First of all, I sincerely appreciate this post—immediately one of my favorites of yours (and that's saying something.)
In response to your closing question, three thoughts:
(1) On a personal level, I continue to avoid downloading any social media apps for my phone—as I know that the way I engage is considerably different on a computer versus a phone. Small thing, yes, but I definitely have felt this difference tangibly in my life.
(2) Within the classroom, I lean on your own tactics of writing as a tool for thinking. Even this year, I'm finding myself compelled to ask students to write out their reactions and ideas first—and much more in-depth—as part of their reading experience. Friction is needed, and writing can be wonderful, empowering friction.
(3) More broadly, I don't know how the chicken/egg dynamic plays out in terms of which is the original sin, but the decline in social institutions as well as norms around spending time with others—particularly others outside of our immediate worldviews—has been a dangerous combination with the increasing weight of how social media shapes those worldviews. A socially enmeshed and comfortable person is much more likely, I think, to avoid the worst consequences of social media. Alone, though? We have seen how those consequences play out.
I just did your number 1, now reading substack on my computer for the first time. But instead of randomly opening the app, I have set time aside and chose to read something I knew would be edifying and thoughtful. After two whole days I don't miss the other apps.
On point 3--those declines have spanned decades. Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" examined that in pointed and important ways. David Brooks similarly scoped out the decline in civic groups. And we might also draw a line to the diminishing impact that third places play in our lives by looking to Ray Oldenburg's book, "The Great Good Place." Were it possible that digital places could supplant the physical, we might not be in the state we are. But such a belief denies the embodied nature of our personages. We are not "Sims." We are biological organisms driven by our DNA to congregate. And wile digital methods for that exist within the social media spheres -- such spaces deny the physical and real necessity for meeting, greeting, and all the "reading" that goes into such encounters. Indeed, Martin Buber presaged so much of this when he described the difference between an experience (which you can have in very impersonal, detached ways) and encounter, in which we are present in mind and spirit.
I appreciate your perspective and history of trying to help young people manage these often toxic technologies. I think it helps to broaden the perspective beyond simply an individual confronting and trying to resist or control the technologies fed to the population. Take the analogy of drugs: yes, individuals must face the pull of mind/mood-alteration and find a strategy to avoid addiction or usage that harms one's life. But I recall chatting with a security guard in a hospital, a young guy in a small city in his first job after high school. The job was numbingly boring. After work he would get high because what else would he do to feel better in a cheap apartment in a town full of similarly exploited bored people? In other words, people will be less interested in drugs if they have agency, live in a healthy environment, have extended family and community relationships, and can pursue exciting goals in their tribe. Same with all these digital toys being churned out by the elite. They can be controlled and managed in a healthy environment. But people are living in often hopeless exhausting isolated conditions where escaping to a virtual reality is a way to avoid depression and suicide. College professors and affluent professionals may not be facing such dire conditions, but I think the majority are. Hence, that's the root problem.
For sure all of these things are inextricable from the material conditions in which people live. Where choice feels constrained in many realms it's hard to recognize agency in any realm and once a negative cycle kicks in, it's hard to break out of. One of my biggest concerns around AI technology is the inevitability narrative that the tech companies want us to swallow because it presupposes that we cannot and even should not have agency over the use of the technology. To me, that's just fundamentally anti-freedom.
The scarier thing, to me, is that many don't even ponder about the implication of all of this. If you send a business proposal, totally created by ChatGPT, then how can you expect to have an ongoing relationship if they become a client?
Thought provoking article. I first started feeling this way with video games (in the 70's. I had too much to do and losing time to an activity that didn't contribute to growth seemed to be a rabbit hole I didn't need. Possibly easier for me growing up before the internet. Of late I have been shedding other media like X and Instagram, and never started wit Tik-Tok etc. I do use LinkedIn and Facebook to connect to PEOPLE (fighting the Reels feeds!) I would note my email feeds are also part of the problem. I am unsubscribing from as much as I can. Time to think is important.
My students don't seem to have the ability to limit their online time and even when they are studying they are multitasking. I'm not sure they have ever experienced fully concentrating on a mental task for a prolonged time period. The challenge I present to them is reading a scientific paper as a gateway to an entire body of thought (much like to mention for reading the article by Carr). I would note that this is why it is hard for the public to access the scientific literature, even when freely available.
Re: multitasking, when I had students tell me they'd taken many hours to write a fairly short draft (750 words), I would ask them that next time they sat down to write they logged the number of times they interrupted the writing because of their phone or other distraction and I had students who reported switching back and forth up to 50 or 60 times while writing 750 words. The goal was to help them see the inefficiency, but ultimately it was up to them to decide if they wanted to live with that or take steps to change.
I also increasingly did in class exercises that required them to concentrate for extended periods (20-30 minutes) so they could at least feel what that sensation was like. I think you're right that the experience itself is rare so they have a hard time knowing what it is.
Great post. Can you elaborate on the in class exercises that required students to concentrate for extended periods? I've been doing 15 minute in-class writing sessions, but they are generally focused on pre-writing for an assignment. Maybe there is something requiring more concentration out there? Thanks in advance.
Not surprised to find you working through questions that I am struggling with. My reading of history urges me not to get carried away with fears about attention because, as Caleb Smith shows in "Thoreau's Axe," such fears date back at least to the nineteenth century. I am persuaded by my students, among others, that changing our habits and social norms about screens is not only possible, but likely. Yet, the current moment feels urgent as "the early days" of AI feel like the moment to take collective action.
To your concluding question and your next book project, it sure seems like making useful distinctions between the wide range of potential uses of digital cultural technologies (some of the beneficial) and the narrow ways the tools and platforms get commercialized and diffused into our cultural processes is important.
Really appreciate so much of this, John. Here's a line that strikes a chord:
"I wanted students to experience the pleasure of noticing something about yourself in the world and then bringing that noticing to life in a way that connects with others, of making connections in the way Carr does in the essay."
To me, this captures two key aspects of my own teaching. One, I have always, since the web made it's ubiquity known and since I started teaching (ominously around the same time...1993--94) felt that the web and its use of hyperlinks was a better metaphor for an educational system than the tired assembly line metaphor. In my mind, I imagined a three dimensional space of neural links that connect, in much the same way our own "wet-ware" does, bits of information and memory into deeper knowledge and, for us at least, understanding or misunderstanding...as the case may be.
The second aspect is that your line reminds me of the act of essaying, which I once described as "the way my mind reaches out and the world rushes in." The benefit of the web (and Google) to my own understandings and essayings has been immeasurable. I remember my college work before the web--nights in the library, connecting thoughts from one author to the next. So much time, silence, peace and a sense, numinous perhaps, that I was on to something in my writings. That sense has not diminished since Google. It has only presented itself more often, and perhaps in states of less peace and quiet. We give...and we get.
I guess my general comment is that to survive in the world of AI and be able to analyze texts with some success students will go into fields such as math and CS that will persuade them that people really do think like computers and how the humanities get off the mat after this I cannot say
Random comments that a) "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that" is literally a chapter title in Bender and Hanna's "The AI Con" where the audience is absolutely nontechnical people who might be intimidated by all the things about AI they are seeing and hearing
b) The first and most super-dense text that I encountered was Barbara Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror" and I was in despair of ever summoning that much learning for anything
Ouch, Baby, VERY ouch. I count myself lucky to have been born early enough (I'm a little older than you, John, so I was around to see the first of the dinosaurs 🦖🦕) that Internet is still kind of a novelty. In plenty of ways, I LOVE that part of modern life. But I retired before I had to deal with students whose phones were surgically attached to their hands. 🙁 And the fact that young people seem easily drawn into dark places is terrifying. I'm glad you are doing what you are doing to deepen reading, writing, thinking and understanding. That is a great start. The other antidotes are the oft prescribed spending face to face time with friends and family, going out in nature, practicing a creative skill, making art, something real.
First of all, I sincerely appreciate this post—immediately one of my favorites of yours (and that's saying something.)
In response to your closing question, three thoughts:
(1) On a personal level, I continue to avoid downloading any social media apps for my phone—as I know that the way I engage is considerably different on a computer versus a phone. Small thing, yes, but I definitely have felt this difference tangibly in my life.
(2) Within the classroom, I lean on your own tactics of writing as a tool for thinking. Even this year, I'm finding myself compelled to ask students to write out their reactions and ideas first—and much more in-depth—as part of their reading experience. Friction is needed, and writing can be wonderful, empowering friction.
(3) More broadly, I don't know how the chicken/egg dynamic plays out in terms of which is the original sin, but the decline in social institutions as well as norms around spending time with others—particularly others outside of our immediate worldviews—has been a dangerous combination with the increasing weight of how social media shapes those worldviews. A socially enmeshed and comfortable person is much more likely, I think, to avoid the worst consequences of social media. Alone, though? We have seen how those consequences play out.
I just did your number 1, now reading substack on my computer for the first time. But instead of randomly opening the app, I have set time aside and chose to read something I knew would be edifying and thoughtful. After two whole days I don't miss the other apps.
On point 3--those declines have spanned decades. Robert Putnam's "Bowling Alone" examined that in pointed and important ways. David Brooks similarly scoped out the decline in civic groups. And we might also draw a line to the diminishing impact that third places play in our lives by looking to Ray Oldenburg's book, "The Great Good Place." Were it possible that digital places could supplant the physical, we might not be in the state we are. But such a belief denies the embodied nature of our personages. We are not "Sims." We are biological organisms driven by our DNA to congregate. And wile digital methods for that exist within the social media spheres -- such spaces deny the physical and real necessity for meeting, greeting, and all the "reading" that goes into such encounters. Indeed, Martin Buber presaged so much of this when he described the difference between an experience (which you can have in very impersonal, detached ways) and encounter, in which we are present in mind and spirit.
I appreciate your perspective and history of trying to help young people manage these often toxic technologies. I think it helps to broaden the perspective beyond simply an individual confronting and trying to resist or control the technologies fed to the population. Take the analogy of drugs: yes, individuals must face the pull of mind/mood-alteration and find a strategy to avoid addiction or usage that harms one's life. But I recall chatting with a security guard in a hospital, a young guy in a small city in his first job after high school. The job was numbingly boring. After work he would get high because what else would he do to feel better in a cheap apartment in a town full of similarly exploited bored people? In other words, people will be less interested in drugs if they have agency, live in a healthy environment, have extended family and community relationships, and can pursue exciting goals in their tribe. Same with all these digital toys being churned out by the elite. They can be controlled and managed in a healthy environment. But people are living in often hopeless exhausting isolated conditions where escaping to a virtual reality is a way to avoid depression and suicide. College professors and affluent professionals may not be facing such dire conditions, but I think the majority are. Hence, that's the root problem.
For sure all of these things are inextricable from the material conditions in which people live. Where choice feels constrained in many realms it's hard to recognize agency in any realm and once a negative cycle kicks in, it's hard to break out of. One of my biggest concerns around AI technology is the inevitability narrative that the tech companies want us to swallow because it presupposes that we cannot and even should not have agency over the use of the technology. To me, that's just fundamentally anti-freedom.
The scarier thing, to me, is that many don't even ponder about the implication of all of this. If you send a business proposal, totally created by ChatGPT, then how can you expect to have an ongoing relationship if they become a client?
Is it deceptive?
Hi John,
Thought provoking article. I first started feeling this way with video games (in the 70's. I had too much to do and losing time to an activity that didn't contribute to growth seemed to be a rabbit hole I didn't need. Possibly easier for me growing up before the internet. Of late I have been shedding other media like X and Instagram, and never started wit Tik-Tok etc. I do use LinkedIn and Facebook to connect to PEOPLE (fighting the Reels feeds!) I would note my email feeds are also part of the problem. I am unsubscribing from as much as I can. Time to think is important.
My students don't seem to have the ability to limit their online time and even when they are studying they are multitasking. I'm not sure they have ever experienced fully concentrating on a mental task for a prolonged time period. The challenge I present to them is reading a scientific paper as a gateway to an entire body of thought (much like to mention for reading the article by Carr). I would note that this is why it is hard for the public to access the scientific literature, even when freely available.
Thank you for bringing these ideas into focus.
Re: multitasking, when I had students tell me they'd taken many hours to write a fairly short draft (750 words), I would ask them that next time they sat down to write they logged the number of times they interrupted the writing because of their phone or other distraction and I had students who reported switching back and forth up to 50 or 60 times while writing 750 words. The goal was to help them see the inefficiency, but ultimately it was up to them to decide if they wanted to live with that or take steps to change.
I also increasingly did in class exercises that required them to concentrate for extended periods (20-30 minutes) so they could at least feel what that sensation was like. I think you're right that the experience itself is rare so they have a hard time knowing what it is.
Great post. Can you elaborate on the in class exercises that required students to concentrate for extended periods? I've been doing 15 minute in-class writing sessions, but they are generally focused on pre-writing for an assignment. Maybe there is something requiring more concentration out there? Thanks in advance.
I have a lot of experience with this. If you'd like to contact me, I'd be happy to give you some examples: jeffbergerwhite@gmail.com
Thanks John. I finished 'Superbloom' a couple of weeks ago, and responded here, prompted by your own piece. https://www.juliangirdham.com/blog/nicholas-carrs-superbloom
Great piece. Thanks
Not surprised to find you working through questions that I am struggling with. My reading of history urges me not to get carried away with fears about attention because, as Caleb Smith shows in "Thoreau's Axe," such fears date back at least to the nineteenth century. I am persuaded by my students, among others, that changing our habits and social norms about screens is not only possible, but likely. Yet, the current moment feels urgent as "the early days" of AI feel like the moment to take collective action.
To your concluding question and your next book project, it sure seems like making useful distinctions between the wide range of potential uses of digital cultural technologies (some of the beneficial) and the narrow ways the tools and platforms get commercialized and diffused into our cultural processes is important.
Really appreciate so much of this, John. Here's a line that strikes a chord:
"I wanted students to experience the pleasure of noticing something about yourself in the world and then bringing that noticing to life in a way that connects with others, of making connections in the way Carr does in the essay."
To me, this captures two key aspects of my own teaching. One, I have always, since the web made it's ubiquity known and since I started teaching (ominously around the same time...1993--94) felt that the web and its use of hyperlinks was a better metaphor for an educational system than the tired assembly line metaphor. In my mind, I imagined a three dimensional space of neural links that connect, in much the same way our own "wet-ware" does, bits of information and memory into deeper knowledge and, for us at least, understanding or misunderstanding...as the case may be.
The second aspect is that your line reminds me of the act of essaying, which I once described as "the way my mind reaches out and the world rushes in." The benefit of the web (and Google) to my own understandings and essayings has been immeasurable. I remember my college work before the web--nights in the library, connecting thoughts from one author to the next. So much time, silence, peace and a sense, numinous perhaps, that I was on to something in my writings. That sense has not diminished since Google. It has only presented itself more often, and perhaps in states of less peace and quiet. We give...and we get.
This post pairs very well with this one from Blood in the Machine:
https://www.bloodinthemachine.com/p/the-luddite-renaissance-is-in-full
I guess my general comment is that to survive in the world of AI and be able to analyze texts with some success students will go into fields such as math and CS that will persuade them that people really do think like computers and how the humanities get off the mat after this I cannot say
Random comments that a) "I'm sorry, Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that" is literally a chapter title in Bender and Hanna's "The AI Con" where the audience is absolutely nontechnical people who might be intimidated by all the things about AI they are seeing and hearing
b) The first and most super-dense text that I encountered was Barbara Tuchman's "A Distant Mirror" and I was in despair of ever summoning that much learning for anything
Ouch, Baby, VERY ouch. I count myself lucky to have been born early enough (I'm a little older than you, John, so I was around to see the first of the dinosaurs 🦖🦕) that Internet is still kind of a novelty. In plenty of ways, I LOVE that part of modern life. But I retired before I had to deal with students whose phones were surgically attached to their hands. 🙁 And the fact that young people seem easily drawn into dark places is terrifying. I'm glad you are doing what you are doing to deepen reading, writing, thinking and understanding. That is a great start. The other antidotes are the oft prescribed spending face to face time with friends and family, going out in nature, practicing a creative skill, making art, something real.