7 ms·

I’m a Tech Addict and I’m Not Ashamed

64 points by ejstronge 8y ago

rvn1045 8y ago
Finding that balance in technology use is far more elusive than what the author makes it seem. What about kids and teenagers who very little self control and awareness to keep things in balance.
- goldcd 8y ago
  silent scream "Think of the children" should surely have its own rhetorical-rejection term (although the mental playback of a Simpsons gif, has made me smile).
  - saghm 8y ago
    I think the term is actually just "think of the children!" Wikipedia has an article precisely about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
    - munk-a 8y ago
      And that sort of stupid argument goes all the way back - Socrates ended up drinking the hemlock for a few reasons one of which was "corrupting the young".
    - goldcd 8y ago
      I know, but what I should have said is that it needs an accepted fancy-latin-term like "ad hominem" Or at the very least an accepted English equivalent such as "Straw man" Basically I'd like something other than Reverend Lovejoy's wife to appear in a google search.
      - rcfox 8y ago
        "ad liberi"? Not super clear in casual use...
        schoen 8y ago
        That would need to be an accusative, "ad liberos".
        dragonwriter 8y ago
        More recognizable in casual use might be “ad infantum", which I think is grammatically correct but I don't Latin much.
        goldcd 8y ago
        I'd always seen it being wider than "just children" More of a "I'm concerned by the effect of this on minds I consider more feeble than my own (due to some massive superiority complex I'm in possession of)" i.e. My own massive intellect is capable of withstanding this 'thing' - but we should ban it to protect the feeble-minded (and I'm too chicken to call others that, so instead I'll do it by proxy). More serious point is that when a democratic process (Brexit, Trump, Netanyahu, Erdoğan, Putin, whatever) doesn't return what you what - we all retreat to our talk of "the others" (or you could flip the whole think around depending on your personal beliefs). It just detest my/others/everybody's unwillingness to examine the lazy/meaningless terms we all bandy around and start pinning our shitty arguments to. I'm not pro or anti "screen-time" - I just hate the term as it's not anything anybody should have an actual opinion on.
- Funes- 8y ago
  Most adults I know have little self-control, too; and even less when it comes to technology (namely, smartphones and social media). And I don't exclude myself, either: I do have to put out a conscious, sustained effort not to spend the entire day in front of my computer. That, the pervasiveness across generations of addiction to the more mainstream devices and Internet platforms, hints at a problem centered around their very design. That's my take on it, at least.
  - munk-a 8y ago
    It's worth the effort though - and don't be afraid to remove yourself from technology that demands too much from you for what it gives... that's why I've seen more friends of mine drop facebook recently - it's a nice place to keep in touch with family, sure, but the cost for that communication is extreme.
- kristianc 8y ago
  Purely anecdotally, it seems like things are the other way around and that young people are very discerning about online news consumption and fact vs fiction; and it's older people who tend to do most of the sharing of viral misinformation and sensationalist journalism. It's also not at all obvious that a world where we have access to any number of sources of information and claim and counterclaim is worse than one where the cultural narrative happened and was controlled through the same four or five very large media outlets. As a simple fact of life too, young people are more malleable and given to respond well to 'actually you're wrong about that' or 'that article is misleading' than olds. Olds are more set in their ways and liable to double down.
lifehacked 8y ago
Same here, my friends be like "let's go out and socialize" I be like "no way I'm learning about graph algorithms", they just dont get it.
- postsantum 8y ago
  Be careful, those invites tend to be finite
zajd 8y ago
> Mostly, I send what I consider important messages into the ether and I get them back; I read The New York Times and Washington Post, as I always have; I use Slack to talk to my co-workers, and that’s certainly useful; I check my Google calendar to find out where I should be; I write ideas and notes for columns and podcasts and more; and, best of all these days, I rent scooters. > All convenient and good, for the most part, which is the balance I think we all have to find as tech keeps eating the world. This is what an NYT opinion piece writer thinks is good. Checking Slack, reading mediocre news sources and figuring out where you have to be by using a Google Calendar. Real compelling stuff.
cafebabbe 8y ago
And suddenly, the smart monkey ran out of minerals.
OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago
control desire or it will be used to control you
base698 8y ago
“Technopoly is a state of culture. It is also a state of mind. It consists in the deification of technology, which means that the culture seeks its authorization in technology, finds its satisfactions in technology, and takes its orders from technology.” “Technopoly is to say that its information immune system is inoperable. Technopoly is a form of cultural AIDS, which I here use as an acronym for Anti-Information Deficiency Syndrome. This is why it is possible to say almost anything without contradiction provided you begin your utterance with the words “A study has shown …” or “Scientists now tell us that …” More important, it is why in a Technopoly there can be no transcendent sense of purpose or meaning, no cultural coherence. Information is dangerous when it has no place to go, when there is no theory to which it applies, no pattern in which it fits, when there is no higher purpose that it serves. Alfred North Whitehead called such information “inert,” but that metaphor is too passive. Information without regulation can be lethal.” ― Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology https://www.amazon.com/Technopoly-Surrender-Technology-Neil-Postman/dp/0679745408 https://www.amazon.com/Technopoly-Surrender-Technology-Neil-...
- edmundsauto 8y ago
  Cultural coherence sounds like newspeak for tribalism.
  - Funes- 8y ago
    Yes, and that's actually something I do see imprinted on the Internet, all the time. If culture, on global terms, is defined by something right now, that thing is coherence, or homogeneity [0]. Almost everybody shares the same cultural referents and uses the same means of communication and entertainment. Cultural diversity has been (and is being) reduced, not enriched. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_homogenization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_homogenization
    - edmundsauto 8y ago
      Thanks for the link, very interesting! I've always used the term McDonaldization. If you look at % of people who trend towards similar culture affects, I think you're probably right (but would love to know how/where people are tracking this!) But, if you look at absolute numbers of people who are into something non-mainstream (e.g. not the primary culture), I bet we're way ahead of where we used to be. Also, I bet there are more subcultures flourishing out there -- bronies probably weren't a thing 500 years ago. Finally, I also think we have more acceptance for not being of the primary culture than years ago. That isn't to invalidate your point, I just have questions about statements that claim something about long term trends.
idlewords 8y ago
Kara Swisher's recent columns in the New York Times have been one of the most surprising disappointments in tech journalism. It's hard to think of a better-connected person, and one with a good critical eye, working in the field. But what she's written for the NYT in recent months has been meandering and almost completely lacking in substance. I keep hoping she'll snap out of it and use the platform to have a real impact.
- kristianc 8y ago
  Most of the important battles in consumer tech have been fought and won - there's now very little to pick over other than the consequences of the big companies getting really big, and what it means for society for people to be 'extremely online'. Both have been done to death and there's now very little new to say about either. The screen time one isn't even backed by science.
  - maxxxxx 8y ago
    Very true. As far as the view from the consumer goes there isn't really much interesting or innovative new stuff going on.
  - g6nhe9twPd66 8y ago
    "640K ought to be enough for anybody"
  - goldcd 8y ago
    Even to the casual observer/thinker "screen time" being a concern is quite clearly "bollocks" For as long as I can remember "society worries about every change" - but at least previously we focused on the content, rather than the conduit. Online radicalization, porn addiction, violent videogames, video-nasties, metal music played backwards, Elvis's hips, fictional novels, .. , gnostic gospels, .. , overly-optimistic portrayals of mammoth attack on cave walls etc etc My concern with "screen time" is that we seem to have taken a step back and have got even lazier in our "ill-conceived collective concerns about 'others'". It blows my mind that a child today, anywhere on the planet, with a $100 phone can access pretty much every thought or concept humanity has ever produced - whether a thousand years ago, or 30 minutes ago. I'm 42 and what's happened in my lifetime utterly blows away previous milestones like "writing", "printing" or "recording". What really, really pisses me off is that this isn't celebrated - despite only happening "because of screens" Now is everything on a screen good? No - of course not. But maybe a better target would be "asymmetric engagement" or "prevalence of uncited facts" or "Kardashians" "Too much screen-time" should be taken as the equivalent of "Reads too much" or "Discusses over a beer excessively"
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
standardUser 8y ago
Nothing facilitates my social life more than technology. It's how I find events to go to, buy tickets to those events and plan how to get there. It's how I keep in touch with people far away from me and how I plan trips to visit them. It's how I find dates. Without technology my social life would crumble. I'd adapt, sure, just like I'd also adapt to a world without motorized transportation or recorded media. For people who genuinely worry about technology's impact on their lives, I suggest spending a solid hour or two seizing control of the software you use. Turn off notifications you don't want. Uninstall things that don't provide you utility or joy. Unsubscribe! I have to give myself a digital tune-up along those lines every few months to keep things in check.
chess93 8y ago
I can't help but think I would be much happier if I had never seen a computer or cell phone in my life. Maybe its just my personality type. Maybe its because I started at a very young age. It could be anything but I am fairly certain that the constant stream of stimulation to my brain has done plenty of damage. This article seems analogous [1] to an article that states "I use hard drugs and I'm not ashamed" authored by someone who manages to keep their use under control. Sure, it works for them. Great, but they are not the failure mode of drug use.
- dondawest 8y ago
  IMO, the constant stream of stimulation happens one way or another. If you were born 50 years before , you could get overstimulated by TV. 50 years before that, and you could be overstimulated by books. Maybe my life would be better if I’d never read a book or seen a cell phone — but I doubt it: I’d probably have just sought out whatever the next-most-stimulating thing was and become addicted to that. Fully agree with your second paragraph.
  - chess93 8y ago
    I am a big fan of the "humans are social creatures" mantra. In that regard, if something is more stimulating than social interaction it is likely to be harmful but if something is less stimulating than social interaction it is probably fine. [1] In this simple model, I would probably say books are definitely less stimulation, TV is probably about equal (I have no idea), and modern videogames and social media are definitely much more stimulating. So, books would only become a problem in the presence of other factors but social media can become a problem for anyone. In highschool I would play high stimulation PC games while browsing the internet on another monitor while listening to music while using voice chat. I also had almost no desire to socialize while in highschool. [1] It goes without saying that we probably can't reduce activities to a single metric like "amount of stimulation" but I think this is a useful thought experiment.
    - 0xb100db1ade 8y ago
      True, but what are we using technology right now, in the moment, to do? Communicate. Rather than technology driving us away from being social, I think being social is driving us to technology. There are many extremely niche communities that I'd be unable to be a part of if the Internet did not exist.
mychael 8y ago
The NYTimes deserves a better tech journalist than Kara Swisher. She had some good coverage during the dot com era, but she is now a member of the SF technocracy she's supposed to be covering. It's time to make room for some new voices.
rdiddly 8y ago
One thing to notice in this piece: A guy who just insisted on drugging-up a mother and cutting her stomach open to take the baby out, jokes that she has a problem with technology. I can hardly think of a more complete assertion of the dominion of techne over a natural process, than a caesarean. But that technology is old enough to be invisible and beyond question, while the newer Blackberry apparently merits all sorts of skepticism. Just an interesting dichotomy. Also beyond the scope of questioning are her diet and lifestyle, which are affected by technology. If her diet is the typical technology-enhanced, sugar-rich diet and her lifestyle is the typical technology-enhanced lifestyle where you're not doing a whole lot of plowing in the fields, much less stalking prey for 36 hours straight on an empty stomach... well then, those are going to be factors that contribute to your "needing" a caesarean in the first place. Anybody who is "anti-tech" is probably fooling themselves a little bit. Even the most valiant resisters are declaring "OK no tech from this point onward," where that point might be in the 1700s or whenever they choose. If you were completely anti-tech, you wouldn't even be able to pick up a rock and use it as a hammer. Regardless, while being anti-tech is infinitely debatable, we should probably all be staunchly anti-scummy-predatory-BS-tech, just like you should be anti- their less-advanced scummy-predatory-BS predecessors.

64 points by ejstronge 8y ago

Finding that balance in technology use is far more elusive than what the author makes it seem. What about kids and teenagers who very little self control and awareness to keep things in balance.

goldcd 8y ago
silent scream "Think of the children" should surely have its own rhetorical-rejection term (although the mental playback of a Simpsons gif, has made me smile).
- saghm 8y ago
  I think the term is actually just "think of the children!" Wikipedia has an article precisely about this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Think_of_the_children
  - munk-a 8y ago
    And that sort of stupid argument goes all the way back - Socrates ended up drinking the hemlock for a few reasons one of which was "corrupting the young".
  - goldcd 8y ago
    I know, but what I should have said is that it needs an accepted fancy-latin-term like "ad hominem" Or at the very least an accepted English equivalent such as "Straw man" Basically I'd like something other than Reverend Lovejoy's wife to appear in a google search.
    - rcfox 8y ago
      "ad liberi"? Not super clear in casual use...
      - schoen 8y ago
        That would need to be an accusative, "ad liberos".
      - dragonwriter 8y ago
        More recognizable in casual use might be “ad infantum", which I think is grammatically correct but I don't Latin much.
        goldcd 8y ago
        I'd always seen it being wider than "just children" More of a "I'm concerned by the effect of this on minds I consider more feeble than my own (due to some massive superiority complex I'm in possession of)" i.e. My own massive intellect is capable of withstanding this 'thing' - but we should ban it to protect the feeble-minded (and I'm too chicken to call others that, so instead I'll do it by proxy). More serious point is that when a democratic process (Brexit, Trump, Netanyahu, Erdoğan, Putin, whatever) doesn't return what you what - we all retreat to our talk of "the others" (or you could flip the whole think around depending on your personal beliefs). It just detest my/others/everybody's unwillingness to examine the lazy/meaningless terms we all bandy around and start pinning our shitty arguments to. I'm not pro or anti "screen-time" - I just hate the term as it's not anything anybody should have an actual opinion on.
Funes- 8y ago
Most adults I know have little self-control, too; and even less when it comes to technology (namely, smartphones and social media). And I don't exclude myself, either: I do have to put out a conscious, sustained effort not to spend the entire day in front of my computer. That, the pervasiveness across generations of addiction to the more mainstream devices and Internet platforms, hints at a problem centered around their very design. That's my take on it, at least.
- munk-a 8y ago
  It's worth the effort though - and don't be afraid to remove yourself from technology that demands too much from you for what it gives... that's why I've seen more friends of mine drop facebook recently - it's a nice place to keep in touch with family, sure, but the cost for that communication is extreme.
kristianc 8y ago
Purely anecdotally, it seems like things are the other way around and that young people are very discerning about online news consumption and fact vs fiction; and it's older people who tend to do most of the sharing of viral misinformation and sensationalist journalism. It's also not at all obvious that a world where we have access to any number of sources of information and claim and counterclaim is worse than one where the cultural narrative happened and was controlled through the same four or five very large media outlets. As a simple fact of life too, young people are more malleable and given to respond well to 'actually you're wrong about that' or 'that article is misleading' than olds. Olds are more set in their ways and liable to double down.

lifehacked 8y ago

Same here, my friends be like "let's go out and socialize" I be like "no way I'm learning about graph algorithms", they just dont get it.

postsantum 8y ago
Be careful, those invites tend to be finite

zajd 8y ago

> Mostly, I send what I consider important messages into the ether and I get them back; I read The New York Times and Washington Post, as I always have; I use Slack to talk to my co-workers, and that’s certainly useful; I check my Google calendar to find out where I should be; I write ideas and notes for columns and podcasts and more; and, best of all these days, I rent scooters. > All convenient and good, for the most part, which is the balance I think we all have to find as tech keeps eating the world. This is what an NYT opinion piece writer thinks is good. Checking Slack, reading mediocre news sources and figuring out where you have to be by using a Google Calendar. Real compelling stuff.

cafebabbe 8y ago

And suddenly, the smart monkey ran out of minerals.

OnlyRepliesToBS 8y ago

control desire or it will be used to control you

base698 8y ago

“Technopoly is a state of culture. It is also a state of mind. It consists in the deification of technology, which means that the culture seeks its authorization in technology, finds its satisfactions in technology, and takes its orders from technology.” “Technopoly is to say that its information immune system is inoperable. Technopoly is a form of cultural AIDS, which I here use as an acronym for Anti-Information Deficiency Syndrome. This is why it is possible to say almost anything without contradiction provided you begin your utterance with the words “A study has shown …” or “Scientists now tell us that …” More important, it is why in a Technopoly there can be no transcendent sense of purpose or meaning, no cultural coherence. Information is dangerous when it has no place to go, when there is no theory to which it applies, no pattern in which it fits, when there is no higher purpose that it serves. Alfred North Whitehead called such information “inert,” but that metaphor is too passive. Information without regulation can be lethal.” ― Neil Postman, Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology https://www.amazon.com/Technopoly-Surrender-Technology-Neil-Postman/dp/0679745408 https://www.amazon.com/Technopoly-Surrender-Technology-Neil-...

edmundsauto 8y ago
Cultural coherence sounds like newspeak for tribalism.
- Funes- 8y ago
  Yes, and that's actually something I do see imprinted on the Internet, all the time. If culture, on global terms, is defined by something right now, that thing is coherence, or homogeneity [0]. Almost everybody shares the same cultural referents and uses the same means of communication and entertainment. Cultural diversity has been (and is being) reduced, not enriched. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_homogenization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_homogenization
  - edmundsauto 8y ago
    Thanks for the link, very interesting! I've always used the term McDonaldization. If you look at % of people who trend towards similar culture affects, I think you're probably right (but would love to know how/where people are tracking this!) But, if you look at absolute numbers of people who are into something non-mainstream (e.g. not the primary culture), I bet we're way ahead of where we used to be. Also, I bet there are more subcultures flourishing out there -- bronies probably weren't a thing 500 years ago. Finally, I also think we have more acceptance for not being of the primary culture than years ago. That isn't to invalidate your point, I just have questions about statements that claim something about long term trends.

idlewords 8y ago

Kara Swisher's recent columns in the New York Times have been one of the most surprising disappointments in tech journalism. It's hard to think of a better-connected person, and one with a good critical eye, working in the field. But what she's written for the NYT in recent months has been meandering and almost completely lacking in substance. I keep hoping she'll snap out of it and use the platform to have a real impact.

kristianc 8y ago
Most of the important battles in consumer tech have been fought and won - there's now very little to pick over other than the consequences of the big companies getting really big, and what it means for society for people to be 'extremely online'. Both have been done to death and there's now very little new to say about either. The screen time one isn't even backed by science.
- maxxxxx 8y ago
  Very true. As far as the view from the consumer goes there isn't really much interesting or innovative new stuff going on.
- g6nhe9twPd66 8y ago
  "640K ought to be enough for anybody"
- goldcd 8y ago
  Even to the casual observer/thinker "screen time" being a concern is quite clearly "bollocks" For as long as I can remember "society worries about every change" - but at least previously we focused on the content, rather than the conduit. Online radicalization, porn addiction, violent videogames, video-nasties, metal music played backwards, Elvis's hips, fictional novels, .. , gnostic gospels, .. , overly-optimistic portrayals of mammoth attack on cave walls etc etc My concern with "screen time" is that we seem to have taken a step back and have got even lazier in our "ill-conceived collective concerns about 'others'". It blows my mind that a child today, anywhere on the planet, with a $100 phone can access pretty much every thought or concept humanity has ever produced - whether a thousand years ago, or 30 minutes ago. I'm 42 and what's happened in my lifetime utterly blows away previous milestones like "writing", "printing" or "recording". What really, really pisses me off is that this isn't celebrated - despite only happening "because of screens" Now is everything on a screen good? No - of course not. But maybe a better target would be "asymmetric engagement" or "prevalence of uncited facts" or "Kardashians" "Too much screen-time" should be taken as the equivalent of "Reads too much" or "Discusses over a beer excessively"

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

standardUser 8y ago

Nothing facilitates my social life more than technology. It's how I find events to go to, buy tickets to those events and plan how to get there. It's how I keep in touch with people far away from me and how I plan trips to visit them. It's how I find dates. Without technology my social life would crumble. I'd adapt, sure, just like I'd also adapt to a world without motorized transportation or recorded media. For people who genuinely worry about technology's impact on their lives, I suggest spending a solid hour or two seizing control of the software you use. Turn off notifications you don't want. Uninstall things that don't provide you utility or joy. Unsubscribe! I have to give myself a digital tune-up along those lines every few months to keep things in check.

chess93 8y ago

I can't help but think I would be much happier if I had never seen a computer or cell phone in my life. Maybe its just my personality type. Maybe its because I started at a very young age. It could be anything but I am fairly certain that the constant stream of stimulation to my brain has done plenty of damage. This article seems analogous [1] to an article that states "I use hard drugs and I'm not ashamed" authored by someone who manages to keep their use under control. Sure, it works for them. Great, but they are not the failure mode of drug use.

dondawest 8y ago
IMO, the constant stream of stimulation happens one way or another. If you were born 50 years before , you could get overstimulated by TV. 50 years before that, and you could be overstimulated by books. Maybe my life would be better if I’d never read a book or seen a cell phone — but I doubt it: I’d probably have just sought out whatever the next-most-stimulating thing was and become addicted to that. Fully agree with your second paragraph.
- chess93 8y ago
  I am a big fan of the "humans are social creatures" mantra. In that regard, if something is more stimulating than social interaction it is likely to be harmful but if something is less stimulating than social interaction it is probably fine. [1] In this simple model, I would probably say books are definitely less stimulation, TV is probably about equal (I have no idea), and modern videogames and social media are definitely much more stimulating. So, books would only become a problem in the presence of other factors but social media can become a problem for anyone. In highschool I would play high stimulation PC games while browsing the internet on another monitor while listening to music while using voice chat. I also had almost no desire to socialize while in highschool. [1] It goes without saying that we probably can't reduce activities to a single metric like "amount of stimulation" but I think this is a useful thought experiment.
  - 0xb100db1ade 8y ago
    True, but what are we using technology right now, in the moment, to do? Communicate. Rather than technology driving us away from being social, I think being social is driving us to technology. There are many extremely niche communities that I'd be unable to be a part of if the Internet did not exist.

mychael 8y ago

The NYTimes deserves a better tech journalist than Kara Swisher. She had some good coverage during the dot com era, but she is now a member of the SF technocracy she's supposed to be covering. It's time to make room for some new voices.

rdiddly 8y ago

One thing to notice in this piece: A guy who just insisted on drugging-up a mother and cutting her stomach open to take the baby out, jokes that she has a problem with technology. I can hardly think of a more complete assertion of the dominion of techne over a natural process, than a caesarean. But that technology is old enough to be invisible and beyond question, while the newer Blackberry apparently merits all sorts of skepticism. Just an interesting dichotomy. Also beyond the scope of questioning are her diet and lifestyle, which are affected by technology. If her diet is the typical technology-enhanced, sugar-rich diet and her lifestyle is the typical technology-enhanced lifestyle where you're not doing a whole lot of plowing in the fields, much less stalking prey for 36 hours straight on an empty stomach... well then, those are going to be factors that contribute to your "needing" a caesarean in the first place. Anybody who is "anti-tech" is probably fooling themselves a little bit. Even the most valiant resisters are declaring "OK no tech from this point onward," where that point might be in the 1700s or whenever they choose. If you were completely anti-tech, you wouldn't even be able to pick up a rock and use it as a hammer. Regardless, while being anti-tech is infinitely debatable, we should probably all be staunchly anti-scummy-predatory-BS-tech, just like you should be anti- their less-advanced scummy-predatory-BS predecessors.