There is a certain mutual agreement taking over a lot of people’s minds, and it says that technology is bad for you. You can look at bookshelves and bestseller-lists and you will find all kinds of books, essays and guides claiming it. Some say, the internet rewires our brains in unhealthy ways. Others hold Facebook accountable for the seemingly growing loneliness and depression among our society. And of course mobile-phones are responsible for all kinds of problems, causing restlessness and addiction.
The sociologist Nathan Jurgenson recently put it this way (in a very readworthy essay ): «This concern-and-confess genre frames digital connection as something personally debasing, socially unnatural despite the rapidity with which it has been adopted. It’s depicted as a dangerous desire, an unhealthy pleasure, an addictive toxin to be regulated and medicated.» There was even a debate about including «Internet-use Disorder» into the official diagnosis-books.
There is no doubt that the recent technology – especially the internet – have changed human behavior drastically. But like a shiny new mirror all it does is shedding a new light into society. There has been vanity before (think Erving Goffmann) or the fear of dumbing-down (think Neil Postman). It’s the human nature, stupid!
The question is now, how to deal with it. A lot of «experts» recommend slowing down with technology. De-tox. Others preach to get rid of it completely.
It is the same reaction so-called security-experts show when asked about the practical consequences of the NSA-eavesdropping-scandal: To cut all digital ties. To only communicate face-to-face or via handwritten letters. One of the most prominent voices in Switzerland even suggested to use a rural Swiss dialect as a kind of encryption-code.
As far as I see it, this is mostly bullshit. Technology is not the problem here, it’s our mental flexibility. I don’t embrace technology blindly, but adapt it carefully to my needs. In the past 15 years most of what I have learned I know ether from the internet or from books. I have gotten to know some of my best friends over the internet, fell in love «online» several times, and as of today I live a life that is deeply connected with it. I feel the same realness in front of one of my several screens like when I’m disconnected completely, hiking in the mountains. I pick the best of all the worlds and I feel healthy. I feel connected, not addicted.