is "founded on the science of measurement" striving to systematize everything constantly seeking to refine algorithms to find meaning in our navigation of the Web, the "next best thing to actually being able to read (our) minds." Carr quotes Neil Postman in that "technical calculation is in all respects (deemed) superior to human judgement; that in fact human judgement cannot be trusted" and that "the affairs of citizens are best guided and conducted by experts." Carr writes "the last thing the company (Google) wants is to encourage leisurely reading or slow, concentrated thought. Google is, quite literally, in the business of distraction." 
         Google, Facebook and others are in a constant competition to keep us distracted. The efforts to digitalize every book in the world is explored with the comments by some in government who were "suspicious of Google's motives, despite the altruistic rhetoric"...that... "when businesses like Google look at libraries, they do not merely see temples of learning...they see potential assets...ready to be mined." Another observer wrote that Google has become "a true believer in its own goodness, a belief which justifies its own set of rules regarding corporate ethics, anti-competition, customer service and its place in society" and that the real value of books in not in the "self-contained literary work" but in the "data to be mined." Carr enters the debate on artificial intelligence coming down solidly in that it will not happen but does warn that humans may indeed be transformed into computers. He quotes David Brooks of the New York Times in that he once thought that the magic of the information age was that it allowed us to know more but came to realize that "the magic of the information age is that it allows us to know less."
          A little bit of personal commentary here in that this is in no small way related to our voting patterns today. Our knowledge of national and international affairs comes from snippets of information garnered from television shows where hosts who speak in soundbites devoid of any deep meditation on any of the issues seem totally ignorant of accurate opposing views. And this is all that we want, for the pace of the Internet allows no contemplation. "Memory is outsourced" as David Books put it. Carr enters into this thought with evidence that memory is unstable for a brief period of time and the Internet is the perfect antidote for the development of long-term memory.
         Allow me another personal comment here in that the proclamation of the Gospel is also effected by the information age in that decisions for Christ are all too often mere hyperlinks in religious surf, just one more piece of data to be stored. The short-term memory of an altar call fails to plow deep in the mind and heart. This is why I concluded my short story, Seaman Murphy, from October 25th with John Cermak's refusal to lead Shane Murphy in the sinner's prayer. 
          Nicholas Carr sums up his theories in that it is becoming much easier for humans to operate computers...but also...."easier for computer networks to operate human beings." I want to add here Nicholas Carr's experience in writing this book for as he was without the Internet as he worked on it: "The dismantling of my online life was far from painless. For months, my synapses howled for their Net fix. I found myself sneaking clicks on the "check for new mail" button. Occasionally, I'd go on a daylong Web binge. but in time the cravings subsided, and I found myself able to type at my keyboard for hours on end or to read through a dense academic paper without my mind wandering. Some old, disused neural circuits were springing back to life, it seemed, and some of the newer, Web-wired ones were quieting down. I started to feel generally calmer and more in control of my thoughts-less like a lab rat pressing a lever and more like, well, a human being. My brain could breath again." Carr's brief sojourn in the Bible was profound in these verses:

Their idols are silver and gold,
The work of men's hands.
They have mouths, but they speak not;
eyes have they, but they see not;
They have ears, but they hear not;
Noses have they, but they smell not;
They have hands, but they handle not;
Feet have they, but they walk not;
Neither speak they through their throat;
They that make them are like unto them;
So is every one that trusteth in them.