Under your control or not? Internet addictions are real...

Some new studies are out, pointing out the troublesome backside of our connectedness online via e-mail, Facebook, Twitter and texting (SMS in Swedish). A new study concludes that the internet is more addictive than alcohol and nicotine, and I am starting to believe that (I don't have the link to the study yet, will post it when I find it). I have worried about this a long time, and have made a conscious decision not to be active on Facebook, not to have a twitter account, and try to keep the flow of information into and out of my head under my own control.  But in today's world you can't do your job unless you are connected online, and without an e-mail account that you check everyday, your career and job availability would mostly be dead (well, maybe not if you are an artist living in New Hampshire, but I think you know what I mean... :).

I make it harder for me to be or get too addicted by not getting a smartphone, not having the laptop at the breakfast table, and consciously turning off e-mail and Skype during stretches of time at work, but the feeling is still there - "Oh, what is new? What is going on?  Who needs me now?  What cool things am I missing!?"  I believe that this deluge of wanted and unwanted information plays straight into our psychological triggers in our brain.  We get addicted, if we want it or not.  And the more we use it, the more addicted we get.

 (from Toothpaste for dinner, used with permission on this blog)

I teach at a university and cellphone and internet use is not allowed in my classroom.  But 30 seconds before class starts half the class is sitting with their cell phones and earpieces and hangs out online.  They are not present in the moment in the classroom.  After class starts, they put it away, because I do stop the lecture and ask students who text/surf/etc. on the internet if they want to leave the classroom.  So far, nobody has when I asked, everybody just apologies.

Some professors just give up and let the students do whatever they want, but I want to present a counterpoint to the deluge and addiction out there.  If you are in my class you should be focused on the class and the topic, nothing else.  I know this is hard, from my own experience, since I have been through many boring lectures, meetings and seminars in my day.  But if so, then doodle with a pen while listening, don't run to the internet and get totally off-track.

Meetings, which is a whole other subject.  I often sit in meeting at the big university with fancy professors, busy staff, or pompous administrators, and nearly half of them are playing around with their gadgets (mostly Blackberries, iPads or iPhones these days).  It is not only horribly rude to the persons that are trying to get things done, it is also inefficient and leads to longer, and more boring, meetings that take on the feeling that these meetings are unimportant.  If I lead a meeting from now on, I will ask everybody to refrain from any internet use, pay attention to the meeting and focus on solutions, instead of drifting off into unfocused realities.  Senior professors that just got an iPad or iPhone are the worst...

Remember when TV was all bad for you?  Carrying an iPhone with you is a lot worse than having a TV on at home (I do think TV on all the time is bad too).  But the iPhone is there, in your pocket, like a happy pill that you can take as often and as much as you can.  Who can say no?  And when there are free games that become truly addictive, a hundred contacts (that you really don't know), and everything is instant, forever, and shallow - it is not necessarily always a good thing.

The internet and social media could be used in a good way, and often is, but how do we make sure WE are in charge of our time and lives, and not someone else?   Gambling is considered an addition, but I think excessive internet use should be classified as one as well.  The problem is that internet use is EVERYWHERE, and includes kids from 2 years old and upwards. And here I am, blogging about the problems with the internet... :P

(from Toothpaste for dinner, used with permission on this blog)

So, here is my advice.  Turn off your cell phone sometimes.  Never check e-mail or your phone in bed. Read a book.  Insist on being unavailable at times.  Refuse to get addicted, use the internet on your terms.  Focus, focus, focus.  Laugh at funny YouTube videos, blog, and post photos and videos online, when you feel like it, not when you feel like you have to.  Let us enhance the good things about the internet, and not forget that the real things are things you can touch and think about without the help of a screen, like a deer vertebrae in a forest, a good book, making pasta primavera, and creating things that are possible to touch, view, smell.  In 3 months, nobody will care how many friends you have online, but you will care about how many friends you could have a good time with in person at your house.  And that is what really matters.

Don't get me wrong here, I think there are really creative and positive uses for internet resources, it is just the addiction and the lack of focus on real things that gets to me. It is all about the quality of the input to and output from of our brains. There isn't enough thinking in the world anymore. 

OK, enough ranting from me, and here are some articles about this for those of you that want to read even more:

Uppdaterade och sömnlösa (DN.se, in Swedish, "Updated and sleepless")

Why studios need to think about the ethics of social gaming (The Guardian, UK)

Internet addiction test 

Internet addiction disorder 

Attached to Technology and Paying a Price (NY Times article)

Twittering in the forest (the real thing)

This morning I was going for a walk along our rural road on the mountain, watching the bare branches, some broken from the previous storms, and enjoying the clear, frosty air. The iPod in my pocket was playing a podcast of a short Swedish radio program called Tankar för dagen (Thoughts for the Day), where authors, ministers, scientists, physicians, social workers, artists, etc. write short essays, no longer than 5 min, that they then read.  It can be reminiscences and memories, thoughts about religion, ethics, psychology, or just reflections over modern life or times passed.

I was just listening to a short essay about how we often plan for a better life and for things to happen, while life just happens around us.  The author quoted John Lennon: "Life is what happens when you plan other things." (Or something like that.).  Suddenly I saw something and stopped.  Turned off the iPod (which was on a very low volume anyway).  Beside me, in the forest, were thousands of migrating grackles.  And more were coming.  They were on the ground, creating an image of boiling leaves when they where throwing leaves up to look for something to eat.  Some were in the trees.  Some were flying up, some were flying down.  Pitch-black metallic bodies, with metallic blue heads, like dark shadows, just chirping and twittering a bit.  More and more were coming, with no end.  They came between the tree trunks from the north, thousands and thousands.

They got scared and all flew up as one from the ground and a giant swoosh of wing sounds.  Down again.  Over the road.  More grackles coming through the forest, for ten minutes at least. It was impossible to count them, too many.  I think there was about 50-100 crackles per second arriving from the north, and since this happened for many minutes, that are many thousands of crackles.  Giant large flocks, flying seemingly synchronized and random, maybe 50 000 birds?  Where did they come from, in December, and where are they going? The grackles left us months ago, so these must be from the north.

Two cars went by, as did two bicyclists in their silly streamlined spandex suits, but nobody stopped to look.  You couldn't miss the birds, the drivers just weren't interested.  And there is was, life happening, right in the forest, while most of us where busy planning for other things. It was a gorgeous experience, a happy event, something Bob Dylan could have written a song about.  The largest flock of grackles I have ever seen, and it just happened to fly by.

I think this is relevant in many ways these days because so many of us forget to really experience things.  Instead we read about them, watch them on YouTube, hear about them through Twitter, Facebook, or e-mail, but we forget to see the real things right in front of us.  It is like this comment by comedian Louis C K from a YouTube video - what if Jesus would come back to Earth, would people listen to him or just send instant text messages about their experiences? All this instantness is stupidifying and shallow, it makes us forget to think, listen, and reflect on what is really around us. 

For the record, I am not on Facebook, Twitter, I don't text (SMS), I have no cable TV, but I think the internet is good, in the right doses at the right times. But all this electronic, digital media and instant, stressful communication can destroy the real experiences and make us make stupid choices. We forget to see, listen, and think about the real things, since we are just rushing to the next thing online. It worries me profoundly. More on this later...

Quote from the news: Are we there or not?

"You hear so much about how instantly reachable we all are, how hyperconnected, with our smartphones, laptops, tablets and such. But the maddening truth is that we’ve become so accessible we’re often inaccessible, the process of getting to any of us more tortured and tortuous than ever."

Great article, or maybe more opinion piece, by Frank Bruni in New York Times, about how difficult it has become to reach each other.  It is really true.  I monitor 3 e-mail addresses several times a day, have 2 more I check sometimes, and one cell phone, and one home phone.  I do not text, twitter or do facebook... so people know that they should e-mail me.  I have a work phone with an answering machine I rarely check (few messages on it). I am on Skype, sometimes, used to be on all the time, but it got too interrupty. I write comments on blogs and Flickr... there is many many snippets of communication going on, all the time.

It used to be that phone answering machines were checked often, now they can stay unchecked for days.  I strongly believe that we are so connected that we feel the need to hide, to disconnect, or we won't have time to do anything.  But, if anybody in my family calls my cell, I will call back as soon as I can, always.  But do we really need all of this?  My most precious communication events are the dining room conversations here at home, handwritten letters and notes sent to me, and long, thoughtful e-mails from friends and family.  None of those can be done on Skype, twitter, texting (SMS), Facebook, phone answering machines... it would just become to short and fragmented. 

Maybe it has become so easy to communicate that we no longer think about what we write.  In the old days, when you had to dip the pen into the ink every few seconds, you had more time to think, to formulate, and decide what to say and not to say.  These days you just throw things out there. And there are so many things thrown out there, that your message might be drowning, severely, unless someone really, really cares about what you have to say at that particular moment. But, maybe we often don't even have the time to care even if we wanted to, because we are stressed animals with too many distractions and too much to do... running around in circles trying to make ends and time meet.

Is complaining OK?

I don't like people complaining about things, but today I feel like complaining.   I just don't get it - how hard can it be just to be efficient, official, and friendly to make everything go more smoothly?

Examples:

If you write an official work-related letter (= e-mail) to someone you don't know at your workplace or wherever, at least include a title on the letter (so it doesn't look like spam), explain what the request is about (don't just ask them to open an pdf), and include a signature line with your full name and contact information so the recipient know who they are dealing with and where they are located. This is just common courtesy among work people, I think, but I see people failing to follow this all the time at the Big University where I work.

If you send a letter to a foreign (American) address, at least include the full address (even if it doesn't fit Swedish standards), and don't just delete the city name.  Thankfully the letter we were waiting for made it anyway, despite being incomplete and arrived here today.

If you write a letter, don't date the letter three days after it was sent.  Postmarks don't lie.

If you write to anybody, by e-mail or letter, sign any decision or order or directive with your name, and your contact information.  Don't let the letter be a anonymous bureaucratic nobody's responsibility. Take responsibility for your actions, even if it is just for sending a letter or making a decision.  In my experience, many Swedes are especially bad at making official decisions (it has to be backed up by official policy or a boss have to tell you what to do).  Here in America you can always make decisions and then apologize for them, which has other problems associated with it :). But making a decision and then not signing off on it, is weak.

Make sure you write the addressee's name correctly, and especially do not mix up last and first names.  (OK, this can be hard for Chinese names, but should not be a problem for Swedish and American names that are constructed the same way).We just got a letter today where the last name was the first name and vice versa and it should have been obvious it was wrong.  So nobody took the time to 1) put in the name correctly, and 2) check that the name was correct. (They also got the street name wrong... sloppy....)

A new rule from our not so dear governor of NJ, states that to be a professor, custodian, or just an employee at a NJ state-funded university you have to live in NJ, unless you get a special exemption. All current employees are exempt, but not if you move or get hired. The governor doesn't care that only 20% or so of the university budget is funded by the state and that considerations regarding spouses and others might make you decide to live in New York and Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), cities that are right next to NJ but not in our state.

More annoyances - the Check Engine light on my car goes on and off like a delayed lighthouse with PMS.  You never know when it will hit and when it will turn off.  I ignore it mostly. As long as the engine runs smoothly it is OK.  But it has done this for 7 years... Subaru, fix your electronics.

But there are good things too:  The Griggstown CSA had their first pickup today and it was great (about 8 kilo of fresh organic vegetables), the sun was shining without it being to hot, and the tomato plants are thriving in my garden despite the Colorado beetle I found yesterday. It is now dead and will soon be mounted on an insect pin for my Dad in Sweden.  I bet he doesn't have one in his collection.

OK, I am cranky tonight.  But in general, life works so much more smoothly if everybody is just trying to be pleasant, efficient, exact, and do the right thing.  It is not that hard, but it doesn't allow for sloppiness or irresponsibility, I guess. Accountability is not a bad thing...

Share and Like - maybe a profound thought or maybe just a rant....

We live in times where we can share more personal things with each other than ever before because of all online tools. We can tell the world what we like and dislike, favor and unfavor, and give thumbs up and thumbs down.  We can rate movies, books, give mojo (= good) on comments on Daily Kos, and have thousands of favorites of photos on Flickr.
 
Some of us (not me) have many, many friends on Facebook, and maybe even more followers on Twitter.  We send out messages via e-mail with links and attachments to great articles we find, funny cat pictures, and YouTube videos.  We skype each other while doing other things, chopping up time and conversations into small, disjointed pieces. We get the same from others, click on links, laugh and send things on.  We blog, put up pictures online, and hope to be found by whoever in the internet noise.  I am all involved in this, and I think it is a great example of the me, me, me-culture that UTNE Reader highlighted a while back. It is all about us, or is it really?


Media, social and traditional, online and in print, and on FM radio are all part of this.  It is not only chopped up time and factoids, and not only distraction and lack of attention, but really, the problem is bigger.  People don't think and do not really communicate much anymore in a way that is really true to who they are.  At least I believe so, because I do not think we all only care about Youtube videos, a LOLcat or something that just went viral.  I think we care about more things, and have our own thoughts.  The problem is that those own thoughtful thoughts are never really developed in this deluge of other stuff.

And isn't the problem here that for so many of these things, most of us don't really say what we think and feel about things anymore?  It has become too easy to send and share your Likes, that nobody really know what it means to really LIKE and LOVE something, because that is never written down.  When do people have time or take the effort to send long heartfelt e-mails or letters?  When do people talk on the phone about deep things?  When do we really share the real profound thoughts we might have, and if we do, how?

I think today's communication is rather shallow, except the ones we have with close friends. Most interaction and chatter online is rather meaningless, especially when all you do is to click Like/Dislike and Rating buttons.  If you write a short review, then you tell people what you really think.... not when you give a book a 4 out of a 5. But who has time with things like that?  So much easier just to click.

For all of you who have sent me videos, links, and photos, please keep sending them.  I love it, and I don't mean to criticize you.  I am just the same, I do all of these things.  I just got thinking about this and wanted to share it with you, readers of this blog.  And yes, there are some of you readers that send me wonderful, long letters, but I think you are a rarity. I like to write letters too, both by hand and on the computer.  The problem is lack of time. At dinnertime we have the most wonderful in-depth and convoluted conversations here at home.  But I see in society (American and Swedish) a tendency to become less and less personal, less focused on "who I am", and more about being one tiny fish going in the same direction as everybody else in the big general Gulf stream traffic on the internet.
(link to a great letter here)

The me-me-me-society is really not about ourselves, it is about trying to share something and be liked by many many people (who know very little about you) at once, so who dares to express something in a complete sentence with complete words that might be personal or honest? It could be used against you, in many different ways. Better to play it safe by just clicking on a Like button, right? But it that really fun?  Is that really that important?  Is that really liking something, for real?  I think we should all be more real. For real.

PS.  Of course this all applies to texting (SMS) too.

Fear-inducing advice forcing people away from outside

• Keep windows and doors closed as much as possible to prevent pollen from blowing into your home and car.
• Avoid going outside between 5 a.m. and 10 a.m., when pollen counts are highest.
• Don't hang dry your clothing outside, as pollen can be transferred to your clothes and into your home that way.
• Shower and wash your hair before bed so you don't spend the night covered in allergens.
• Exercise indoors during the pollen season.
• Wear a paper mask while gardening to protect yourself from flower and weed pollens. 

This was sent to me in an e-mail today from a website specializing in healthy living.  The e-mail was about seasonal allergies and these were the only practical advice they gave.  Based on this, if you suffer from hayfever and asthma you should never go outside, just stay inside and don't get any fresh air, and definitely not in the mornings. No wonder there are kids who never go outside with this kind of fear-mongering.  It is like pollen are EVIL things.  If you are seriously allergic I understand the issue, but this was sent as a general information e-mail to anybody with even slight allergies.  "Wear a paper mask while gardening", don't save energy and don't help the world become more sustainable by avoid using the dryer in the summer for the laundry... and run the air conditioning all the time inside your house or car with the windows closed...  I e-mailed them and wondered why they gave such unhealthy, energy-gouging and unsustainable advice to everybody.  A Culture of Fear, indeed.... 

A linguistic note as well - pollen is pollen in plural, not pollens, and flowers can be weeds and vice versa, but I think that is too botanical for the unnatural e-mail writer from Sparkpeople.com. The information on their website is a bit more toned down, but still fear-inducing.  I can just see millions of moms keeping their kids inside for fear of pollen, possibly in an air environment that is even worse for other reasons.

Now just remember, there are evil things out there.... animals and flowers and fresh air and such.

in disguise?

I got a very funny autoreply e-mail today:

"I will be out of the office until Tuesday October 26.  During this time I will be partially incommunicado and totally incognito."  

Do you think Superman is out there fixing things?