Technology and Society

Could it be that the information we receive from every corner is really a distraction making us dumber? Recent research has some disturbing answers.

You’ve heard of “peak oil,” no doubt. That’s where the amount of oil we can easily extract from the planet begins an inexorable decline. Is it real? Have we reached that point? Pundits and experts trade arguments about this. But suppose I told you there’s another argument heating up, and that it’s not oil that’s in question. Though it’s hard to imagine things too much more fundamental to our civilization than major energy sources, this argument is about something actually more important. What might be slipping into an inexorable decline in nothing less than our smarts. Are we losing the reflective, creative intelligence of the human species.

What!? Don’t be silly, you say. Why, our brains, augmented now by the Internet, search engines, e-books, and the like—they’ve got to be better than ever. Well, no, sorry. Though you wont’ see it highlighted on TV or your popular web pages, the evidence is pouring in. Searchable, hyperlinked, interactive, multimedia-enhanced text, instead of augmenting our powers of intelligence, seems to be diminishing them. Careful, sustained, focused reading and thinking are in steep decline—especially if you take the younger generational cohorts into account. “Peak intellect,” as strange as it may sound, is quite likely already a reality.

Wireless technology drives us into an abstract "i-life" where only fingers and brains do any walking. How do we stay healthy in body, emotions, and spirit?

Going Within—but Not the Old Sacred Way

We live, perhaps without quite noticing, in the midst of a great exodus. Most of us, more or less, are on the trek, like it or not. Left behind is the old Earth, where good bodies were just the thing, and face-to-face communication was key. Back there, “reach out and touch someone” implied being at arms length, and “I’ll see you” meant just literally that.

Where we are going now is “within.” Not, however, the deep sacred “within” of the saints and the sages, but rather a hastily constructed, profit-driven, furiously evolving, virtual “within” the marketing people like to call “i-life.” The “i” here stands for “Internet.” But as so many different devices embrace chips, we might also say “e-life”—“e” now for all things “electronic.” Because this new promised land comes to us increasingly via all sorts of electronic screens, speakers, and controllers—in everything from cars to coffee-makers.

There are certainly some good videos out there, but books have always been an absolutely fundamental way to build our imagination and intelligence.

Books Can Help, Too Much Video Can Hurt

I think it was Francis Bacon who said, “speech makes a ready man, but writing a careful one.” Conversation, with its unpredictable ebb and flow, tends to promote quick-wittedness—whereas writing a lot teaches you more about organizing thoughts carefully. Similarly, today we might say, “too much video dulls the mind, while reading enriches it.”

Good cybersense is knowledge you need to hold your family together in an increasingly wireless, media-dominated world. How the different media affect your own and your loved ones minds is important. Over time, these effects can be profound.

A flood of messages inundates us nearly all the time, almost no matter where go. How will we cope with this toxic invasion of our intellect and bodies?

Work Should “Wake Up the Soul”

Karma Yoga—it’s the yoga of work and service. In an increasingly sit-down, keyboard-focused, stare-at-the-screen workplace, good CyberSense can help you stay whole and healthy. So I could write here about ergonomic chairs, good monitor placement, frequent stand-up-and-stretch breaks.

Those are all important. Care for your body. Do your asanas (yogic exercises)—or some form of preferred physical activity. But you can look up ergonomics and stretches easily elsewhere. Let’s talk here about what you are exposed to on all those screens, and in print as well.