In their book Man (Dis)connected, Philip Zimbardo (author of the acclaimed The Lucifer Effect) and Nikita D. Coulombe look at how technology affects young men today. Focusing on American society, paralleled with UK statistics, the authors seek the cause(s) of young men’s problems today that range from difficulties in keeping a girl to maintaining good grades and completing post-secondary degrees, among other things.
Perhaps Marshall McLuhan’s most famous claim was that “the medium is the message”. However, to break away from the naivety of thinking as technological determinists – that technological change is driven by its own internal dynamism that is beyond human control – the support here is for the idea that, rather, technology is part of the societal membrane; it is made by people and is therefore socially changeable and socially changing.
But because devices have become so deeply ingrained in our lives, technologies often become invisible to us. We don’t tend to question their origin. For that matter, many would rather focus on the positive that smart technologies have bestowed upon the world: namely, freedom of expression, unlimited access to information and convenience.
Smart technologies are ultimately powerful and complicated. But it is how children and young people use them – and how such use rewires them – that has tremendous impact on their perceptions and relationship with the real world that should matter.
That new freedom of expression comes hand in hand with unknown-before total control over one’s communication with others (we can always shut down the communication window, ignore the text message, create different ‘voices’ and ‘moods’ hiding our true emotions) and the insatiable accessibility to content of all kind is what makes smart technologies so special and attractive; an extension to us.
Pleasure overshadows self-criticism. As McLuhan’s less famous statement goes, “the juicy piece of meat carried by the burglar to distract the watchdog of the mind”, referring to what smart technologies lay before us.
Take video games. They deliver a guaranteed pleasurable experience by allowing us to compete, win and go up levels. Such positively reinforced behaviour tends to repeat, creating a cycle. Pleasure received from playing video games, watching online porn, or following celebrities’ Instagram photos is hard to refuse. We want more.
Moreover, the bait-and-switch technique some video games and even TV series use feed us pleasure only some of the time to keep us engaged. We keep playing. We keep watching.
The medium makes the content all the more powerful by allowing unbound access of uncensored manifestations of pretty much everything at a fingertip
As technology reporter for BBC News, Zoe Kleinman, wrote, we are “turning into dopamine junkies – the brain chemical associated with pleasure that is released when we are stimulated, whether that is by food, sex, excitement… or screen time”.
We scroll down Instagram photos and new ones keep popping up and we cannot switch the app off.
Then there is also the pleasure of voyeurism, perhaps narcissism, too; why Facebook thrives.
This is not to say that all video game players are addicts or people who love to watch vacuous violence. In fact, there are many studies that show positive relationship between learning and video game playing.
Playing violent video games can lead to some positive cognitive effects. On the other hand, consider the habit created by activities that feed us pure pleasure. Pleasure is a potent agent that feeds the hungry mind making it hungrier still. Repeated behaviour carves strong habits that are hard to break. And, with time, the brain’s plasticity – neurons’ ability to change their roles and responsibilities – diminishes. As they say, old habits die hard.
Watching online porn or Instagram photos on a regular basis carve out a habit (a powerful one because it stimulates arousal) that may eventually interfere with work, studies, and people’s priorities with varying degrees. Man(Dis)connected references plenty of studies demonstrating such interference. On the other hand, the ability to retrain our brains – remould our neurological pathways (break a habit) – is just as equally possible. In other words, brain plasticity, as Nicolas Carr argues in The Shallows, is both good and bad: the possibility of starting a bad habit goes hand in hand with the possibility of breaking one.
Breaking old habits may not be a pressing issue among children and young people who have just started to mould and shape their characters. Their habits of playing exciting video games and ‘surfing’ the internet on their mobile technologies may be innocent and does carry with it many positive aspects.
The debate here should be on how much children and young people will allow unfamiliar experiences (especially from exciting colourful video games or online porn) to become an everyday thing that can weaken their sensitivity and responsiveness to their real world: when the newness and excitement of the video games becomes the norm of the day; when real life becomes boring and grey.
It is shocking to see IS (Islamic State) decapitating people on national TV or on YouTube; it is seemingly less so (at least to its huge fan base) seeing head-chopping in Game of Thrones.
Yesterday, it was vampires sucking blood off their victims, today it is rape, incest, and manslaughter dressed as TV series; explicit, colourful, strong visuals that gain worldwide fandom. And now, millions flock to messaging services to play zombie video game in ‘real life’.
Moreover, the medium (being the message) makes the content all the more powerful by allowing unbound access of uncensored manifestations of pretty much everything at a fingertip.
To quote a 15-year-old girl who recently shared during a focus group discussion: “Vampires are so passé; Game of Thrones is amazing!” Could the shocking of yesterday ever become the norm tomorrow? Certainly, this is neither to say that violent games or TV shows portraying incest should be banned nor lead one to believe that violent content leads to violent behaviour (although there are controversial studies, some more supportive of this claim than others).
However, we should question how comfortable children and young people settle with the unknown once it becomes less so; how their perceptions of reality change as they scroll away on Instagram; how all this influences young people and who they want to become one day.
As Zimbardo puts it, “the old image or scene isn’t doing it for them and [men] look for newness, variety, the surprise factor in the content, more hard core and stranger material, anything they haven’t seen in order to attain a sexual climax.”
The predictable thus becomes boring. Newness is the only way that can sustain one’s attention.
Unlike 10 or 20 years ago when still photos, subtly implying nudity, then VHSs or DVDs with more explicit, repetitive material served to tingle the human desire, the internet provides a multitude of overflowing, always changing, more bizarre material streaming non-stop from mobile devices requiring only a simple click.
Predictable violent content may not have the same numbing effect on young people’s sensitivity or on their compassion as regular doses of porn may have but understanding what constantly pouring online content – from the most perverted to the most intimate – can do to youngsters comes hand in hand with finding the right balance of use of smart technologies.
Moreover, while respecting their freedoms, pursuits, and rights to find their identity, it matters a great deal to teach or entice children and young people to learn to distinguish between the elements that constitute the virtual world (be that of video games or Game of Thrones) and the make-up of their reality in order to protect themselves from the risk of disconnection with the physical world, distorted perceptions and disillusion.
Velislava Hillman is completing a PhD on the effects of digital devices on creativity and learning in children with the University of Westminster.