William Powers: "Hamlet's BlackBerry"
http://thedianerehmshow.org/shows/2010-07-08/william-powers-hamlets-blackberry
Tackling the 'conundrum of connectedness.' An award-winning media critic on the advantages and pitfalls of living in an age of ever-changing technology.
Guests
William Powers
a two-time winner of the Arthur Rowse Award for media criticism and a former staff writer for the Washington Post.
Comments
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Someone should write a book on cell phone etiquette - What happened to the days when engaging in face to face conversation was more important than answering your phone?
You all might want to check out this interesting video:
"iPad Tortured to Death in Mass Social Experiment"
http://www.infowars.com/ipad-tortured-to-death-in-psychological-experiment/
How does lost work time spent on internet services compare to time spent hanging out around the water-cooler 15 years ago? In my anecdotal experience they're comparable.
I am listening now on my iphone, and if i was not toting this digital device I would not be able to hear the show. I feel it boils down to having self discipline. Being able to turn off and tune out has always been a battle for people. Whether it's the TV, the computer, headphones... escapism.
Thank you William, an interesting book you wrote. Can't wait to read it since my BB is so much a part of my everyday life. So interesting to listen to the paralells you bring about our digital communication and the communication in the time of our Greek philosophers.
I use my Blackberry all the time. It is my way to keep track of my business as a meetings broker. Although I agree that in some instances this technology interferes often with our communication, it has helped me who am divorced and away from my sons to connect! On feature I enjoy about my BB and the tecchnology we enjoy today is that I can actually call and get calls from one of my sons who is in the army in South Korea at any time through Skype. I can also connect with my sons through Facebook and uopload photos from my business travel and share with them. It is also the best besides texting with my 17 yr old, to communicate. He prefers it to talking!
I do have the weekend disconnecting habit with my PC, although the smartphone is on because I need to hear from my sons and family all over the world. You get so much rest disconnecting though! Will try to keep this habit up!
Great topic. Will go and buy your book today!
Liz
San Antonio, TX
Technology isn't the problem, it is our passively giving it control over our lives that needs to change. As society provides us with more and more choice and provides less and less structure it is up to us to be conscious of our choices, make them deliberately and stop acting like we are helpless victims.
For example, turn off cell phones at designated times and situations - during meals and conversations with others, driving cars, during quiet time. Check emails only at designated times of day. Limit time online., Consult a television schedule and chose shows that you truly want to watch instead of channel surfing and being captured by junk. Take advantage of the great reading material at your library and read when there is nothing worth watching. Have a day such as Sunday when you break from your regular schedule and have time to refresh yourself.
Freedom of choice requires responsibility for us to benefit.
Turning your modem off for the weekend is rather extreme. My family would mutiny if I turned of our cable modem. You know you don't have to use it if it is turned on. Just say no.
I was about to recommend Neil Postman's "Technopoly" and "Building a Bridge to the 18th Century" - I'm glad these books came up!!!
"Technopoly" in particular addresses the relationship people have with tools and technology. "Building a Bridge to the 18th Century" looks more broadly and concluded with a chapter on the importance of questioning - understanding, "what is a good question?" - and education.
Neil Postman is in my view very POSITIVE and forward looking!!! He also discusses western philosophers, and is very thoughtful and provocative!!! His provocation runs deep. Please, Please, Please DO read Neil Postman! You won't be disappointed!
I was listening to the program in the car on the way home then had to walk slowly through the back yard using my cane which took most of the program and it struck me that the radio isn't to far beyond using this very device, the computer. The big difference is with the radio it required me to go through a whole rigmarole just to log in using my computer and the radio alone left me completely powerless to interact.
If I were ONLY using radio I would have had to find a pay phone and hope my call was accepted and then if it were stand there for at least a half hour or more to comment.
Some might call it hypocrisy, but I just call it overlooking the obvious.
Talking with stupid people is really no less distracting than computerized devices. I have to converse with people with the brains of a turnip nearly every day and I get far less from them than my computer. I control what I read here while with them I have to listen to them blather on until they finally thankfully leave.
In John Power's reflection on his thoughts and feelings after his phone conversation with his mother, he honored his connection with his inner self, a critical part of being human.
This element of humanity is being pushed out of our being with our addiction to technology. Recognizing this power is vital to our continuing the on going growth of being human, the healthy human condition.
Thanks for your writing and I hope this opens a new door to being responsible to our natural selves within.
I find it really sad that a book had to be written to tell people how "refreshing" it is to interact, listen and communicate with one another without any "devices" or other distractions. My daughter has a cell phone and she texts all the time, but it's never been an issue because if it became one, I would take her cell phone away - it's called PUNISHMENT! Parents should begin to SEVERLY limit computers, cell phones, Ipods, television and video games. Know why? Because we are raising a society of introverted human beings!
I am very interested in this topic. My husband and I recently turned off our cable service, opting for over the air digital tv, and refuse to upgrade to "smart phones". We find that our friends are shocked by this. I find this "shock" to our downgrading interesting. Personally I would like to return to a house phone, cell phones with few minutes for emergencies, and limited time on the internet per week. I feel we bombard ourselves with too much outside interferences that has caused us to move away from our family connection. We are isolating ourselves.
Also, with the abundance of cell phone users, people feel they should be able to contact you when ever, where ever. I get very angry voicemails when I do not answer my cell phone. Shouldn't I expect to be able to decide when or not I want to talk with someone? I believe that societies need to have things happen right now causes this lack of patiences.
Three years ago I chose to stay in a remote cabin in the Rocky Mts. for five months. There was no electricity, no radio reception, the closest market was 1.5 hours away, and the phone worked intermittently. It was the first time in my life to live without the conveniences and connectivity I took for granted. Of course there was an adjustment period, but I discovered a lovely and peaceful freedom in this simpler existence. Now I crave it, and spend a few months there every year.
William & Diane,
Great topic, and thanks.
I'd like to make a few comments based on experience and also available biology and even "Tao de Ching":
1.) All organisms adjust to their environoment... see embyology. Cells migrate through the body and grow and develope depending on where they are for example. If you take a liver cell and put it in the heart, it turns into a heart cell. See "stem cells". So? All organisms work this way, including humans.
2.) Humans work the same as 1) above. The "environment" is whatever your mind perceives. You literally become "tuned" to what you put your attention to... some of it you realize, much you don't.
3.) All the great mystical characters and philosophers speak of this... read the "Tao de Ching" with the above in mind.
{snip}
DAK
{snip}
4.) The "disconnect" from wireless and all that you speak of is actually you "tuning" to another channel... done quickly and radically (like the previous poster about going off to a cabin) this can literally be experienced as addicitve withdrawl. There are chemical changes that occur when you tune to "nature" vs the TV. It can be very difficult.
5.) Going deeper I have to say that you are just scratching the surface but the idea of "language" touches on the deeper communication possibilities. The idea the language "caused overload" is very important... before language people used other modes of communication, like animals. More and more communication through language, TV, internet, etc. cause one to use these "intuitive" modes much less frequently and they are lost: "use it or lose it". Most humans are unaware of these modes that meditators from the EAst, etc. attempt to connect to.
6.) You noted in your talk about radio still being useful... that is actually very interesting, because these "other modes" are still useful, in fact running in the background as the substrate of our "linear/verbal" communication we think of as so useful. These substrate modes create the "context" that is so important and you noticed is lost by texting and "impersonal communication". Personal, face to face, communication used the underlying modes as well as simple, linear, verbal communication...
Thanks
DAK
{cont}
Summing up: There is a whole heirarchy or "bandwidth" available to humans but we have trained ourselves to use only a small amount AND that amount is becoming smaller as what appears to be "the important" stuff, and the things we put our minds on (and train ourselves to build ourselves around) has become more narrow "band width wise".
That's why when you go to the cabin in the woods you just go: WOW... but then over time you body rebells and keeps searching for the familiar bandwidth... wheres the radio? Where is the internet? This isn't interesting... because you are tuned to something else now... not nature.
Not to be alarmist... but whatever your attention is on, you entire "organism" is constantly "remodeling (see this concept in physiology)" itself to work within that framwork. What the poster above who tuned off their cable is doing is making a complete switch over of themselves.
{end}
DAK
I would like to mention the cumulitive effect of using Google. I mean the knowledge obtained from googling and gettting answers to the questions I have, for instance, about gardening. Sure, I could have an encyclopedia but for day to day answers to my maybe simplistic questions about gardening i get up to date answers that I can use-----today.
'Apple's iPad meets Hamlet's Blackberry'
http://www.nieman.harvard.edu/reportsitem.aspx?id=102429
The Quaker boarding school I teach at, The Meeting School, decided a few years ago to do something rather similar to William Powers' "Internet sabbath." Students from a class in Appropriate Technology proposed that we turn off all the computers in the school for 24 hours each week. Now teachers plan lessons for that day using books and discussions; and in the dorms, students seem to relax more, plan longer social events, and relate with their house-parents more. Though the students who proposed it may not have known it, Quakers have a tradition going back 350 years of encouraging moderation in their daily intake of information -- remembering to leave enough time in their lives to process, to listen, to get back in touch with themselves -- what Powers' calls "gaps."
So Powers' book seems right on target to me; it's a sophisticated application to modern times of what I think is a pretty time-tested wisdom.
Here's more detail on the story of technology at the Meeting School.
Being a huge fan of McLuhan and connectivity, I am curious what William said about McLuhan in the digital age???