In case of emergency: Kevin Kelly
There’s nothing like a dose of Kevin Kelly to blast away any weak thoughts that might start creeping into one’s brain after reading something like this super-alarmist article in the NY Times.
The article – Your Brain on Computers – says technology is frying our brains and destroying our families and social lives. We’ve all read the same article at a dozen different newspaper websites a dozen times before: lots of information about how much time we spend (delete as appropriate) online/on Twitter/on Facebook/at work/with a computer/on our mobile phones. But actually very little in the way of any hard evidence – and in fact in the NY Times article even admits that:
"The bottom line is, the brain is wired to adapt,” said Steven Yantis, a professor of brain sciences at Johns Hopkins University. “There’s no question that rewiring goes on all the time,” he added. But he said it was too early to say whether the changes caused by technology were materially different from others in the past.
Nevertheless, five pages of heart-rending personal stories about a bunch of white-livered, malingering chicken-shits later, the dark thoughts come creeping back. Am I on Twitter too much? Am I addicted? Am I some kind of faint-hearted quitter?
That’s where Kelly comes in, and I must say thank you to the @AdHack blog – discovered via Twitter btw – for pointing me towards the only rehabilitation I need. AdHack has posted NOT MERELY a full transcript of Kelly talking about The Technium but ALSO a hypnotic video that makes it easier to swallow these words directly through the eyes and into the brain. Even a few minutes of exposure to this will help. I have picked out a few of the choice phrases below for those who are too busy even to watch online video these days.
Kelly doesn’t worry himself with whether technology is good or bad – he is beyond good and evil, redefining technology as an exotropic cosmic force that’s changing us at a genetic level and speeding up evolution (not sure about the science here but it’s exciting nonetheless). It really puts things back into perspective. Keep Kelly near, and try and use some of his phrases in business meetings next week. Do let me know how it goes.Kelly doesn’t worry himself with whether technology is good or bad – he is beyond good and evil, redefining technology as an exotropic cosmic force that’s changing us at a genetic level and speeding up evolution (not sure about the science here but it’s exciting nonetheless). It really puts things back into perspective. Keep Kelly near, and try and use some of his phrases in business meetings next week. Do let me know how it goes.
11 comments
Your argument had me until “chicken shits” Tim!
I definitely agree that technology is in effect speeding up evolution. And that the opportunities and information exchanges and network possibilities that technology facilitates are quite extraordinary (especially for social innovation).
I think it’s also helpful to consider any behavioural changes that technology might also be influencing/creating, even if potentially ‘negative’ (ie the research cited in the NY Times article about attention spans and reduced capability to filter important information).
The more we understand about technology and the way it impacts us, the more we can bend it to our advantage (a la the ‘programme or be programmed’ debate).
As for word of the week, I’m going to try to get “evolvable” into some meetings…
Tim you will love this article from Steven Pinker, also in the NY Times last week.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/opinion/11Pinker.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/11/opinion/11Pinker.html
Gosh – sorry you couldn’t parse my finely balanced sense of hyperbole.
As I said, I love the idea of it – very exciting – but not sure about the science re: “we’re evolving genetically”. I suspect that there is none, or that it’s a metaphor rather than literal.
Our behaviour is definitely evolving, and it sounds from the scientists like our individual brains are constantly re-wired by what we do (love the different ways the NY Times and Kelly relate this…), but again – I would have thought it highly unlikely that this was evolutionary change in the genetic sense.
I found the NY Times article wildly extravagant with conjecture (some research suggests… inconclusively) and a bit thin on evidence. Still, it’s always guaranteed to get a few readers, and knobs like me blogging about it.
Thanks for your comment
OMG Mike – thank you, sir. Pinker is an eminent psychologist at Harvard. The bloke who wrote ‘Your brain on the webz’ is a hack with a book to sell.
Hmm, I wonder who I believe…
Hi Tim, Have you read Jaron Lanier’s manifesto? I read the Pinker too, and wondered if they had ever had a conversation with each other. Lanier is quite belligerent on the relationship of humans with technology, and the extent to which our engagement with technology is changing the way we behave. Not always for good. It’s not alarmist though, so might be worth a read.
I would like to see Lanier and Pinker in the ring.
We cannot live without technology? Tell that to Sepp Blatter
Kevin Kelly has been shown – once again – to be a prescient genius. He should immediately be given the job of reforming English football. I think he’d be up for it and I’d love to see them getting spiritually violenced by The Technium
Hi Naomi,
I haven’t but I want to.
If only I could get around to reading ;-)
But seriously, I saw him talk at SXSW this year and thought he was brilliant. He told everyone to stop using their laptops and mobiles for a few minutes and most people did. It was excellent. Then he played some very weird instruments. Very imposing and powerful talk.
I too agree that it changing the way that we behave. Definitely. But I don’t think it’s changing us genetically, or that we are on a new evolutionary track because of it. As far as I know there isn’t any evidence for that at all. I’d love it if we were evolving in this way I really would. But sadly…
Weird that both Kelly and this alarmist chap at the NYTimes want to believe that it is changing us at an evolutionary level, with Kelly embracing it with a kind of millenarian rapture and the NYTimes dude totally bricking it.
Mike – that only just made me laugh just now…
Hi,
I think you make a good point, Tim, about how there is no evidence (at least none of which I am aware) of the way in which technology might be changing us at a genetic level. However, what I think technology does do is provoke interesting responses by humans both at a cellular level, and as a result of our genetic dispositions and make-up. How we extrapolate from those responses to then create new technologies is the real challenge.
Jonah Lehrer (blogs at The Frontal Cortex) is absolutely brilliant on this kind of thing. For example, he wrote a piece recently on how humans are natural seekers of agency (i.e. elements of human-ness) and, when we find it in technology, we are much more likely to be forgiving of that technology’s failings (cf. the crapness that is your average satnav with a human voice which we don’t throw away because, well, it’s somehow human and its feelings might be hurt!)
Perhaps ironically then, the really interesting opportunity is to create technology that is more human rather than wondering about whether or not the reverse is happening. This is possibly cheering news to, for example, technology developers in developing countries where resources are limited: create something with an element of human-ness in it and rather than your audience being forgiving of your failings, they will simply be more forgiving of your constraints.