An Open Letter to Those Complaining About Smartphones
Even if you’re right, you can’t stop it
Ol’ Louis CK has been popping up on my Facebook feed recently for his supposedly insightful rant on smartphones. Gawker writers describe it like this:
… a clarion call that will likely rival his insta-legendary “everything’s amazing and nobody’s happy” diatribe delivered nearly five years ago.
I also happened upon this incredible animated short called “The Innovation of Loneliness.” The production is amazing, but the message and story goes down a Louis CK-esque road exactly at 1:18, right around the point where the narrator stops referencing actual research and science and stuff.
To Louis, to the writers of that video, and to all those who are applauding and propagating their messages: I appreciate your opinion. You might feel that the massive connectivity of today’s technology is destroying our social structure, culture, ability to develop empathy, or all of the above. That’s fine, and I’m not writing this to specifically debate any of those points.
I am writing to say — No matter your opinion, no matter if you’re right or wrong, we cannot stop this technological beast.
I’m sorry. That’s the reality.
Within your various family units, you can delay it, as Louis CK implies he will re: his kids. And that’s fine — you’re the best judge on how to raise your children in this rapidly changing world.
I just want to make it clear that human-technological interaction is only going to get more and more immersive, and it’s going to happen at a faster and faster rate. So if you have a baby/toddler now, by the time they’re a teenager you probably won’t have to worry about them being a text-zombie and thus losing all their ability to properly interact with people face-to-face. No, you may have to deal with technology that interfaces with their actual flesh and bone, or brain, or something.
Sounds pretty scary. But I don’t think there’s anything to had by fearing it. This is the second part of my letter.
Don’t be scared
Here’s how I envision the impact of technology, especially when it comes to communication (e.g., smartphones, Internet):
Throughout all of our history, advances in technology have, on balance, worked out in our favour. I believe that the good tends to outweigh the bad, and that there will always, always be people that insist on focusing on the bad instead of looking to the overwhelming good.
The media is often guilty of highlighting the negative things in life, would you agree? It’s much easier, I think, to harangue on these low hanging fruit. It’s easier to see the fault of something in hindsight than it is to try and anticipate the good it will bring in the future. Yes, it’s a nightmarish tragedy when traffic accidents occur due to texting. But this does not mean the root of that issue is the actual texting.
Here is something to dwell on the next time you hear someone cursing the Apples and Samsungs of the world for rotting our youth’s brains:
Having fewer close friends and more acquaintances is a highly supported theory/tactic for achieving success in life.
Mark Granovetter’s work in 1973 has inspired many social scientists to explore the power of “weak ties,” aka acquaintances or friends-of-friends. Simplified, the theory is that the most opportunity for personal growth, career advancement, adventure, etc., etc. is more likely to come from outside your close-knit social network. This two-minute video is a nice primer.
Whenever I see people cull their Facebook friend list, part of me mourns the swath of potential opportunity that is destroyed. But Facebook can be a deeply personal pursuit, and people can have very good reasons for defriending, so I won’t go there :)
Twitter on the other hand… Twitter is made for this stuff. If you’re against Twitter please consider doing some research on the power of weak ties and give it another shot. I think you’ll find it worth the effort.
As for the teens of the 2010's… when we see them buried in a world of texting, Tweeting, Vine-ing, Instagram… instead of seeing them as being pathetically disconnected, see them as the generation that is the very best at cultivating and leveraging weak ties. Bar none.
These kids are trading some unknown, potentially insignificant quantity of “face-to-face-skill-building” in order to become hyper-experts at using the most advanced communications networking ecosystem our species has ever known. They’re constantly training to be able to adapt to change at an accelerated pace. And I believe they will do unimaginably incredible, beautiful things with this skill set.
People will always resist change. But you cannot stop this change. My advice is to spend your time trying to understand how you will adapt to it, and how you might be able to make it work for you.
