Here at the Compound we have slowly but steadily been working toward making positive (and in some instances significant) changes. Realizations are one thing, they can be both enlightening and painful as you accept that something you’ve been doing because you enjoy it is really hurting you on a broader scope. It is the difference between seeing a part versus a whole.There is plenty of talk about the great disconnect, how the digital age has wrought miracles via access to information and global communication, yet is eroding our ability to communicate as humans and appreciate life and our relationships with it. For the people in my age bracket, we’ve witnessed a time of miracles. We are the last, in that we remember and still have one foot anchored in the non-digital age. We retain the skill sets that came with functioning then, including the patterns of communication. It is important to remember that no matter how hard we stress it, or how much reminiscing we do, or how many cautionary tales we share – our children simply cannot appreciate that to the extent we want, and they never will.
And by children I mean our co-workers as well, for we are now the upper generational echelon in our respective workplaces.
I love my technology, always have. I am reasonably intelligent with good problem-solving skills, but I am still not a native. I will never have the innate comfort level that people born in the last 30 years have by growing up with this level of access.
Social media is an amazing thing. Having had a front row seat to its evolution and impact on society as a whole really must be the equivalent to sociological porn. Chat rooms and forums drew us in, made us stay logged in and watching the screen just for the chance to interact with a finite number of people that honestly we likely had nothing in common with or would never interact with on a daily basis if given the opportunity. To today, where we can send a message to the other side of the globe instantly and live stream from Katmandu if we so choose. There should be a sense of awe there but for the majority there is no appreciation for the enormity of that ability. Lost in a sense of entitlement and expectation that is completely artificial in origin.
It is also a vortex, a black hole that is devouring the two things we need the absolute most in order to interact successfully, grow and thrive as individuals. It steals our time and attention, it is a greedy thing and the more you give it the more it wants. We only have a finite amount of both and we squander it, investing ourselves in newsfeeds and remote exchanges with people who have earned no additional rights to our lives. It is the ultimate in self-absorption and we can’t get enough of it.
Notice I keep saying “we,” there is no glass house here. I am equally guilty of investing so much of myself in technology that I’ve lost opportunities, ignored relationships and missed events that I will never get to see or do again. For what? So that at the end of my particular journey I will be able to say, “I had a great timeline!”
So on Valentine’s Day I did an unofficial experiment with myself. I deliberately changed and observed my interactions with social media for the day. My goals were simple, look at how I was using it, try NOT to post anything personal, and then figure out what it was taking away from me.
The following stream of consciousness is the result:
Woke up to breakfast in bed. The Viking had taken the Head to fencing. The girl in her footie pajamas had snuck downstairs and made me breakfast. It consisted of two pieces of (barely) cinnamon toast, strawberries that she had carefully cut the stems off of, and a little cup of whipped cream to dip them in. She had arranged it all on a platter, placing a single chocolate in the center from her own Valentine’s stash.
I immediately wanted to take a picture and post it on Facebook. I did not, and shared it with my audience of one instead.
Idiot dogs were flipped over on the bed and were actually in the shape of a heart. I notice the composition and want to share. I resist the urge, but it makes me wonder if a positive side effect to social media is, in fact, art. Increased creativity (even from people who suck at it).
Sit down at the computer to do some morning writing.
Spent an hour looking up quotes, history of valentines, articulating a paragraph about why I didn't even want to participate in the holiday to begin with. Didn't post.
Checked the news, liked a few things. Saved pertinent links.
But wait, someone I haven't seen in 15 years shared a video.
Oh, look a blog entry about something amusing (but not relevant)
Oh I like that, should I share it? What are the implications, yes/no, who will understand the enigmatic point behind it?
Three misspelled memes, utterly destroying the satiric value of the post. They should be killed.
Six weather reports. Snow.
TED talks. They're ok, they can stay.
Recipes. Recipes are a trap – they look amazing and eventually you admit you will never make 90% of them, but you save them anyway.
Publishing house news / writing information. That's ok too.
A sprinkle of Jesus.
A dash of all liberals are victims.
A pinch of all conservatives are rapists.
A dollop of “the terrorists make me so mad that I’m going to malign them with my wicked Photoshop skillz.”
Thanks Obama.
A Brian Williams meme – ok, that one was funny.
A half dozen dogs who will be killed, are lost and/or are being mistreated (no really, putting pictures of animal sexual abuse on your feed may not have the societal impact you think, though I wish you luck in your quest).
SAVE ALL THE DOGS. Then SPAY ALL THE DOGS. (and kittehs)
Kid pictures! Awww. OMG that's like six since I went to bed - but I’m looking anyway, and I've never met the kid.
Vaccines are implanting microchips in you that work in conjunction with EZ pass.
Food is poison, but here’s a recipe to make it look delicious.
Speaking of food, my time is up and I need to get out the door with the girl.
Please note: no actual writing occurred during all of that. Time lost.
Awesome time at the Farmer's Market, I was going to tag myself there with something witty - but the phone stayed in my purse and my attention stayed on my daughter, who tenaciously clung to my hand while rambling on about the different species of dragons that occupy the fictional world she's building inside of her head.
Of course, I had trouble getting in the door because it was blocked by three young people glued to their screens.
Came home and got my combination birthday/valentine gift. It's a Tiffany bracelet, with the distinctive silver heart. "Please return to Tiffany & Co." I cry, then have to tell the story about why I cried (spoiler alert: it involves a dead grandmother). I think about taking a picture to show everyone, but decide to stay in the moment instead.
Sit down to work on schoolwork, but first - the wall!
Half hour gone - watching a mesmerizing “Uptown Funk” ab workout, bunch of whales dying, you WILL NEVER BELIEVE what happens next (trust me, you will not only believe it, you've probably seen it), Oh wait, 58 facts about Star Wars? Whaaaat? Inspirational quotes, more dogs, OMG did you know it's going to snow?
Why do I keep refreshing? Because that crafty bastard Zuckerburg makes the feed slightly different each time, and it won't match my phone so now I have to check that.
I MIGHT MISS SOMETHING.
Oh look, now there’s a comment on something I shared that is mildly insulting. Frown. “Don’t engage crazy, don’t engage crazy, and don’t engage crazy.” Nope, have to do it. Type watered down response. Sure enough, crazy engages and oh look they even throw out a personal reference so that anyone reading it might get the inference that there is some long-standing friendship or inside track here. Now I’m aggravated.
Aggravated by someone who in the real world I would have pretty much zero interaction with, has no current personal or professional relationship with me and really doesn’t deserve a window into my life. But Facebook being what it is they get one and they like to use those opportunities to pretty much just be obnoxious.
I gave them that power. Not social media, I did that. Do not feed the trolls. We forget this sometimes.
So there we go, another 45 minutes gone. I type 70 - 75 words a minute, I just lost the opportunity to put down another 3000 words or so toward a writing project or schoolwork. Gone, not coming back.
Oh look, an article on how a nap will improve my productivity. Great idea!
Insert nap.
Social media is a wonderful communication tool. I find it to be an extremely helpful resource when I need to connect with someone for school, sometimes work and certainly my friends and family who are at a distance. When media fills all our gaps however, it leaves us no time to be creative or to develop. I have no intention of giving it up, but it’s obvious that I need to change my relationship with it.
Writers I admire greatly all recognize the dangers here and speak about it freely. Neil Gaiman is incredibly accessible on media, yet takes a full month off at a time. He says you need to be bored to help spark your creativity. Laurell K. Hamilton uses a computer with no internet access to write on, and has turned over all of her media to her assistant with the exception of a personal Twitter account. Anne Rice manages an extremely successful Facebook page, by the way if you write her she very often writes back (insert stupid fangirl shriek when that happened), but she schedules that time.
How will my relationship change? I am not sure. I’ve stopped notifications to my phone and will remove Messenger. I have browser tools that block media sites and I can say they definitely help. Will I remove them completely from my phone? Honestly, I should but I do not know if I’m quite ready for that yet. But the days of instant answers if I’m not at my desk may be gone, there's a great big life out there.
A couple of weeks ago the boy and I stopped for dinner. He was in uniform and smiled for an obligatory picture, he’s my kid and you should all be proud of him too. I put the phone down on the table and we talked and ate.
Another family came in and sat next to us. A mother, father, boy and girl, they sat down in their untied shoes and unkempt clothes and immediately pulled out smart phones, all of them. The waitress came over and during part of the interaction the daughter would not respond to the father. He finally snapped at her that if she did not tell the waitress what she wanted he was taking her phone away. She snapped back, “Fine.” Not one of the four of them looked up. The parents talked off and on, neither child spoke. Nobody looked at each other. They went through the entire meal like this.
I looked at my son. I make him make eye contact when he speaks to people, this is especially helpful with his hearing. I make both of my children interact with the public, wait staff, cashiers, and salespeople. They know how to ask for something, order their own food and to express gratitude for assistance. They did not learn this on their own, we had to teach them this. To say it is easy is a lie, or that we’re perfect is bullshit. We war constantly with media. It fills their gaps, it steals their attention, takes away from their ability to communicate.
I kept looking over at that family and couldn’t help but think how many of us could so easily sink back into the virtual world of our design. How easy it is to never learn how to confront an environment that we did not get to create. What we are missing, or what we are keeping ourselves from doing.
I put my phone in my purse, out of sight and focused on my son. My time is finite, I need to make better choices on how to spend it.
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