Tag Archives: David Ryan Polgar

Digital Citizenship: It takes an iVillage To Raise an Online Child

12 Monday Jan 2015

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iPhone Work by Tinkerbrad from Flickr Creative Commons

by david ryan Polgar

Nearly everyone is using the Internet today, but are we using it correctly?

A digital citizen is someone who not only regularly uses the net but does so in an effective and responsible manner. Similar to how a responsible citizen is adequately informed, conscious of those around them, and actively participates in their community; a digital citizen is equally as engaged.

The times they are a changin’.

We are not only citizens of the town, state, and country we live in, but also digital citizens in the online world. As such, how we interact with the community at large is an increasingly-important part of our lives. And just like a Civics class you may have taken in high school, every student in the near future will be taking a Cyber Civics class.

What makes you a good citizen of your town, state, and country? Think about your active participation (i.e. voting), your knowledge base (i.e. following the news), and your behavior (i.e. following the agreed-upon laws). The increasing richness of our online world is making it essential that those entering the world are armed with skills, guiding principles, and support. This should be baptism by fire.

It takes an iVillage to raise an online child.

Diana Graber, a pioneer in digital citizenship and co-founder of CyberWise.org, has stated that “the most important new media skills are social and behavioral skills.”

Here are three quick tips to be a better digital citizen:

1. App wizardry is not digital literary

We often wrongly assume that someone who is a heavy tech user is a savvy tech user. Someone who is cyber savvy has a deep and diverse amount of understanding about the tech they are using. This includes:

a. Having a diverse range of tech skills: You should be able to send a tweet and an email, and know the difference in those mediums.

b. Understanding the concept of credibility: There is a difference between Joe’s blog and the New York Times. While the content may seemingly derive from the same place (i.e. a Google search), they do not carry the same level of trustworthiness and weight.

2. Communication is a two-way street

Social networks and comment sections can easily be overwhelmed by a bunch of people talking but nobody listening. A digital citizen is one who actively listens, welcomes a diverse range of opinions, and is respectful in how they respond.

Communication is a two-way street where the speaker is tuned in and aware of their audience, and mindful about how their words will be construed.

3. Accessibility does not equal permission

The online world often seems like a bazaar filled with free pictures, music, and movies. Your accessibility to download the picture, song, or latest Hollywood blockbuster is not the same as having permission to download it. For example, if we saw an unattended necklace lying on the table, we wouldn’t assume that we could freely take it.

The same concept of ethical behavior should take place online; just because you can take something doesn’t mean that it is ethical to do so.

Want more content on Digital Citizenship? Check out the resources at CyberWise on this topic.

*The photo is under a Creative Commons license; “iPhone work” by Tinkerbrad; Flickr.

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Living Life Deeply: An Interview With William Powers

30 Friday May 2014

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William-Powers3

By David Ryan Polgar

If I had a Bitcoin for every time I saw the word Luddite in 2014—well, I’d be a momentary millionaire. Even though the topic of healthy tech consumption has gained a lot of attention in recent years, it is still common to classify people as either a gadget-obsessed early-adopting tech fundamentalist or a tech-bashing Thoreau-worshipping Luddite. The general public, of course, is more complex.

“We tend to think in binary terms,” says William Powers. “There seems to be the sense that you have to be in one bucket. Most people are not in either bucket.”

Powers is the author of Hamlet’s Blackberry: A Practical Philosophy for Building a Good Life in the Digital Age. Since being released in 2010, the book has served as the foundational source and inspirational well for countless other books and articles on the subject. Numerous colleges and universities have selected it as a Common Read, and Powers has established himself as a leading voice for the burgeoning movement.

Consider all the various viral videos concerning tech balance in the last year: I Forgot My Phone, Look Up, and, most recently, a song about unplugging featuring Bert from Sesame Street. The tailwinds have clearly picked up since Hamlet’s Blackberry first hit the shelves.

“The response has changed since 2010,” states Powers. “At first it was dumbfounded—it was so against the tide.” According to the author, “There has been an awakening. People are realizing that there is a smarter way.”

Society, it seems, may have reached a breaking point with digital technology. “We reached the point where we were working for the machine,” says Powers.

The problem, as you can imagine, is not really the technology but how we are using it. An underlying theme of Hamlet’s Blackberry is the need to accept responsibility for the life we live, as opposed to merely scapegoating the screens. If we feel that we are working for the machine, as Powers mentions, we should question WHY we’re entrapped. Have we accepted our busyness as the new normal? Can we change the trajectory we’re on?

Now and then it occurs to us that we could do better, reconfigure our commitments and schedules so they’re not so crazy and we can breathe. But no sooner do we have this thought then we dismiss it as futile. The mad rush is the real world, we tell ourselves. We’re resigned to it in the same grim way that people in repressive societies become resigned to their lack of freedom. Everyone lives like this, racing and skimming their way through their days. We didn’t drop the anvil, and there’s nothing we do about it except soldier on, make the best of it.

There is a popular misconception that criticism regarding our tech use is merely a generational difference—older people not understanding younger people. The term that we often apply to the youngest generation, Digital Natives, “suggests that they live in an all-digital environment all the time and want to be there.  The young people are more nuanced,” Powers claims. “These tools are a part of life, but they’re [young people] not machines and they don’t want to be plugged in 24/7.”

The natives are restless. “Younger people,” says Powers, “have really been open to critiquing technology.”

In certain respects, we may be reacting to the unfulfilled grandiose promise that digital tech and social networks implies: more friends, more time, and more fun. Many of us, the young generation especially, may feel a sense of anxiety, alienation, and claustrophobia that wasn’t supposed to exist in this brave new world. The Future According to Zuckerbeg and Schmidt sounded like a utopian paradise. “Like all utopian visions, it was never going to fully deliver.”

Hamlet’s Blackberry is an essential read because it switches the power dynamic from the technologists that are selling us products and moves it to your own internal compass. How do you reach a healthy equilibrium between your inner self and external self? Have you focused too much attention on the external and not enough internally?

You quickly realize while reading Hamlet’s Blackberry that it is not focused merely on offering quick solutions to maintaining a healthy digital lifestyle. It is a soulful book filled with personal stories, useful metaphors, and insightful historical context that frames the issue as a deep, existential struggle. It is a struggle that has occurred with every major technological disruption throughout our history. What does it mean to be human? How can we not only live, but live deeply?

Hamlet’s Blackberry details the struggle that Powers went through to find his own personal balance. As a father and a husband, he wanted to ensure that his family was connected on a meaningful level. Too often, however, an overreliance on screens led to reduced state of being.

The point isn’t that the screen is bad. The screen is, in fact, very good. The point is the lack of proportion, the abandonment of all else, and the strange absent-present state of mind this compulsion produces…We were living for the screen and through the screen, rather than for and through each other.

The problem was that his internal/external balance was off kilter.

“You have to build an inner life where you don’t need to seek constant affirmation,” says Powers. “When we are able to stand alone and be happy we bring more to relationships.”

Powers is optimistic that we are headed towards a positive future. A future where we learn how to incorporate technology into our lives in a manner that offers enrichment, not escapism. “We are learning to emphasize the positive and de-emphasize the negative. We’re learning not to be dependent on technology.”

The crucial step towards creating a good life in the digital age is realizing the very power, and responsibility, that we have to mold technology to create a fulfilling life, not just allowing technology to mold our life. “We tend to forget when we create a new device,” says Powers, “that the magic is in us.”

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Hamlet’s Blackberry

William Powers / Website

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David Ryan Polgar is a writer, speaker, and educator based in Connecticut. As a Tech Ethicist he examines the ethical, legal, sociological, and emotional impact that technology has on our lives.

Leaving a Digital Footprint

02 Friday May 2014

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Digital Footprint

By David Ryan Polgar

Getting ready for your big job interview, you pick out your nicest professional attire. You spend extra time making sure not a single hair is out of place. Your shoes are shined. You remind yourself to sit up straight. Now, you open the door to your interview.

You fail.

Despite your best laid plans, here’s what the person across from you sees: you have a lot more clothes on today than featured on your Instagram account, your online rants make Ann Coulter blush, and, despite listing your major as Accounting, it seems a whole lot closer to beer pong.

Welcome to your digital footprint: the collection of pictures, status updates, tweets, and blog posts that create a major impression. It’s your online reputation, which, in a world where online and offline are increasingly becoming merged, is the same as your overall reputation. Given the common nature of Googling someone, your online reputation molds the first impression you give.

Your digital footprint is akin to you credit score: your past actions have a dramatic influence on your present and future. The mistakes you made years ago can live on to haunt you. It may not seem fair, but it just is. There are countless examples of people being fired or not hired because of their online reputation. Most common would be the Teachers Behaving Badly scenario, which, given their role, is set at a much higher standard.

There are, of course, ways that you can go about improving your chances that you have a positive digital footprint.

Google yourself.

You can do it when no one is looking. It is essential to assessing the impression that you have online, and crucial for determining if there is any damage control you need to do. You may also find that you have a googleganger, your online doppelganger who shares your name. Let’s hope that your googleganger is an upstanding citizen that pays their taxes.

While a lot of attention is placed on what YOU post online, it is also crucial to understand how your reputation is dramatically affected by what others say and post about you. You need only scan the comment section of your local paper to realize that people spill an incredible amount of vitriol online. More commonly, however, are pictures taken of you that are posted online.

Smartphones make it incredibly easy to take and post photos, often uploaded before thinking of the potential ramifications. A recent example is the the MLB pitcher Matt Harvey, who posted a picture of himself flipping the bird on Twitter. Backlash ensued and he deleted his account. The picture, however, will live on. There are no mulligans on Twitter.

Uploaders’ remorse.

The new normal is a world where previously forgettable moments are searchable and potentially held against your character. It’s best to think of everything you post in 2014 as being public. You may gain the false sense of intimacy online because you are sharing in the context of friends or followers, but nearly every post has the potential to be shared unwittingly. The intricacies of privacy settings on social media platforms are more complicated than insurance policies.

In many ways I’m glad that pictures and words from my capricious youth were not heavily documented, one click away on a search engine. Think about yourself. What would I find out about you if your whole life had been documented?

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TV clip on Digital Footprints

Tech Balance: Tastes Great, Less Filling

07 Monday Apr 2014

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Tech usage has been a heavily debated topic so far in 2014. How much tech is too much? Should I take a digital diet? Should I use technology to reduce my overall use? Should I use distraction-blocking software? 

In other words, how do I create a healthy digital lifestyle? 

Unfortunately, the topic is still so young that we tend to view the concept of tech balance as a black/white issue. Either you are a tech fundamentalist or you are a Luddite (one who rejects technology). Your tech usage, of course, is nuanced. You can love your iPhone and your tech-free moments. You can enjoy playing Candy Crush and with your kids. It’s your life. 

Right now, however, many commentators (such as a recent piece in The New Yorker) are hunting for irony and paradox. They are looking at the issue through the lens of a purity test, which is inherently flawed.  It is seen as ironic, for example, that a person uses social media to promote tech-free times and zones. 

It’s 2014. Get used to it. 

In the future we will likely treat our tech usage like we treat food and alcohol. Let’s think about our relationship with booze. Is alcohol good or bad? 

Neither. 

Our relationship with alcohol is complicated, just like our relationship with technology. On one hand, alcohol provides a great deal of pleasure and is interwoven into most of our social situations. On the other hand, alcohol consumption and overconsumption has led to countless amounts of human suffering.  Therefore we try, with various degrees of success, different strategies to appreciate alcohol while also being cognizant of its associated problems. 

Personally, I enjoy drinking beer and wine. But I try to be mindful of my consumption. I use moderation. I make whatever rules I feel like. When I see advertisements that tell me to Drink Responsibly (see Consume Less Alcohol), I don’t pick apart the issue in an either/or framework.  

Just like tech usage. I can embrace the many benefits it provides while also trying to limit its downsides.  I find a balance that works for me, just like you carve out a lifestyle that works for you.  The goal is not to remove yourself from technology, but to reach a personal equilibrium that satisfies YOU.

We’re at Now, Now: Interview with Douglas Rushkoff

31 Monday Mar 2014

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Douglas Rushkoff / Credit: Seth Kushner

Douglas Rushkoff / Credit: Seth Kushner

By David Ryan Polgar

Our life has turned into an absurd moment from Spaceballs.

There is a scene in the Mel Brooks’ comedy classic that seems incredibly apropos these days. In a day and age where we are often recording our life behind a smartphone instead of actively being present in the moment, it eerily recalls a Meta setup in the 80s flick involving Dark Helmet, Colonel Sandurz, and the Corporal.

While seeking to track down Princess Vespa and company on a scanner, Sandurz gets a brilliant idea: let’s watch a VHS of Spaceballs: The Movie—the same movie they’re currently in.

After fast-forwarding through the very parts of the movie that we (the viewer) have watched up to this point, the video reaches the present moment. Dark Helmet and Sandurz now find themselves staring at a movie that is recording themselves in real-time. They are the movie, and the movie is now.

Dark Helmet: What the hell am I looking at?! When does this happen in the movie?!

Colonel Sandurz: “Now.” You’re looking at “now,” sir. Everything that happens now is happening “now.”

Dark Helmet: What happened to “then?”

Colonel Sandurz: We passed “then.”

Dark Helmet: When?

Colonel Sandurz: Just now. Were at “now,” now.

Dark Helmet: Go back to “then!”

Colonel Sandurz: When?

Dark Helmet: Now!

Colonel Sandurz: Now?

Dark Helmet: Now!

Colonel Sandurz: I can’t.

Dark Helmet: Why?!

Colonel Sandurz: We missed it.

Dark Helmet: When?!

Colonel Sandurz: Just now.

Dark Helmet: [A beat] When will “then” be “now?”

Colonel Sandurz: Soon.

Dark Helmet, clearly disoriented, could have been suffering from what prominent media theorist Douglas Rushkoff calls “Present Shock.” Present Shock is the feeling of trying to capture an ever-fleeting moment that is constantly slipping away. It is a feeling that many of us get in today’s multitasking world where traditional narrative timelines have collapsed and we are bouncing around in the distracted present.

Dark Helmet was in two places at once: he was both living his “real life” and playing a part in a movie. While this scene may strike us as absurd, it is incredibly similar to how most of us are living in 2014. We exist as both an online avatar and a real-life person. Facebook even creates a Look Back movie for us, recasting our moments on the platform as a movie that catches us up to the present moment. Our always-there tech devices allow us to divide both space and time with ease. It’s what Rushkoff has coined Digiphrenia.

I recently spoke with Rushkoff about this phenomenon, along with other hotly debated issues surrounding our evolving relationship with technology. Rushkoff is the author of Present Shock: When Everything Happens Now, now out on paperback. Rushkoff has also penned several influential books on technology and culture, such as Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age. Given his expertise, I wanted to know his thoughts about hotly debated topics like Google Glass, WhatsApp, and being able to create a space for uninterrupted contemplation.

In regards to Google Glass, what bothers Rushkoff the most is that yet another tech innovation is being coopted by the corporate culture of always being on and always working.  “Like most wearable technologies, they are trying to make it easier to be two places at once,” says Rushkoff. “It creates more socially-acceptable ways of dividing our attention.” Similar to Bluetooth users that project an always-working vibe, Rushkoff sees Glass wearers as dedicating a certain amount of their vision to work.

“I still respond weirdly to Bluetooth guys,” says Rushkoff. “I look at that and think of them as working for The Man.”

An often overlooked aspect of product adoption is the role that social etiquette plays is determining either success or failure. If people respond weirdly to Glass wearers, and that response doesn’t quickly erode towards acceptance, it would spell danger for the mainstream potential for Glass.

“Augmented reality is fine for industrial situations,” says Rushkoff, citing the positives that Glass may provide airline pilots incorporating crucial data. On the other hand, “Augmented reality is troubling for social situations.”

Google is trying to get ahead of the various misgivings people have towards Glass by posting a rebuttal of sorts.  One area of constant debate and worry is the recording capabilities of Glass and the privacy concerns from it. While Google maintains that the privacy concerns are overblown and that all recording is clearly indicated by a red light, this doesn’t lessen Rushkoff’s unease with the device.  “I don’t yet trust our smartest engineers or the marketplace to make our decisions,” he declares.

Right now those intelligent engineers are trying to figure out the tech desires of Millennials. Silicon Valley is noted for minting twenty-something millionaires and billionaires with hot ideas, but it is also famous for providing rapid fluctuations from media-darling to has-been status. Given that, tech companies are in constant search for the Next Big Thing.

Facebook, not wanting to be Myspace, has been outlaying a fury of cash with investments in virtual reality and texting services. Their recent $19 billion purchase of WhatsApp exposed a potential sea change in our preferred medium of communication.

“Kids,” says Rushkoff, “have a desire for a more ephemeral relationship.” What they want, according to Rushkoff, is something that is superlight and worry-free.  Tools such as WhatsApp and Snapchat seemingly provide less potential for embarrassing online material such as an inappropriate Facebook post. One might speculate that their rising popularity is a reaction by Millennials concerned with their digital footprint. What Rushkoff has discovered, however, is that it is usually just the wealthy users who are concerned with their footprint.

Millennials are also, compared with Gen Xers and Boomers, more apt to push the line of appropriateness with the content posted online. If the goal today is to rack up as many Likes as possible, the ends may seemingly justify the means. Whereas Gen Xers and Boomers debate the distinction between fame and infamy, this is non-issue for the younger generation. “The metrics on their images don’t distinguish between infamy,” states Rushkoff.

These issues were explored in the PBS Frontline special,Generation Like, which had recently aired when I spoke with Rushkoff. He was the producer, co-writer, and correspondent for the feature. The special garnished a good deal of media attention, so Rushkoff was being pulled in multiple directions. I was curious if he was still able to find time for quiet reflection. For a man noted for groundbreaking ideas, I wondered how he dealt with the bombarding media request that might keep his mind distracted and on the surface.

“I spent the last three days just canceling things,” says Rushkoff. The big attention hit, while beneficial in the immediate for his Frontline special and book, has certain downsides for a big thinker in need of a certain level of calm. “It’s coming at the expense of my sanity,” says Rushkoff. “And it’s preventing me from creating the time and space to write my new book.”

Rushkoff’s next book will explore digital currency. His newfound strategy of finding the adequate mental space to have quality thoughts came about after he tried to contact his writer friend at BoingBoing. Instead of receiving an instant reply, something expected in 2014, he was greeted with an automated message stating that the writer is working on a book and will not be replying unless the message is essential.

It was a wake-up call for Rushkoff, who realized that he had to gain better control over his time commitments and mental distractions. He had to find a way to use technology instead of feeling used by technology.

We’re at moment in time where we are having a serious conversation about the role of the technology in our lives. Outside of the distractions that may get in the way of quality thinking, we have concerns more fantastical in nature. Sci-fi concepts that once seemed far-fetched, such as Singularity, now get discussed with a straight-face. When we try and imagine the future, commentators have drastically different predictions about how it will play out.

While Rushkoff can’t be sure about how it will shake out, he does declare that he is on Team Human. His main goal, he says, is to “impress on people the specialness of our humanity.”

I’m also on Team Human, entering this brave new world with an eye towards maintaining a semblance of authentic interaction no matter how virtual our future becomes.

Welcome to the now, now. Let’s see how we deal with it.

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Stay in touch with Douglas Rushkoff

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David Ryan Polgar is an attorney, educator, and author of Wisdom in the Age of Twitter. His site Overplugged examines our evolving relationship with technology, partnering with noted Cyber psychologist Dr. David Greenfield.

 

Life after Death Online

20 Thursday Feb 2014

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Grave Digger

 

By David Ryan Polgar

Facebook notifications are useful for providing birthday reminders. I can’t say that I’ve ever bought a “virtual gift” to send a friend, but I do appreciate the nudge to send someone a birthday wish. Glancing at the end of the month, I see that my friend Michael will be turning another year old soon. Only problem: Michael is dead.

Do I wish him a happy birthday?

Social media in 2014 includes socializing with the dearly departed. Unfortunately, it is often difficult to separate the living from the dead. In the offline world it is obvious: the living are walking while the departed are confined to coffins or urns. The online world, on the other hand, is more ambiguous: there is nothing to clearly establish that one’s online avatar belongs to a living, breathing person by the same name. They may be dead, the profile may be run by a representative, or, arriving soon, their avatar may be producing original content based on a computerized personality that has been created to mimic the living person.

Welcome to the future of dying. Your soul may get to go to Heaven and the Internet.

As our world is becoming increasingly digitalized, we are erasing the normal boundaries that separated the living from the dead. Throughout the course of history we have been on a quest for immortality, and now we may have made it feasible in certain respects. In the online world you never need to go away. In fact, your post-death avatar can continue to act in ways that suggest that you are still physically living. In the case of Michael’s birthday reminder, it is mentally jarring because I associate Facebook profile photos and birthday reminders to those that are living. I’m being hit with a certain analog versus digital world dissonance.

Two major questions that couples typically discuss regarding their end of life are: Burial or cremation? Also, at what point should you not resuscitate a loved one? Now there is a new question: what happens to their online existence once they are physically dead? Who, if anyone, is going to keep up their Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, and Instagram account? We tend to laugh the first time we’re posed with this question.

This is not a sci-fi scenario or a joke. This is now. This is a question we are going to have to deal with. Do you want a post-death online presence? If so, in what fashion? Should you have a memorial site on Facebook?

Services are popping up to satisfy a desire to have a post-death social media presence. One that has received a good deal of attention is LivesOn, a system for staying on Twitter after you have passed. Run by an administrator of your choosing, you would create a style now that is utilized to send out 140 character missives after you are long gone. Their slogan is: “When your heart stops beating, you’ll keep tweeting.”

Death, it seems, in no excuse to let your Klout score decrease.

Consider what a major dilemma this is presenting. In a pre-online world, it was safe to assume that if you saw me moving my lips and making words then the words coming out of my mouth we from me. Now that we have moved to an increasingly online world where our bodies are less verifiable, it is less guaranteed that the words connected to my corresponding picture are authentically mine.

What can be mentally confusing about this scenario is that it blurs the line between the start of life and the end of life. It is what noted media theorist Douglas Rushkoff calls the narrative collapse. We are moving away from the strict confines of a clear start and a clear ending (a narrative book versus a video game) and have reached a point of fluidity that alters space and time, the living and the dead.

Let’s imagine that I am diagnosed today with terminal cancer. Do I want to communicate to loved ones after I die? Should I setup a reminder to wish my wife Happy Anniversary every year?

This type of post-death communication comes up in Susan Schoenberger’s novel, A Watershed Year. One of the major plot points of the novel has a potential love interest character (Harlan) die early on from cancer. Unbeknownst to the main character, Lucy, Harlan has set up his email account to send out timed messages to Lucy that start arriving well after he has left the earth. Part of the story is how Lucy incorporates Harlan’s advice into her life, along with the struggle to understand a man who becomes more transparent after he is dead.

Schoenberger came up with the idea back in 2004; well before the concept of post-death emails were a actual option. When I talked to her about the reaction to Harlan’s emails, she stated that most of her readers find the concept romantic.  There is always a fine line between a romantic gesture and crossing the line towards “creepiness,” so it will be interesting to see how society responds to our evolving technology with post-death communication.

In 2014, it is becoming more common to establish timed emails to send out after we pass. The question then becomes, should we?  I asked Schoenberger if she would use a similar technology. “If I knew I was dying and had some time to plan for it, I might write letters to my children or record a message for their future children.”

It’s a natural impulse. New technology is allowing us to add a great deal of texture to creating an enduring legacy. Despite the shifting of time, planned post-death emails offer authentic words from a living individual who is now dead. It’s a more precise message in a bottle that washes ashore on command.

I haven’t heard from my father since January 2013, when he died of pancreatic cancer. No message in a bottle. There are many days that I wish—expect, perhaps—an email from him. Reminders to pick up firewood, plant my tomatoes, or pick his blueberries. For a man noted for his gallows humor, post-death communication would seem to open up a world of comedic possibilities.  Alas, nothing.

But what if I could chat with him right now? Would I?

A new endeavor out of MIT will be allowing just that. By using Artificial Intelligence (AI), an avatar is created that is based on the life experiences and writing patterns of the deceased. Their websites asks, “what if you could be remembered forever?”

This is a complicated question we are going to be wrestling with soon. Expanding AI is opening a door into complicated philosophical questions. If I receive an email tomorrow from my father that was written before he died, I can clearly associate it with my once living father. If I chat with an avatar of my AI father, is it really him? If I treat the avatar as my father, is it bothersome that humans can be reduced to an algorithm?

I have a deep sense that we are so much more than an algorithm. Now where do we draw the line?

 

Sherlock Holmes and the Modern Mind

07 Friday Feb 2014

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[Maria Konnikova. Photo credit: Margaret Singer and Max Freeman.]

By David Ryan Polgar

Sometimes I get lost in my own town.

Given the fact that I see the same roads and buildings time and time again, I usually allow my brain to slip into autopilot mode. This isn’t something I’m proud of. It isn’t that I have knowingly decided to not pay attention, but that I have not made the conscious attempt topay attention.

It’s everything that mindfulness is not. If mindfulness is the state of being aware, my brain sometimes toggles to the other end of the mental spectrum—mindlessness.

“It is very easy to slip into mindlessness,” says Maria Konnikova. “Zoning out is the default, paying attention is more difficult.”

Konnikova is the New York Times bestselling author ofMastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes (Viking/Penguin, 2013). She is also a noted science writer contributing influential pieces to The New York Times, The New Yorker, The Atlantic, and Scientific American. Konnikova has a tremendous gift to boil down the latest findings in the fields of neuroscience and psychology into practical advice, insightful commentary, and enjoyable reading. Mastermind has broad appeal because at its essence it is a book that explores ways to become a better thinker, utilizing Sherlock Holmes as the mythological ideal.

Sherlock Holmes represents the ultimate active observer, utilizing heightened senses to deduce any tangled web into a line of logical analysis. His famous sidekick, Watson, is a stand-in for our intuitive mind that is far less aware of our surroundings and mental processes. Holmes is engaged, and Watson is disengaged.

Konnikova’s goal is not to rid us of entering a Watson state, but instead to appreciate how our brain works and hence know when to think like Sherlock Holmes. As Konnikova points out inMastermind, “We don’t notice everything because noticing everything—each sound, each smell, each sight, each touch—would make us crazy.” In other words, sometimes we need extreme focus and other times it’s not necessary.

The mind can often seem mysterious, but Konnikova does an excellent job shedding light on the brain’s biases. By understanding the intricacies of our cognitive function we can become the master of our mind.

One way to better understand our brain, as Konnikova discusses in Mastermind, is to think of it as an attic. Holmes was mindful of the “furniture” he put in his attic, and aware that all information was taking up valuable space. Certain tidbits were worth remembering, while others were purposefully discarded or ignored.

Unfortunately, our brain attic is closer to an episode of Hordersinstead of an issue of Architectural Digest.

In an age when many of us feel overwhelmed by a never-ending stream of information, emails, texts, tweets, pictures, and Facebook updates, Sherlock Holmes stands out as someone who is able to be calm and reflective. “People are becoming exhausted,” says Konnikova. “Sherlock Holmes presents a moment in quiet.”

Picture Sherlock Holmes in your mind: you see a relaxed man sitting in a comfortable well-worn leather chair smoking a pipe.

Picture your average 21st century thinker: you see a spastic individual tapping away on a Word document while checking their Facebook page, switching over to Gmail to send a few messages, and then glancing over at their vibrating phone.

Powerful thinking derives from a quiet mind, according to Konnikova, and our tendency to multitask is hindering our ability to find mental calm. Multitasking is one of Konnikova’s two crusades (the other is our lack of sleep). “Multitasking makes us less engaged,” says Konnikova. Quality thinking, on the other hand, relies on engagement and curiosity.

Many of us struggle with maintaining focus for prolonged periods of time. Besides the countless distractions aiming for our attention, there are ample opportunities to fill any moment that may have formerly been used for active thinking. Technology may not have eradicated poverty or war, but it certainly has eliminated any room for boredom.

While Konnikova values her time without technology, she does not in any shape or form blame technology for its tendency to tap into our default state. “Focus is always difficult, and always will be difficult,” she says. It is up to us to take control.

When Konnikova needs to get work done, she puts her smartphone in the other room. Nothing takes away from a quiet mind like a buzzing phone. 

Konnikova also utilizes a distraction-blocking software called Freedom. Freedom allows a user to block the Internet for a set period of time. By deleting the potential for distractions and time-sucks, the user is free to focus.

Perhaps in order to truly master our mind, we need to master our tech. It certainly helps with quieting our mind and bringing us closer to Holmes.

—

Maria Konnikova’s website

Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes

21st Century Touch with Marshall Davis Jones

27 Monday Jan 2014

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By David Ryan Polgar

 

“It would be amazing in a utopian world where technology freed up our time to do other things,” says spoken word poet Marshall Davis Jones. “Unfortunately,” continues Jones, “we were not ready for such a major shift in consciousness.” 

Jones intimately knows the benefits and pitfalls of our always-on culture and both the allure and trappings of “being connected.” As a performer with a rapidly growing international profile, he has a strong incentive to spend hours harvesting likes, views, and retweets. But as an artist he has a strong desire to look deeper–a desire to examine how technology is altering how we interact with the world and each other. As he asked at a recent WIRED 2013 Conference (UK) when examining evolving friendships in a social media landscape, “What does it all mean?”

Jones is the creator of the popular and highly influential spoken poem “Touchscreen,” a work that evokes the delicate balance between our expanding impersonal digital connections with our innate desire for authentic human interaction. In a world filled with touchscreens, we still long for the intimacy of human touch. The piece evolved from his frustrations with trying to keep up with an expanding digital world that, instead of freeing up our time, requires countless hours of updates.

“As an artist exposure is important so I had a profile on every social network fighting for supremacy. One day I was completely overwhelmed with how scattered I felt. How lost and futile my efforts were. Thus, I began where it started…that frustration.” Part of Touchscreen goes as such:

my world is so digital

that I have forgotten what that feels like

it used to be hard to connect when friends formed cliques

but it’s even more difficult to connect now that clicks form friends

But who am I to judge?

I face Facebook

more than books face me

hoping to

book face-to-faces

I update my status

420 spaces

to prove that I am still breathing

failure to do this daily

means my whole web wide world will forget that I exist 

Touchscreen isn’t a manifesto—it’s about our internal conflict. It strikes a nerve with our nuanced feelings towards technology creeping into every facet of our life. We don’t want a world without the Internet or social networks, but we are starting to debate how we want them in our lives. We can love our technology without being a tech fundamentalist.   

The poem also explores our existential identity. We are increasingly spending our time curating our online avatars—what effect is this having on the individual behind the persona? You may be noticing a growing trend for online profiles to list a variation of the line, “I am human.” That unusual statement seems to be a reaction towards a world that can seem too artificial for our comfort level. Our digital world makes the verification of authenticity difficult (see Catfishing), so we respond by offering an assurance of legitimacy. It is a modern spin on the classic philosophical pondering: if a tree falls in the woods and nobody hears it, did it make a sound?   

Touchscreen was written in 2010, but recently it has taken on a life of its own. Lately it has been embraced by the tech community as a conversation starter and jumping point to explore technology’s role in our lives. Whereas the question used to be, “What CAN technology do for us?,” it has started to evolve towards, “What SHOULD technology do for us?” 

“At the time it was written we were all still glamorized with social networking and mobile devices,” says Jones. “When it did strike, the conversation was beyond my piece. It was a discussion that the mainstream began to have. I believe the poem was the nerve struck. The ouch resulting from our new environment and the scream for help. In short, it was an idea whose time had come. Only time will tell what will become of it.” 

Jones foremost considers himself a “world-bridger,” an artist able to be provoke meaningful conversations across a broad range of backgrounds. Touchscreen is a rare work that can influence both the consumer and the creator. “The real surprise was when I was asked to perform this piece at a tech conference sponsored by will.i.am and Intel. Not only were the people listening but the minds and hands behind our technology were listening too.” 

Similar to the statement “I am human,” it is crucial to note that everything that is artificial is created by someone that is human. The conversation we have today is influencing what we create and allow as a society tomorrow. As Jones puts it, “Everything we create is a manifestation of our consciousness.” 

The conversation that Touchscreen brings to the forefront is that every piece of technology provides a tradeoff. We have spent the last few years heralding the wonders of our wizardry, whereas now we are beginning to step back and examine the effects. “Technology has advanced us and has always been at the helm of our growth as a species,” says Jones. “Perhaps though, what concerns me is obsolescence. The obsolescence of our intimacy. The obsolescence of physicality and contact. When we all communicate on screens and those screens outweigh our off screen time we could be compromising a very important part of ourselves…emotional intelligence.”

At the end of the day, Jones is an entrepreneurial artist who embraces the many benefits of smartphones and instant connections while also being mindful of how he is around others. He can create all of his work on his smartphone, but also realize it’s time and place. “When I’m working on a project, I’m in constant contact. But when I am with my daughter, I am with her. When I am with my friends, I am with them. The mobile device has to sit somewhere far away. Or else, psychology kicks in and kicks my ass.”  

Marshall Davis Jones, above all, is human.