Intro Slide: The Psychological Age of Tech
nology
This first session of 7 begins with a look at the Psychological Impact of technology.
Slide 2: “When it came to technology, this generation was largely on their own. This isn’t saying parents were not nurturing, didn’t check social media platforms, or let us text with boys at 12. Rather, it is the fact that technology was designed for us. Created for us and understood by us. Their restrictions were always bypassed and always perhaps will be bypassed. Parents who think otherwise are being purposefully aloof, pretending there is nothing to be concerned about.”
When I was researching this project, I had my friends read this quote to their parents to understand how parents react when they are told something like this. Across the board their answers and responses could be generalized into two main responses to the impact and place of technology within our communities.
1. The frist group threw up their hands “ich hob mah kint fruhmm aufgehziegl’t. die g’ma hoht sah eh phone gehb’m ich kohn nix as vie beht’n unt huff’n seh hob’m eh gwihss’n.” these parents accepted tech into their homes. The testimonies I received all told the same story: an email account was made during the pre-teen years while parents started out with intentions to monitor. But the teen outmaneuvers the parent’s eye within a year of establishing a peer connection. They were on their own from there on out. Computer time was called “monitored,” but really no one could actually state how much screen time their children were actually getting, let alone their teenagers.
2. The second of parents recoiled. They shunned. These teens had access to technology in other ways. They logged onto their instagram through their friends phone or used their school email account. These teens perhaps didn’t have the same hours of screen time, but the time they had was hidden behind a lie. These teens, unlike the first group, let their parents believe they were “tech free” when, they had it all hamblich. Why? Because their parents didn’t give any ground.
Slide 3: Over the years I have thought about these two reactions to tech and think that every parent falls into one or the other at some point. Further, these two reactions have two things in common. The first is that both are a reaction to a fear of a threat. Fear that the parents are losing the connection and hold on their children; Fear that they have lost the ability to parent. Second, both form their reaction into these camps precisely because they fear what they don’t understand. Both parents are concerned and afraid of this influence in their child’s world that advances, and changes faster than they can stay ahead of to teach. Overall, they are afraid that they are losing their children to the unknown world of technology which the parent cannot keep up with.
Leonard Sax and Michael Pearl, two family specialists who have written on technology, came away with the same conclusion: Parents can’t compete with technology because they shouldn’t have to. Parents blame and fear the advances in society and have always done so when the real threat is much more present. “The unknown variable that is feared,” Dr. Sax states, “Isn’t the media, the games, or the tech. The unknown variable is your child.” Everything begins and ends with relationships and attachments. Who is your child attached to? If it isn’t you, then you need to ask to what they are? This may seem as though we are beginning at the end, but I now want to show how it is that relationships are the antidote to attachment and addiction to false, expedient, or even dangerous things that devices and media.
I want to start at the beginning. The formative years of child development and how technology impacts the functions of our brain: Attachments and Attention. Interestingly, both are almost the same thing. When I wrote this essay, I picked quotes from the books I was doing research with that I felt summarized my findings. The first speaks to the idea of relationships and attachments:
“Whether or not it draws on new scientific research, technology is a branch of moral philosophy, not of science.”
-Paul Goodman, New Reformation.
This first quotation plays on the fact that this first session is going to be more technical than the others. We are going to dive into diagrams of brain models and cells, to understand how addictions form, so we can understand how solutions may work. The problem is though that this makes it all feel unconnected from the problem, and therefore we must return to our introduction: where do relationships factor in? where does our community and family come in?
“The opposite of Addiction is not abstinence; the opposite of Addiction is Connection.”
-Johann Hari, TED Presentation 2015.
The second half of this project will look specifically at the research that Journalist Johann Hari did in the realm of addiction research. Without saying more, this quotation, will lead us directly into next week’s talk on Communication and Connectedness.
Slide 5: I want to get a sense of what people thought of the articles I posted. What were your main reactions, concerns, points of notice, or similarities that you noted when you read these two guy’s accounts? (Here we opened a small discussion about the impressions people got from the testimonies written by the two guys,)
For me, these are the main details that stood out:
· The access to the device connects young people
· And at the same time Isolates the teen
· Further, it Distracts from work- a habit that cannot be broken
· There is access to the distraction in the exact environment in which they should be learning (school)
· Both noticed the correlation between their decreased performance in school and increased use of technology- distractive media
After reading the two accounts, all these negative things (isolated teen, school access, distractedness, anxiety and bad coping mechanisms) appear to be a slew of horrible actions- exactly the actions that cause parents to have one of the 2 aforementioned reactions to technology. But they are all connected. The key lies in what one of the guys said, which led to understanding the first section of this paper -the first puzzle piece to this project: ill read it again-
Slide 6: “I had [a] panic attack. [...] one of the first things I did when I felt better was go on reddit and just scrolled. An hour later I just thought, “What am I doing” I just had this mental episode and here I am not doing anything about it. [...] . It’s like an excuse or a distraction from dealing with life more than anything.”
Slide 7: To begin to unravel why, this guy couldn’t make himself stop scrolling -couldn’t start his piling up homework, we need to understand how the brain works. We are going to start a crash course in Cognitive Psychology -a fancy way of saying “how the brain works”
On the slide, you will see this bright illustration of how one artist imagines our nervous system works. The blue interconnected lines are the Neurons of our nervous system, all connected to one another in a web of pathways, where messages in the form of electric signals flow though. Everything -from memory to problem solving, to motor skills- happens in electronic signals that flow between and through our Nervous system.
Slide 8: Let's start with discussing how the brain works: on the screen is a side view model of the human brain. I'm going to really generalize this model by describing the five main regions of the brain, each one is playing a different role and how we operate in the world.
1. The first is the Hindbrain this includes the brainstem (brown) the cerebellum (purple) -this region in the brain controls our basic and reflex functions like organ function, heartbeats, instinctual actions, and the production of hormones and neurotransmitters.
2. The next region seen in green is the temporal lobe: this region is in charge of hearing but also language. language and hearing actually play a huge role in our relations and understanding of the world, and so this region is surprisingly large.
3. The Occipital Lobe the small yellow region- don’t be deceived by its size- that is where visual reception, balance, sight- all those things take place.
4. The red section the Parietal Lobe: it is in charge of sensation orientation and the other senses.
5. lastly is the Frontal Lobe. We've all heard about the front lobe- there's a reason everyone talks about the front lobe because that's where all our thinking takes place, we exist in this frontal region almost entirely-the frontal lobe controls our forethought, ability to gauge our behavior, problem solving, higher order thinking, or any kind of planning. all the adult things that we don't expect from children take place in our developed frontal lobes that don’t fully become solidified until almost the age of 30.
Slide 9: The best way to think about how our brain works I think is looking at it like a big city. The neurons are these little houses that are connected by these long tails that can be seen as roads. Here is an image of an individual Neuron Cell.
1. The first part is the dendrite. This is where information goes into the cell. The electronic signal travels down the dendrite to the cell body, where it is analyzed and send down the Axon.
2. the Axon is the long narrow “tube” where the signal flows down- the stronger a signal is (think of the difference of being touched vs being punched) is determined by how fast this signal flows through the axon to the far end of the neuron.
3. This end is called the Axon Terminal: in the axon terminal, the signal must be intense enough to force the signal to jump off the terminal, over a tiny gap call the synapse, and onto the dendrite of the next connecting Neuron.
Slide 10: Let's take a closer look at this jumping process.
· blue part = the axon terminal of one neuron
· purple part = the dendrite of the next connecting neuron cell
· The space = is called the synapse. The space acts as the buffer zone. If a signal isn’t intense enough, it may never jump over the next neuron at all. Think of when you listen to music, the signal may reach this point, and want to just over to a neuron that connects the temporal (hearing) Lobe with the occipital (sight) lobe, but obviously music has to sight, so the signal stops at this gap.
Red Dots= The electronic messages are carried over that space by something called a neurotransmitters or hormones. Think of a neurotransmitter like a bridge over the space. Depending on which neurotransmitter carries the signal over the space, that is HOW the signal will be interpreted by the next neuron.
Example: GABA: reduces excitability -the body starts to produce it before we go to sleep, or when an activity starts to feel “boring”
Dopamine: The hormone released that produces the sensation of “pleasure” -any time anything feels good. It incentivises us to continue doing an action, or when it isn’t used, then we are discouraged from an action.
Serotonin: Milder than Dopeamine -it makes us feel calm or relaxed, also a pleasure neurotransmitter.
Epinephrine: regulated muscel function. Also released in an emergency situation -triggers the flight/fight instinct.
So why is this important for technology? Well, it's all about the information that goes in. if information is exciting what hormone bridges do you think are released to take that electronic signal over? Dopamine! The mind is continually and always taking in information and sorting it in order to keep us safe- its goal is to absorb the new and bring our attention back to a state of “normal” or calmness -this is called homeostasis.
When something grabs our attention however, that signal is more rapidly transported down the neuron’s axis and over the gap. A well-used Axon path has to be maintained in order to not wear down. When a Neuron pathway becomes well used -think of a baby learning to walk-That road becomes better maintained and paved in a fatty protein called Myelin. Much like the plastic coating on a bunch of wires, this Myelin Sheath protects/insulates the signal and allows it to flow faster. when you learn something new, you're stimulating a rarely used neuron. You're connecting two neurons that have probably never been connected before, like right now maybe you're learning this for the first time you're making these connections of two neurons for the first time. As you review your notes, continue listening and form more connections, these pathways are coated in Myelin and “solidified” -this information becomes long-term. Lets look at Dopamine:
Slide 11: The most primitive and instinctual based parts of the brain are the Hypothalamus. It is found in the Hindbrain, and it controls our Reflexive and impulsive actions as well as being as the primary location of our brain’s dopamine pathways. Dopamine is the hormone found in every mammal species and has one basic function: to trigger our pleasure/pan response.
UCLA’s director of neuroscience, Dr. Whybrow adds, “Our brains are wired for finding immediate reward.” What is the reward? A rush of positive emotion. “Novelty,” Dr. Whybrow concludes. We are all looking for something new and exciting. We eat, sleep, talk to people, go on the bathroom, get dressed in the morning because these habits -these instincts, are rewarded by dopamine. Dopamine is the Neurotransmitter that makes us to act, and to continue acting. We need dopamine to survive.
But it can be equally damaging as well: Dopamine is released any time we enjoy anything, and this can create dependence. We are rewarded every time we go on our devices with a hit of dopamine. Our phones are designed to be engaging, fun, and exciting. We know this is true because we all go on our phones out of habit. You don’t form habits with things that don’t provide a hit of dopamine at some point. app developers have the best of the best researchers, and design apps to be as engaging and exciting as possible to keep users on them.
The more a pathway is visited and used, the faster the signal moves through. Moreover, when we enjoy an activity, the synapse space becomes flooded with Dopamine and other Neurotransmitters -all trying to speed the signal up and increase the emotion felt. Remember, the brain always aims to return to a state of normal (homeostasis), and so to make up for this flooding or overproduction, it does something interesting: it widens the synaptic gap. The widening of the gap is what Addiction research knows as Tolerance.
Slide 12: Tolerance; the repeated use of a stimulant -anything that releases Dopamine-creates a need for a higher “dose” to get the same effect because this space (synapse) widens in the brain’s attempt to keep the level of neurotransmitters stable. The space grows to make room to the amount of Dopamine released- ad different things release greater amount of Dopamine. But tech designers know this: Children's apps are growing more colourful. Influencers try more and more daring schemes, and Films grow increasingly loud, violent, and edited to engage a progressively more desensitized -tolerant- audience.
The increasing stimulated online environment and experience has consequences for everyone across the board. Here is a test: for just 20 minutes go on a device and engage in high-intensity content: this includes watching any DC or Marvel film, playing any online or app game, and just browsing any social media platform, especially short-time content like twitter, snapchat, ticktock, or Instagram. When 20 minutes are up, pick up a chapter book or even your devotions and try to read. You will find this nearly impossible. At the very least, you will be distracted.
This is because when engaging in highly stimulating content, you are triggering the Hypothalamus, which is flooding the synapse- the space, with Dopamine. Even if only mildly, your mind is stressed. The reason it doesn’t feel stressed, is because we have built a tolerance. We may feel fine, but our brain structure is literally altered to make up for the amount of constant stimulation we receive.
Now here’s one more fun fact about the brain: we call these activities “vegging” -after dinner coffee while we sit on our phones, we do it so we don’t have to think about work, or tomorrow, or anything like that. meanwhile more complex systems that control deeper thought and action are all but dormant because they can only function fully when we are calm, and the system has downshifted to a normal pace.
Slide 13: Keep in mind that you have a fully developed brain: your Frontal Cortex, adrenal, and nervous system are developed. What about children? For whom these systems are no longer developed.
Now imagine the havoc any film, app or game has on a developing mind: The average teen spends over 2 hours online every day (any screen time counts towards this). It is estimated that it takes 30 minutes for the brain to completely readjust to the “normal environment” again. What does this mean for education? Thought? Conversation? Brain development? Through study after study, time on a device has been proven to interfere with everything from the development of motor skills to logic and imaginative capacities, and even worse, the development of identity and empathy. How?
Lets go back and look at the neuron:
Slide 14: (Sensory Adaption: the reduction of activity in sensory receptors when exposed to stimuli for long time.)
When a child is born their brain goes through a two-part process.
· The first is called synaptogenesis: it is the formation of new synaptic connections. Basically that means neurons form new connections. They connect with each other as a child learns about the world they live in.
· the second part is something called synaptic pruning: this is an intense loss of weak nerve cells that are not being used.
The brain is continuously forming new connections, while deleting the neurons that aren’t being used in other regions of the brain. Synaptic Pruning is most intense from Birth to age 5, and again at the start of puberty to the end. The age of birth to 5 is considered the Critical Age period, because this is the time in your life where the groundwork to everything is laid down. Everything about how you will be, your personality, learning ability, etc, -all this is established before you can even remember it properly. This is where Myelin comes back into the picture.
Remember, Myelin is the insulating layer that coats Nerve cells. Layers and layers of myelin act as pavement until the connection is permanent and faster. At no point in your life are you forming connects and solidifying them with myelin as you are from birth to roughly age 5 (critical age period). Research shows that any screen time, particularly of movies, shows, YouTube content – no matter how much it is marketed to children and claims to be designed for children, still triggers the release of access- too much- dopamine. During this critical stage of development, the mental stress of this over-stimulation for long periods of time -anything over 20 minutes, begins to slow the production of Myelin and shut off the use of frontal lobe functions -something a child has to practice in this age period.
How can you know? every parent knows the disaster that is trying to put a kid to bed after they have watched a movie: you cant. They are over stimulated. Awake- their dopamine and adrenaline systems are over-producing, and this blocks the production of GABA and serotonin- the sleeping hormones, for entering production. As their over stimulation increases or continues, the myelin production systems slow. At the age of 5, the brain is still forming and developing. The slowing of Myelin at this age can have lasting affects, and show itself in the development of learning disabilities and similar symptoms such as inability to consentrate, focus, irritability, and lack of imaginative abilities -all early systems engaged in the underdeveloped Frontal Lobe.
This is the critical age range where the brain is establishing functional norms based on the child’s environment. Myelin production and pathways can erode and slow. The brain of a 6-year-old who watches Peppa Pig or plays Minecraft for an hour a day will experience functional deterioration.
Slide 15: What does this mean when a child hits the age of 5 and enters school?
· A child on a screen is not engaging their imaginative/deep thought systems, so no new pathways are forming.
· They are in a stressful environment, so the myelin- the pathway-coating system is eroding
· And third, the increased levels of dopamine has built a tolerance. The threshold for when their brain is engaged enough to begin learnings has risen, so the effort and entertainment needed to keep the child engaged increases too. This all begins to look like ADHD symptoms...
All three of these affects appears as the loss of attention and inability to focus. UCLA Dr. Bartzokis concludes that these eroded and damaged myelin coatings on the axons of brain/nerve cells drive the increases in all the mentioned neurological disorders, particularly ADHD in children. “The number of children with learning disabilities has almost tripled in the last few decades,” notes Dr. Sax, “And this number is only expected to rise.” Further, there is a direct correlation to this rising number, and the amount of screen time these children are suspected of having had in the Critical Age Range before they entered grade school.
Remember our testimony from earlier? We can conclude that He can’t focus because his brain is compromised, continues to be compromised, and thus, has no attention span left. He Cannot focus on school work, because school doesn’t trigger the necessary hit of dopamine that his brain associates with attention and entertainment. Moreover, the brain is no longer used to engaging slow signal pathways elsewhere, that you need to engage when learning. These shut off when access dopamine is produced (when we are highly engaged) and just become harder and harder to access afterwards.
Slide 16: The shortening attention span of children has exhausted teachers pitting pencils and paper against high speed and stimulating technology. Across North American classrooms are shortening class periods and lectures, while incorporating more and more technology into the classroom in an attempt to reengage students -using the very technology that is wreaked havoc on their engagement facilities to begin with. Even our school division began a program of giving every 5th grader a personal laptop.
“The more a child is stimulated, the more the child must continue to be stimulated to hold its attention,” Dr. Victoria Dunckley concludes in her phycological research. The unnaturally stimulating nature of devices, no matter the content, is disrupting the development of a child's nervous system and mental health cognitively, behaviourally, and emotionally.
Further, the over-stimulation creates a high stress environment which is why being on our phones is so fun. That’s why we go for our phones as soon as we feel a tingle of boredom. But it is also why when a child goes off the device, they have a glassy expression or burst into tears: They are exhausted. Signs of an overstimulated mind are irritability, agitation, exhaustion, apathy, and inability to focus. The on-screen environment puts an unnatural amount of stress on the brain (especially an underdeveloped brain, like a small child) that it rarely experiences in day-to-day life- the brain systems in place to deal with stressful environment aren’t meant to be engages to consistently and constantly- and this forces the brain to overexert in the production of other hormones and neurotransmitters to combat this constant stress and high-stimulation: It damages development.
All of this can and does create a dependence on the devices to reach the level of stimulation required for learning or mental engagement to happen. Dependence creates Tolerance. Additionally, the ever-increasing list of psychological disorders have a correlation to increased tech use that mimics addictive behaviour. Like any addiction, tolerance and desensitization developed, and the hyper-stimulated child needs ever-increasing levels of visual stimulation to continue engagement.
Tech companies are selling a narrative that children need the devices for their shortened attention spans and to keep them engaged. They aren’t wrong. But that hardly fixes the problem. A child who is crying from frustration because they can no longer hunker down and work through a math problem should not be rewarded with a screen and app where the numbers appear brighter and the app gives them a coin for every right answer. It works, preciscly becauseit meets the child on their level of damaged cognatic abilities. Rather, these affects need to be revearsed a soon as possible.
Also, it forms habits of learning based on immediate reward systems. You know what else runs on an immediate reward system, has built up tolerance, and dependency? Addiction.
Slide 17:
According to Dr. Nicholas Kardaras, Ph.D., Addiction can be defined as follows: “the continuing of a behaviour in a compulsive way despite adverse effects.”
This definition counters our common excuses that we use to claim not being addicted: Parents might think “but they just have screen time once a week” or, “I only sometimes give them my phone.” As you can see, this definition removes the numbers game. It’s not about how often, but rather about dependence- dopamine. The fact that your child cries when the device is removed and begs to use it all the time is an immediate and clear symptom of addiction.
Addiction is the dependent association and attachment to a “fix” to create an artificial and temporary fulfilment. Dr. Kardaras calls this Attachment Theory.
Dr Kardaras went on: “People prone to addiction have lower baseline levels of dopamine and other feel-good hormones. These people are more likely to get hooked on experiences and or behaviours that give a temporary dopamine rush.” Essentially, the Addictive quality of anything can be determined partly by the amount of dopamine that is released in the use, and for some people, there is a higher risk than others:
food cravings: 50% Increase in dopamine production.
Porn: 200%
Drugs (from alcohol to heroine) near 350-1200%
Essentially the addictiveness of something depends on how much it spikes the dopamine productions systems. We need dopamine. IT makes us do everything and feel good about doing some things. Dopamine is released when we eat chocolate, after we go for a walk, or have a deep conversation with a friend. But these things are what our system is designed to handle. It can release counter- Neurotransmitters at normal rates and will not need to widen the synaptic gap to compensate for the flood of pleasure-hormones in the same way. However, it becomes a risk when we start to use smaller/less-addictive distractions for to deal with our natural environments. Dr. Kardaras gives the following more relatable examples:
· Stress at school: (proper study habits would lessen the stress) however, turn to attachment of caffeine or or scrolling through media to stay awake/distract from stress.
· Lack of self-identity: (the anxiety from this should address by seeking an environment where identity can be established) however, social media becomes the attachment that allows for a shallow-level of fulfilment and feeling of success.
· Lack of competition/hard work: (the low in mood should be addressed by seeking meaning and responsibility to re-attain motivation) However, it is easier for young men to turn to the attachment of videogames which allows rapid dopamine hits of success in a simulation of a responsibility in the game
As you can see, these are important areas of life- which do not create immediate reward, but the natural low that comes from not having them is there to tell us that we need to find a better long-term meaning. But Media and devices, especially for children, give false reward simulation, and thus don’t force the person to “solve” this area of need in their life.
Kardaras goes on to speak of relationships, and how often these shallow attachments can stem from a relationship deficiency: If a child, doesn’t receive nurturing, they will attach themselves later in life to external entities. For an adult this theory still applies; if we do not have healthy and meaningful attachments to family, peers, and the community, we will develop alternative attachments to meaningless things like alcohol, an app, or the content on our phones.
Giving a child a phone to play with rather than reading a book with them does two things:
· first, it misses an opportunity of building an attachment, -remember what we talked about at the beginning about the need for deeper relationships- where you understand and know your child and therefore don’t fear them engaging with technology in the same way when they are old enough to be given this independence.
· And second, while you are missing this critical opportunity, you are supplying them with a device – something that will always be infinitely and immediately more exciting than you (but you are the only person who can fulfill that area of meaningful relationship at this age). Something that triggers their dopamine, over stimulates their gratification and rewards systems, and thus will create a rapid attachment- addiction that isn’t the parent.
Dr. Kardaras goes on, “When a certain need is not being met, or something is lacking in a child’s environment, they will try to find the fulfilment of that need, and most commonly, it will be found in the temporary relief gained from a compulsive behaviour,” that is, an attachment. When the compulsive behaviour is continued even after it harms the individual, it is an addiction. Adults have the ability to self-check and discipline their online behaviour; but what of a young teen? Are they stronger than technology’s pull?
Slide 18: So where to even begin with combatting the attachment and attention that technology steals from children -particularly at a time in their life when they are most vulnerable, such as the Critical Age Range.
Researcher and Journalist Johan Hari, whose quote we read at the beginning, dedicated his life to understanding the mechanisms of Addiction. His book, Chasing the Scream, is an autobiographic account of his journey in discovering a new way to understand addiction in Western society.
Our modern and outdated perspective on addiction and attachment stems from the research of the famous Psychologist B.F. Skinner. Rats are used in experiments because a rat has a hypothalamus that works similar to ours. That means they get addicted to things similarly to humans. Skinner placed rats in cages known as “skinner boxes” and gave them the option between normal and drug-laced water. The rats almost exclusively chose the drug laced water and drank themselves to death. This experiment created our modern narrative on addiction:
1. Once an addict, always an addict; and
2. The drug itself makes an addict.
Johann Hari didn’t agree with this model for one simple reason -why didn’t everyone exposed to anything addictive become addicts? In fact, very few people do. His research led him to Canada actually, where he came across the researcher Dr. Bruce Alexander of British Columbia. Dr. Alexander chose to tackle the problem of the skinner box because he saw his home city of Vancouver deal with one of the worst opioid crisis in its history. He decided to recreate the “Skinner Box” but changed a crucial element of it: He made a Rat Park. It was a single, large cage complete with toys, games, other rats, and food. It was a rat paradise. After the rats were settled and happy, he added the two water options. The rats in Rat Park also tried both types of water, but unlike the skinner boxes, not a single Rat in Rat Park became addicted.
Dr. Alexander saw this and created a hypothesis: addiction is less about the drug and more about the environment and conditions within one's life. The rats in the skinner boxes became addicts to distract themselves. They were bored, isolated, and depressed. The drug -the opioid was their temporary and constant fix for the larger unfulfilled needs in their life. Rat Park taught the world a lesson in understanding attachments/addictions: Without healthy socialization, deep meaningful relationships, and a healthy attachment development, we are more vulnerable to attaching to a temporary fix; be it social media, videogames, or mindless scrolling. Rat Park shows that cheap and temporary fixes can be overcome, if a person fills the void they attempted to fill with the addictive behaviour, instead with meaningful work, strong relationships, and deeper experiences.
Slide 19: Like every addiction or attachment, phones give us temporary highs as we complete a level, send a text, or post a photo. And here is the sad reality: Hutterite culture is both the prime place to combat addiction, but it is also the perfect place to develop it. We have a unique culture that has been described as “social isolated interaction.” We are connected more closely with the hundred+ people on our colonies, but we are also deeply isolated from the other people who call themselves Hutterite at the same time. Every non-colony relationship is considered long distance, and technology entered the picture to bridge this gap.
My generation took high school courses almost exclusively over the ITV system. There was a lack of physical peers and teachers. All friendships formed throughout high school were long distance. From age 13-17, relationships were formed online and on social media, peppered with small gatherings to see classmates face-to-face here and there. In the last 3 years, there haven’t even been any gatherings at all!
Johan Hari addressed this increasing use of tech as a fix for our lack of deep/close contact relationships: “The connections we have [online] are a parody of human connection.” In a crisis, “It’ll be the people who you have deep and nuanced and textured face to face relationships with who you will go to for aid.” Devices and increased access to media has created a gap -in relationships with the people present, and opened the door to reaching other people who are not.
So overall, we observe a decrease in attention span, a collapse of attachment in combination with an increase in empty and temporal attachments. A child’s brain moreover is underdeveloped and not able to handle a high-stimulus environment for a long period of time (this literally means a regular movie once a week), which is why many neuroscientists and psychologists theorize that we are seeing an explosion of developmental and psychiatric disorders: i.e.- depression, anxiety, bipolar disorder, ADHD, and addiction. Are we seeing a pandemic of psychological disorders everywhere, or a pandemic of overstimulation and exposure to content that exacerbates symptoms? Further, what are we doing to solve the problem?
Solutions to too much exposure at too young an age would be less exposure and waiting until a child is older to give them access. But we are largely doing the opposite. In the education field, we all know the American curriculum and structure is largely outdated. This is evident when viewing Nordic nations like Denmark and Sweden which continually score much higher than American students. Yet rather than revising an old and broken education system, we simply started incorporated technology at younger ages, to engage these otherwise attached and distracted young minds. Students are given options of PowerPoints over essays; Students do math online rather than on paper. Pdf’s are sent rather than physical books given out. Schools incorporate videogaming to teach history lessons and ELA concepts.
Steve Jobs himself disagreed with tech in the classroom: “I’ve probably spearheaded giving away more computer equipment to schools than anybody on the planet. But I’ve come to the conclusion that the problem is not one that technology can hope to solve. What’s wrong with education...no amount of tech can make a dent.” Instead of a addressing a crisis of lessening attention spans, and rising neurological disorders and learning disabilities, we added more technology, which only further exacerbates the problem.
A Step Forward: A dialogue of Solutions:
Here’s a start: give your students paper. Studies show that students who read pdfs on a computer perform worse on comprehension and memory tests than student who physically held and read paper. Humans retain information through connections to information’s physical location on the page: on the right or left side, right or left corner. We even subconsciously note which side of the book is lighter or heavier, page numbers and such to be able to recall certain information when reading, physical markers create a subconscious mental map that allows for better, faster and more permanent memory retention. Screens prevent all of this and inhibit the mental mapping process.
· I will be the first to vouch for the incorporation of technology, but it must be done wisely, slowly, and with far more intent than it is now. We cannot blindly embrace it without fully understanding what is being given up with the exchange.
· Next, from what we know of rat park and addiction, to “break free” of the cages the technology has created, we must rebuild connections. The void technology was trying and failing to fill must be mended. Spend time with your children. Begin by counterbalancing the pull of technology with the pull of community. The chances that you as a parent will stay ahead of your child in technology knowledge is next to zero, so play your winning cards: you are their parent, and they need you. They need a deep and nuanced relationship with you and with others, to understand meaning beyond a screen- beyond any temporary fix and dopamine high. Teach young men and women to work. Work hard. Develop a skill. A hobby. Dr. Leonard Sax notes that for most men, a lack of discipline, hard work, and competitiveness often results in the first appeal of videogames. While for most girls it is a lack of communal environment and mentorship that makes them far more susceptible to social media and its unachievable standards. (This will be addressed more deeply in upcoming chapters.)
· The upcoming generation of children needs to be limited in their exposure if the research does show such extreme developmental setbacks correlated to exposure. Dr. Dunkley recommends no screen time or even exposure until the age of 5. If this isn’t possible, then it must be limited at all costs. It should not be a first or second resort. Teen years and the introduction of online peers and courses make it tricky. Have a genuine conversation with these kids. You won’t ever fully know or understand the online content. But you can Build a relationship with your child where they know clearly what standard you want them to uphold, and that they want to meet, for as long as it is possible, never stop talking to your child, questioning them about school, their friends, their day. Then actually listen. At some point your teen will stop telling you everything, but they need to know that if they wanted to say more, the option and safe space is there. Moreover, they will know what your expectations are, and what values they need to uphold online, and If the relationship is established and maintained, they will continue to abide by them.
· Finally, we need to stop gravitating to technology to solve boredom. We provide ourselves and kids with devices to cope with this, but it just creates a dependence on screens to get through the day, rather than building our abilities of observation and deep personal thought. We always knew technology would change us, and such change would involve a level of loss. But surely, we can mitigate that loss at worse; and at best, choos
e what it is that technology with replace: it does not have to be healthy habits and relationships. It doesn’t have to be mental stability, our attention spans, or our ability to think. Most of the changes can be steered towards something beneficial. The potential of use with intent is there.
Final Question slide: We as Hutterites have very quickly adopted technology into our culture, and now it is perhaps time to back up, reassess, and set down some standards. Our culture is built in such a way that this is perhaps easier for us than society at large. We have the advantage of physical distance to assess from afar. In many ways we can view the research done and change before our culture is completely saturated by the individualistic infiltration of technology. Finally, we have community. Growing up in a community, it is very easy to take for granted that we can at any time come together as families, as colonies, and as a church at large to have an open discussion about the risks and benefits of technologies. But also have the ideal place to build the exact level of deepened relationships talked about at the beginning At the heart of this discussion must be certain things: Combat the unknown of technology by knowing your child.
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