Digital invasion has gradually changed us as a society. Have we sabotaged our own attention spans and become more anti-socialIJ asks Amrita Tripathi
Digital is the future,’ is a common refrain these days. Digital, much like ‘the future’ is now. It’s here. You only have to look at your younger colleagues or any number of digital natives to realise it. It’s not only in the process of transforming the way we consume the news — Twitter is the new news TV, after all — it’s changing everything. From the way we interact to the way we process information, we’re re-wiring our brains’ reward centres. And it’s not just through our online behaviour but also our addiction to our cell phones, whether it’s WhatsApp or Instagram, whether we’re waiting for that nth Facebook ‘like’ or the fourth or fifth ‘favourite’ or retweet on Twitter...We now need constant validation and we’re wiring ourselves to need it in perpetuity.
Instant gratification
Instant gratification really is the name of the game. I want to get a hold of you. I need your attention now. I want a new top. It can’t wait. Most of us want things immediately. Studies have been done and articles written about the so-called dopamine or instant gratification ‘loops’ — many of us are addicted and like any addict, we need a hit. It’s your cellphone, it’s the Internet and it’s lighting up our brains’ pleasure centres like no one’s business. We aren’t sleeping quite the same, we aren’t focussing the same and we aren’t even getting bored quite the same. In fact, when I do get bored, I click a button, scroll through a couple of sites, speed read and then probably just go ahead and buy something I’ve persuaded myself I need.
Or I could just go online and find somewhere to go, arrange my transport and entertain myself — that’s a positive and a nice change from decades past, where we were positively stifled by circumstances. There’s a huge positive in terms of resources — from access to materials that would have taken months to reach us to MOOCs (massive open online courses) that could potentially democratise education. We are also connected to a much wider group of people. Outreach is simpler. I can plug in to a vast circle on Facebook, at any given time across several time zones. It’s balm to the wound of urban life, sometimes.
The flip side
The flip side is that very social fabric. There have been reports that seeing your friends’ best versions of their lives — holiday pictures, giant smiles — can make you feel more depressed, if you’re already low. This is probably the first time such mass invasion of privacy is so doable and to such an extent that serious damage is done. There are cases of severe bullying coming to light. Adolescents and young adults are already vulnerable and this constant over-sharing mode also opens them up to peer pressure and all its hateful corollaries. In part, this is the hallmark of youth — it’s always been a trial by fire. But the stakes are ever more loaded. None of us should ever forget 18-year-old student Tyler Clementi, who felt compelled to commit suicide, after his roommate “outed” him, by keeping his webcam on and broadcasting his affair live on the Internet.
Some might say there is access to help online, after all, but there is no substitute for real life intervention, in serious cases like this. There is no substitute for counselling.
How do you keep your kids safe without policing their online presenceIJ Parenthood by any other name is constant vigilance and it must extend into the virtual space as well. We might convince ourselves that in the olden days, parents knew what their children got up to, which has probably never been the case in the history of mankind... but the truth is, all of a sudden, you have to be even more alert to outside influences. It’s no longer just your circle of friends or your child’s school, it’s the world, in all its shades. There are websites that are downright harmful — from how to make a bomb to sites propagating unhealthy behaviour in anorexics. “Ana” and “Mia” websites endorse and essentially glamourise anorexia and bulimia and don’t forget that predators are using the same gateways, after all. An older colleague of mine a few years ago was thoroughly surprised and upset by an acquaintance of hers “friending” her pre-teen... Someone else I know is very careful as to what photographs of her daughter are uploaded. You never know who you could be exposing your loved ones to. And it’s not just the young. There is a worry about anti-social elements — there is a worry about how easy it is to moblilise for destructive causes, how easy it is to spread misinformation and panic. We’ve seen this uglier side in the recent past here in India and that’s going to need societal vigilance, too.
Adapt to new ways
It’s a double-edged sword. And like any major change, it needs adapting to. On a macro level — how do you monitor, say hate speeches and people with the propensity to violence, without infringing on my freedom of speechIJ How do you know when cells are being activated, if you’re not constantly monitoring the chatterIJ And that’s another 21st century inevitability for you, someone’s potentially listening, wherever you are and on whatever platform.
On a personal level, you only learn through experience — vicarious or otherwise — how to conduct yourself and what the accepted norms are. Companies and HR teams scour Facebook feeds and Instagram and Twitter — this is now common knowledge but it wasn’t what we imagined back in 2007 when we were beginning to discover social media. (It was an innocent age, when people would think nothing of posting their phone numbers on other people’s walls. It was pre-Twitter, pre-Instagram and a time when people didn’t have a selfie for every mood.)
There are the usual moans about how we have sabotaged our own attention spans, and are becoming more anti-social the more “connected” we are. I am not sure we ever had much of an attention span — we probably just faked it better. And now we have to work around all the distracting options but we also are in a unique position to absorb more, to be part of this cultural zeitgeist.
I am speaking of course of the extremely privileged in this country but the plans for Internet penetration in the country bode well, I think. If you overlook the whole electronic leash and how we’re likely to turn in to walking billboards…there is nevertheless a giant leap waiting to be made — from the proposed direct selling of agricultural supplies to farmers to improving access to healthcare via tele-medicine — the future is definitely hi-tech and it is arriving. Here’s to a new year and crossing new frontiers.
(The writer is an author and journalist. Her second novel The Sibius Knot, HarperCollins India, is available from this month)