Do You Miss Your Pre-Internet Brain?

[Burnt State]

Check Your Pre-Digital Head

Do you ever think back to what life was like before the internet came along and became an extension of your brain? Some might call our digital engagement a new storage space, some extra cloudy grey brain matter. Some might call it a parasite, a subtle, mechanical buzzard that feeds on our privacy and infects our dreams.Though the promise of the web was to make a more language literate audience it instead created a fifth language, leetspeak, the new kidspeak in the shape of a tweet. And now we are obsessed with images, sound and video, liking as many of life's simulacras as we can. Maybe it's just a giant brain drainage system?

However, the potential for our many voices, real histories and cross pollination of ideas is quite mystical when you think about it, though we might all just get co-opted by consumerism, porn, jihadism or conspiracies. Or we could learn about perception and the blue dress, or is it white and gold? Still it's an interesting, spontaneous moment where we learn just how complex we really are. What happens when everyone on earth is online sharing ideas & asking questions together?

There used to be a time when we kept our sudden thoughts and feelings to ourselves, but now we celebrate posting our intimacies online, a tumblr full of our hidden psychologies and ongoing desires. This is changing us. Our generation, those Gen X'ers that grew into adulthood online, used to share our thoughts and intimacies late at night with much fewer persons, or by mail. We gave each other photos and really good mixed tapes. Life was more internal, more quiet, more time for boredom and thinking. So even though I'm here sometimes I still miss that time period. Do you?

 

[Goggs Mackay]

I do miss the freedom of pre-cellphone days and the fact that it is hard to escape having a digital life per se.

But my main 'concern' is the challenges the young face in having their adolescence online, mistakes, triumphs and all. Kids cannot escape being filmed now and trust me, some of the stuff we got up to - well, I would not have wanted any permanent record put it that way.

It really worries me that we have young people being bullied into posing topless or doing something sexual online. There are already have been cases of young suicides over this kind of thing so you have to wonder how many kids are feeling really bad because things are being held against them they cannot erase etc.

I am so very, very glad I was starting my 20's when I first used the net and back then there were basically no graphics. Just boards and email. Pheeeew!

 

[Burnt State]

When you take time to review the full history of the Amanda Todd story you'll understand when I say that in the future we will look back at the idea of setting youth loose on the net without any social guidance to be worse than when we said that cigarettes was ok and good for people. There is a reckoning still unfolding in our soxiety's relationship to teen stress & mental health, pornography as a social experiment and our addiction to the simulations of experience. There is a certain knd of pathos and sadness to this whole internet thing I thnk sometimes.

 

[Burnt State]

Apologies, I just realized I was too busy dwelling in my own paradigm that i forgot to add two other options to the poll:

5. I was online during the Usenet days and was there at the start, and my brain has evolved along with the net.

6. I miss nothing at all as I celebrate the expansion of my mind into new networks & free storage areas. Just give me the jack into the back of my head and I'll be even happier.

 

[boomerang]

I do miss the freedom of pre-cellphone days and the fact that it is hard to escape having a digital life per se.
But my main 'concern' is the challenges the young face in having their adolescence online, mistakes, triumphs and all. Kids cannot escape being filmed now and trust me, some of the stuff we got up to - well, I would not have wanted any permanent record put it that way.

My concerns parallel those of Goggs. The 21st century child grows up in a kind of digital hive, constantly overstimulated, observed and over directed in small but imagination shattering ways. Personal boundaries are constantly under siege. Perhaps to the point that the very concept of 'self' has a different meaning than for previous generations. For good or ill, there is no returning to times past and certain aspects of self-identity and self-reliance before the wired-in life. But possible effects of growing up and living in this hive-world deserve close scrutiny.

 

[Tyger]

So much to say about all this - and ask. Thank you, Burnt, for starting this conversation. But as happens, must fly - work and timelines rule. Till later. Just wanted to bookmark this.

In case there are those who are unfamiliar with the Amanda Todd case - I was one - here is the wiki article about her case:
LINK: Suicide of Amanda Todd - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Larry C]

Like the generations before us assumed, we assume the digital age children will suffer due to the influences surrounding them. My parents probably thought my video game influence, (Atari and arcades) would be the ruination of my soul. Their parents thought Rock and Roll would turn them into delinquents etc. The real issue at play is how the family unit, whatever that may be, helps to guide today's youth through the maze known as the digital age. The situations change but the way to help steer our children and build the character to make the right choices stay the same.

 

[DaveM]

It would seem the genie is out of the bottle concerning people's actions in using the internet. There is this culture now that people using the Internet need to have everyone know their thoughts and actions.

The worst part seems to be that internet use brings out the worst stupidity in humans. I've seen people post on Facebook that they are leaving for a two week vacation. Hello? Stop on over and rob me blind. Go onto any website and see posters bad mouthing each other. Who cares? No one knows who I am.

It's best to make you purchases and check your email.

 

[manxman]

There is only one possible progression assuming technology carries on exponentially as it does, the total surrender of individualism, the hive connection, friends knowing what friends are thinking at any given time they are directly plugged into the hive, that will be the ultimate new black.

 

[Wade]

No, because I'm more "in tune" with myself than ever have been as far as expanding my horizons and interests by becoming familiar with certain concepts or trains of thought that probably wouldn't have ever appeared on my radar had it not been for the internet, and even if they had come to my attention by other means, even though I live in a large city I wouldn't necessarily have the time to visit my local libraries to get furthur information. Speaking of libraries, I can now check to see if any of them have the reading material i am interested in without wasting a trip to them or spending accumilated hours on hold only to find they don't carry a title or its loaned out and Worldcat has been nothing short of a revelation for me.

And as always I always spend quality time with my brain between the hours of 11 pm- 6 am pst and it's the most interesting 7 hours of my life.

 

[Wade]

What's more in coming across this thread I soon found my way to this book, which i immediately downloaded (of course) to my kindle

Amazon.com: Mind Change: How Digital Technologies Are Leaving Their Mark on Our Brains (9780812993820): Susan Greenfield: Books

 

[boomerang]

There is only one possible progression assuming technology carries on exponentially as it does, the total surrender of individualism, the hive connection, friends knowing what friends are thinking at any given time they are directly plugged into the hive, that will be the ultimate new black.

Nothing is certain but change, and I agree in principal. Details, as always, remain hazy.

 

[Burnt State]

My concerns parallel those of Goggs. The 21st century child grows up in a kind of digital hive, constantly overstimulated, observed and over directed in small but imagination shattering ways. Personal boundaries are constantly under siege. Perhaps to the point that the very concept of 'self' has a different meaning than for previous generations. For good or ill, there is no returning to times past and certain aspects of self-identity and self-reliance before the wired-in life. But possible effects of growing up and living in this hive-world deserve close scrutiny.

The overstimulation isn't just for kids. We subjects of modernity lead lives also crammed full with so many more details, actions, consumption, processing, visualizing and communications compared to our ancestors of the Pre-&-Post-Industrialized eras. While we have grown into it, the kids were born into it. When you look at the generally poor sleeping habits and weak family structures it's no wonder kids are more stressed and more suicidal. While there will be adaptations I'm not sure if it is natural, normal or necessarily having a net positive effect on the quality of childhood, teenage life or young adulthood. But then adults not long also claimed comic books and then music lyrics would damn children to hell. Maybe i just think they watch too much porn for their own good? Is this just a natural progression of new media as Larry C. pointed out or is something very malicious and different taking place?

Cases where kids destabilize because of what gets posted about them online, especially when it starts to trend, need much closer examination, explanation and action or there will only to continue to be more casualties, including western raised kids opting for a jihadi lifestyle.

There is only one possible progression assuming technology carries on exponentially as it does, the total surrender of individualism, the hive connection, friends knowing what friends are thinking at any given time they are directly plugged into the hive, that will be the ultimate new black.

Privacy, individuality and superficiality are the main themes I'm seeing unfold - a culture of short buzzes and tweets. With total exposure comes a kind of Orwellian emptiness, or a Brave New World soma induced coma of consumption and production, work and commodified plastic pleasure, all in digital packets from the new vending machine of human experience. The hive is an overstimulated horny buzzing bunch of mindless drones. That future has no appeal for me and seems to be an erosion of our physicality, our use of memory and the loss of the reflective individual. I see nothing sensual about it.

 

[Burnt State]

Or this overstimulation...

 

[Burnt State]

No lifeforms will go unaffected...

 

[Burnt State]

I'm in awe at the fabulist realities people can get into via the online world. I keep thinking of all those sad stories of people falling in love via their avatars in role playing games, leaving their families to meet their secret digital love only to find out that the desire fiction of their mind simply does not match the reality of who is behind the avatar. Even sadder still is when it's a 12-year old boy, bored with school getting off on seducing older hearts.

But the fiction of the better life as a jihadi bride has to take first prize as far as delusions for sale online. I wonder how sad and brutal must your life be here in the lap of western luxury to think that getting used by a brutal beheading soldier all night, after you spent the afternoon beating a chicken on a rock to prepare dinner in your jihadi romance, is somehow a good deal. Selling sad narratives filled with lies and making us feel shitty about our lives has always been the media's bread and butter. Nothing new here, just a little more extreme.

ISIS Sending Money to London Teenagers to Pay Jihadi Bride Air-Fares - Breitbart

 

[boomerang]

Burnt, I believe you are a career teacher. This no doubt gives you a privileged overview of youth as a society within our society.

I'm not a teacher (my wife is BTW), but a particular incident while working as a substitute has stuck in my mind. I was put in charge of a class of "MR", or mentally retarded kids of middle school age. Apologies if this term is outmoded. But suffice to say these poor kids struggled with everyday tasks considered simple and minor my most.

We were allowed to haul out the TV to show a movie--I don't recall what. What I do remember is the almost instantaneous tranquilizing effect the video had on the class. They were, almost to a single kid, utterly quiet, as if mesmerized by the power of the glowing screen.

Am I making too much of this? Maybe. But certainly nothing else I can imagine would have commanded the almost unwavering attention of these young people for whom attention to virtually anything was a challenge. It was almost like instant hypnosis.

 

[Burnt State]

Burnt, I believe you are a career teacher. This no doubt gives you a privileged overview of youth as a society within our society.

I'm not a teacher (my wife is BTW), but a particular incident while working as a substitute has stuck in my mind. I was put in charge of a class of "MR", or mentally retarded kids of middle school age. Apologies if this term is outmoded. But suffice to say these poor kids struggled with everyday tasks considered simple and minor my most.

We were allowed to haul out the TV to show a movie--I don't recall what. What I do remember is the almost instantaneous tranquilizing effect the video had on the class. They were, almost to a single kid, utterly quiet, as if mesmerized by the power of the glowing screen.

Am I making too much of this? Maybe. But certainly nothing else I can imagine would have commanded the almost unwavering attention of these young people for whom attention to virtually anything was a challenge. It was almost like instant hypnosis.

If TV is hypnotic then the web, with its multiplicity of channels and viewing options is easily the crack cocaine of media hypnosis. It has an endless array of images, videos and sounds to consume. A particular favourite of youth is tumblr and vine for their endless intimate peeps into the lives of others. I suppose there is a kind of power of seduction in this glance into private lives. I'm of the opinion that youth need to be making product online, and not brain numbing product, but making things that are living , vital and can hold your attention for more than 12 seconds.

What's interesting about TV as a cool medium is while passive, it is still a sustained engagement and the brain could think and respond to content if it chooses a critical engagement. I still remember when the first VCR showed up in my home - wow, I thought, the power to record and preserve my media, and then all of a sudden, the power to make my own media when the video camera came through the door. That was real revelation for me.

Sadly, media docility is the default reception. A classic video I used to show in class when I taught comm tech and media literacy classes was this preeminent 1957 hoax about how spaghetti grows on trees. It would routinely confuse a good chunk of kids in class, and some would just outright believe that's where spaghetti came from. There's a valuable lesson here. If life is not engaged directly e.g. making pasta at home with your egg in a well of flour, then the simulated lie will stand as truth. Now think internet lies...

 

[Tyger]

Starting in the mid-80's the phenomenon of the 'passive watcher' or 'passive participant', as young as kindergarten, was noted. Anecdotally, children were showing up and entering kindergarten having to be taught how to play. They were coming into the room and sitting passively, 'waiting for the show to begin'. They did not understand how to engage the real world in play, imaginative play.

 

[boomerang]

Heard an 'expert' on NPR the other day opining that a certain amount of quiet boredom acts as motivation and stimulus for young minds. Presumably, the imagination's inner driven fantasy networks are brought on line to fill the temporary void. This is, of course, antithesis to constant and externally driven entertainment at the fingertips of today's kids.

Don't know if this is true. But it would comport with Tyger's observations and with the kind of withdrawal symptoms both youth and adults often undergo when deprived of active media entertainment. At least in texting, blogging etc, we are communicating with other minds. But compared to interacting in person, the bandwidth is woefully meager.