This post is the second chapter of my book “HOMO CELLULARIS: THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT”. Click here to read the previous chapter.
Main Ideas: How has outsourcing ourselves changed our society? Should we panic? How is it going to affect the next generation who are growing up and being initiated into a society that encourages them to “split” their selves across devices and platforms?
1. DIGITAL HORCRUXES
The above quote refers to an enchanted diary in the Harry Potter series that, when you write in it, writes back. Friendly at first, it turns out to be one of the seven "Horcruxes" of the dark Lord Voldemort – objects external to his body into which he had placed a sliver of his soul.
It was a dark and rare magic that allowed Voldemort to do such a thing, but outside of the Harry Potter universe, it's not all too uncommon.
In fact, even I have split my soul and placed little bits of it here and there. And I bet you have too. I'm talking about digital devices and platforms.
According to Michael Lynch, in an article for The Guardian titled Leave my iPhone Alone: Why Our Smartphones are Extensions of Ourselves, "smartphones were only the first step towards the world we live in now – the internet of things."
But as we invest more and more aspects of our reality with internet capabilities, we are also investing them with ourselves. "The internet of things," Lynch goes on, "has become the internet of us."
As said before, when we engage in this process we deal with both the intended effect and the side-effect. Which is to say that as we split our soul, we become more expansive, but we also lose control.
2. THE YOUTH IS STARTING TO CHANGE
At a dinner with friends Udi says that in his family the rule is that you can get a smartphone at age nine.
A rule like this won't last for long. The tech will change in less than a generation's time, and along with it the customs. But for now the rule stands. A sort of digital Bar Mitzvah.
In an article titled Have Smartphones Destroyed a Generation, by Jean M. Twenge for The Atlantic, it's noted that today's smartphone-saturated youth are less inclined than past generations to get their driver's license at the earliest opportunity.
The driver's license once symbolized the entry-point into independence, the moment of mitosis when the child splits away from the family unit and becomes a independent being. Perhaps this is how youth today sees their digital technology.
If our technology has become our interface with the world, and thus a kind of anatomical/digital face for us, then the child with no tech is essentially faceless. In receiving a smartphone, they receive their face – and are presented to society in the fashion of so many other coming-of-age rituals (confirmations, Bar Mitzvahs, debutante balls).
But unlike with confirmations, Bar Mitzvahs, and debutante balls, there is no accompanying training or education to ready the initiate. The tech is simply given, and it is up to each young person to learn how to use it. And rather than receiving just one public face, the child receives a multiplicity – going in one instant from facelessness to technological schizophrenia.
The nine-year-old relates to their new phone as their own private space, the first truly private space outside of their own mind that they have been privy to. At the same time, it bears none of the true seclusion of one's mind. Parents can monitor their children's phones, reading conversations that they have with their friends and seeing pictures they've taken.
In an analog world, these conversations would have faded into the air and these images would have disappeared with the passing of the moment. Perhaps this explains the younger generation's predilection for Snapchat – a technology which emulates the ephemeral nature of analog communication.
Pictures and messages disappear after having been sent, rather than lingering for years as they do on Facebook.
3. ARE YOU STARTING TO CHANGE?
Lior and I discussed the issue of youth and technology at length. While this soul-splitting digital transformation of selfhood effects young and old alike, our society tends to worry about the children first. We've all read articles about the younger generation's troubling overuse of social media and smartphones, and I pointed out to Lior how it’s . It’s hardly ever mentioned in these articles that this finger wagging comes from adults who are just as addicted, if not more, to their phones and computers as their children are.
“Come on, Boaz,” Lior says. “The concern is that kids prefer online connection to real connection. We can’t stop them from partaking in new technology, but we don’t want them to sit eight hours a day in their bedrooms on their phones while life passes them by.”
It’s a good point. If our technology is now functioning as a legitimate extension of our bodies, what will happen to the old vestigial appendages (arms, legs, brain, heart) that we used to rely on? Will they atrophy?
But then again, technology has always been a source of concern. Even the printing press stirred up speculation about society’s fall. So maybe we ought to calm down.
Still, the sight of my son basking for hours in the tepid glow of his smartphone can be distressing. He indeed looks tuned out and spaced out.
But how does he feel?
Do those online selves feel authentic? Do those online relationships add value to his life?
The appeal to “think of the children!” often clouds our judgment rather than sharpening it. It engages our emotional panic and concern rather than our thoughtfulness, and diverts attention away from our own relationship with technology.
If we want to get to the bottom of this, we have to look at our society as a whole. “The youth is starting to change,” sang MGMT. “Are you starting to change?”
What is technology doing to us, young and old?
Why do we love it and how is it harming us? Further, is there any way we can mitigate this harm?
“I’m simple, complex, generous, selfish, unattractive, beautiful, lazy, and driven.”
Barbara Streisand
This post is the second chapter of my book “HOMO CELLULARIS: THE KIDS ARE ALRIGHT”. Click here to read the following chapter.
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