We’re fortunate to live in the information age. Not only do we access to news and blogs and such, but there’s also formal learning such as online video lectures. Access to learning is especially accessible because many of us carry the internet in our pockets with app phones. But the argument is made that we’re suffering from information overload. There’s the constant stream of news feeds, be it articles or other updates. I propose an idea that brings agreement to these conflicting issues.
Basically, there’s two parts to leaning. The first part we know very well: consuming information. The second part is less obvious: processing and reflecting upon the information. An easier way to understand this idea is to compare it to the two parts of training your body, where the first part is the physical activity itself and the other part is the recovery. Just as the body needs to repair itself and reconfigure muscles to work better for the activity in the future, the mind needs to reflect upon new information and fit it with all existing knowledge to bring an overall deeper understanding of something.
So just consuming information doesn’t result in learning. New information must be mindfully considered. The scientific process occurs and information is tested against all previous knowledge and experience. Bad information is thrown out. Perhaps old knowledge is tweaked or looked upon in a whole new light. We all know this process – it’s that moment of clarity that emerges when we relax into deep thought (why does this always happen in the shower?).
So while we are blessed with the incredible technology of having information at hand at all times, we should be mindful in how we consume it. That is, we’re best off consuming as much as we can so long as we can maintain the opportunity to reflect upon and think about it.
Texting and talking on the phone while driving / cycling / having dinner has become a nuisance to our safety and social manners. It’s clear to everyone by now how dangerous (and rude) this has become. But the problem is not going away and interestingly enough, pretty much everyone is guilty of it, regardless of their awareness. Which leads one to believe that there’s more behind this.
It comes down to the fact that we’re very social creatures and we seek connections with other people. Cells phones have enabled us remained connected to those we care for, thus giving us something so important from what is ingrained in us.
This strong force should be kept in mind when approaching policies to prevent texting or driving while talking. It is difficult to stop this behavior because of the incredible strong social force. Still, we can help people make better decisions when using this technology. Like to avoid talking on the phone when on local streets. Or to avoid getting into emotional conversations while on the go. Additionally, creative solutions are appearing for mobile devices to deal with texting and talking on the phone.
I do have one such idea: Consider an app phone combined with Google Voice (which can act as a digital personal secretary). Imagine setting your device to “car mode” (or have it automatically do this via a car dock  or by detecting speed via GPS) or “dinner with family mode”. The mode would trigger Google Voice to intercept your calls with a message to inform your caller that this is a bad time before patching her through. It could send automatic responses to text messages. It could set away messages to your IM services and even shut off notifications. The technology is at hand and there’s quite a lot of potential in it. I expect we’ll see this sort of stuff within a couple of years, if not sooner.
Over time, social etiquette with texting will improve as it has for phone calls. Still, we mustn’t forget that the reason these tools have become such a dominant part of our lives is that it enhances the very human act of being social.
Have you noticed how deceptive advertising is? Breakfast cereal companies make health claims on their products – very misleading. Website ads purport weight-loss miracles – complete scams. Trickery appears to be all over our communication mediums. It’s so commonplace that we might accept it as a normal part of society. We seem to tune it out often enough. But there’s just so much manipulation, bringing us closer to non-human animals and turning back the the clock on our evolutionary progress.
Think, in all of the animal kingdom, humans are the only species to have an incredibly extensive communication system. Language (a technology built into us that we often take for granted) in humans greatly surpasses that of any other creature. There’s a simple answer as to why no other creature engages in this: manipulation. If any information can be spread, then false information can be spread. In non-human animals, spreading false information is a good strategy as there is always competition with others. This is why non-human animals don’t evolve strong communication (except in the case of closely related individuals where we do see some level of communication). Humans are unique in their ability to suppress these conflicts of interest and because of this, they assured that information communicated wasn’t malicious information, at the time elite communication evolved. (For a full detailing our our language history, see Chapter 9, Voices from the past: The evolution of ‘language’, in Death from a Distance)
Back to contemporary society, we see that manipulation is everywhere. The ancient condition that allowed elite communication to sprout is terribly disrespected. Today, we’re constantly exposed to deceptive information. A big problem is that much our mental mechanisms are too trusting and leave us open to manipulation. Another is that companies can get away with misleading people, and they’ll do it because it’s in their interest to do so. In the ancient condition, there were enforcement mechanisms to prevent the dissemination of bad information. We don’t have a very good system in place for that now. We need better enforcement on misleading advertising. We, as a whole, would be living much better lives with the absence of manipulative information.
We’re blessed with the incredible technology of elite communication. If it isn’t used mindfully, it will go to waste. It will be ignored. It has already happened to some degree. And where it hasn’t, often lie the victims of manipulation.
An article on CNET today discusses how concerns for privacy are diminishing, especially in our ever-growing information age. In the work I do on human uniqueness, I’ve explored the evolutionary relationship of morality and transparency. It appears that this growing transparency (and thus decline of privacy) is a very good thing for our populations as a whole. A look at the human ethical sense shows why.
Shaped by natural selection, the human ethical sense is finely tuned to work in our especially social environment. Generally, the best self-serving strategy (and one that is indirect) is to contribute to your social coalition; directly selfish behavior is usually a bad strategy because of the strong coercive threat imposed by the rest of the group. The exception is when directly self-serving actions can go by unnoticed (privately). This would net a benefit for you but it wouldn’t be good for the others. Simply put, the greater the transparency (and the less the privacy), the better off a group is as a whole because this causes each individual to avoid the then inferior directly self-interested strategy.
A quote by federal judge Richard Posner in the CNET article illustrates this entire concept really well: “As a social good, I think privacy is greatly overrated because privacy basically means concealment. People conceal things in order to fool other people about them. They want to appear healthier than they are, smarter, more honest and so forth.” Issues regarding privacy are very evocative because of this; they involve an individual’s direct self-interest.
Our technology allows us to change the social norms of privacy. Individually it appears we’re getting comfortable with the decline of privacy. Between generations, there is no uncertainty since newer generations are better at adopting technology. There has certainly been friction (we’ve all heard of people getting busted by posting stuff to Facebook) but people will adapt to the growing transparency of their lives. The big question that remains: how so? Will our norms change to deem currently inappropriate behavior appropriate? Or will people commit less such inappropriate behavior? My best guess is that it’ll lean towards the former when there’s no social harm and towards the latter when it’s our collective interest that people change.
In the meantime, enjoy the ride. With the emergence of computers and internet in our pockets along with facial recognition technology, we’ll soon be able to learn all about a person by just looking at him. MIT is already on this. Perhaps we all better clean up our acts sooner rather than later. Â And who knows, the world may very well quickly become a much better place.
Some of the naysayers of the generation gap say that the new generation is stupid in becoming dependent on technology. I argue that these folks have fallen into a trap and that it’s the case that this “over-dependence” is occurs in every new generation.
So are people so dependent on Wikipedia that they wouldn’t know where to look for information without it? Are they so dependent on calculators that they can’t do math without them? These are valid questions, but so are these: Are we so dependent on electricity that we wouldn’t be able to get work done without it? The Northeast blackout of 2003 shut down cities.
It’s all too easy to criticize others’ dependence on new technologies while we forget our sheer dependence on other less new technologies. In either case, we should be mindful of the things we take for granted. Our society has grown complex enough that there’s no way, nor any desire, to take off our dependence on many technologies. And technology does allow us to do greater, more incredible things.
So is the current generation of people, adapting to new technology, overly dependent on it? What about the rest of us? Are we not dependent on telephones? Are we not dependent on clean water?
There’s no question that technology creates gaps between generations. Simply put, this occurs when one generation of people uses and understands technology in a very different way than another generation.
AÂ NYT article brings up the interesting point that our technology is evolving so rapidly that the years between generation gaps is dwindling. A very illuminating example is that of the author’s 2-year-old child calling her father’s Kindle a book. The child sees the device for the purpose it serves, not for its physical design. One friend, upon hearing this story, said that “that’s wrong” while another said “…but I like the feel of the pages”. When making these statements, these friends (who happened to be in their early 20s) didn’t understand that they were already falling behind in the way technology was understood. The next generation of people, scarily only a decade or two younger than us, will define how technology is used. Physical books will be archaic. Virtual keyboards, like that of the iphone, will be the only ones that make sense.
But what if you like the feel of a physical keyboard better? Too bad! The next generation will have no such attachment (and will have difficulty understanding why you do). The only way to keep up with technology is to adapt. That means throwing away all your early notions and preferences and taking up new, better technologies (carefully of course) the way younger people do. The stakes are higher than ever because the changes are occurring faster than before. You won’t be middle aged before you’re out of the loop. You’ll be in your twenties!
If you see this coming, then what emerging technologies must we be quick to adapt? Or if you think this is all wrong, share your counter-arguments below.
Under the definition that technology is a tool that helps us advance our lives, science represents a very ancient yet still essential technology. Science is the tool of analyzing and making sense of the world. Its primary weapon is doubt. By constantly subjecting any concept [explaining some part of the world] to skepticism, we test its plausibility. What is left (but still subject to doubt) is an understanding that we can rely on more so.
The creative process is also this scientific process. The way we form ideas follows this. Every idea is subject to critique and it is the good ones that stand this test. It is imperative to have lots of ideas, including seemingly bad ones, because you never know which ones will actually be good ones. It likely takes ninety-nine bad ideas to make a good idea, but the creative (scientific) process will allow good ones to prevail.
Another place that the critical scientific process is present is in our genes. The process of natural selection (evolution) uses the ability to replicate genetic information as the critical yardstick. And while the changes that appear in genetic information are at first random, the critical process determines which changes are better. Consistent with the creative process, there are a large number of bad changes for every positive one. But it is those few positive changes that matter so dearly, as with those few good ideas, and these positive changes or ideas can only exist through having all the bad ones.
So don’t be afraid to explore thoughts that are outrageous. You never know which crazy ideas will turn out to be fantastic ones. And don’t be afraid to mess up or be wrong, because the only way to put out some good things is to put out lots of bad things.
Where else in life do you see the critical process at work?
Anti-lock brakes (ABS) are touted as a safety feature on cars. They work to solve the problem where excessive braking force causes the friction between the brakes and the wheels from exceeding the friction between the wheels and the road (without ABS, the brakes lock the wheels in place so that the wheels slide on the ground which in turn prevents braking and turning – rather dangerous). ABS “prevents” this from happening by reducing braking force when it senses the brakes have locked.
However, ABS introduces its own set of dangers and other disadvantages. First, the function of ABS can be misinterpreted. Although ABS prevents the car from skidding when too much braking force is applied, it do not increase braking power. Braking power, ABS or not, is limited by the amount of grip between the tires and road. This fact is not clear to many drivers nor is it one stated by those touting ABS.
Second, a danger lies in risk compensation -Â where having ABS gives drivers a falsely sense of security, causing drivers to drive with less care. Drivers who don’t have ABS, on the contrary, may have a very real perception of how dangerous conditions can be; often from experiencing their brakes locking. The non-ABS driver prevents locking by carefully applying pressure to the brake pedal, which requires the driver to be well aware of the road conditions. This awareness, needed by non-ABS drivers to judge maximum braking force, is not needed by ABS drivers which causes them to be less respective of dangerous driving conditions. Remember: there is no difference in braking power between ABS and non-ABS cars. The very nature of ABS is that it allows for safety after the danger point (too much braking in dangerous conditions) has occurred while the nature of non-ABS requires preventing such a situation from occurring. We already know that we’re better off preventing problems than treating them after allowing them to occur.
Third, ABS adds complexity to the vehicle – something could break (there are redundency systems in place – even more complexity!) and it adds to the cost of the car. This makes little sense if the technology doesn’t realistically improve safety.
Unfortunately, drivers in the US no longer have a choice on ABS because it is a standard feature, by law, on all new cars. Still, I believe ABS can be a very useful technology if used mindfully and with a proper understanding of its limits along with regard for road conditions.
What do you think about ABS?
When you’re sick, a fever is actually good for you. This adaptive mechanism works by increasing the body temperature to a level that’s inhospitable to whatever pathogen is making you sick. Oddly enough, many over-the-counter medicines, as such Tylenol, are fever-reducers. Â While the medicine makes one feel better, it actually extends the length of illness. The existence of such medicine gives the false impression that a fever is a bad thing. Yes, the presence of a fever does mean that one may be ill, but it also indicates that the body is naturally responding to the illness in a positive way.
However, we still have these medicines on the market. They are potentially misleading because they offer relief from the symptoms of illness (which they do) but they do little, or may even work against, real recovery. Unfortunately, for the public, it isn’t in the interests of drug companies to advertise the true nature of their product. Perhaps the government, which is supposed to represent the interests of the population, should be involved in such matters.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that these drugs should be banned or taken off the market. However, I do believe that anyone that considers these products be aware of their true consequences, negative and positive, to make a realistic decision. Some people may be willing to pay the cost of extended illness if they really want their illness symptoms out of the way for some important moment. That’s their decision to make and it should be an informed one rather that a misled one. Recent medical advice is consistent with the science as it states to “let the fever run its course.” Â Perhaps there is hope in attaining greater transparency on drugs.
What are your thoughts on these over-the-counter drugs and do you use them?
Be mindful of the part of a problem you approach. Is it the root of the issue or rather just a symptom? Treating the symptom – the effect – of an issue rarely takes care of the issue itself and actually makes you worse off because it gives you the false impression that the issue is no more. The problem will likely crop up again, and if not, may manifest itself as another symptom. However, if you tackle the root – the cause – of the problem, all symptoms will also disappear.
Now of course I’m stating the obvious with this simple principle. However, we often mix up cause and effect when approaching real world problems.While  making this distinction is sometimes difficult, it should not be ignored. It may very well make the difference between legitimately creating a solution and wasting a good deal of time and resources on fruitless pursuits.
What are real life problems where we’re treating the symptoms instead of the root of the issue?
We’re fortunate to live in the information age. Not only do we access to news and blogs and such, but there’s also formal learning such as online video lectures. Access to learning is especially accessible because many of us carry the internet in our pockets with app phones. But the argument is made that we’re suffering from information overload. There’s the constant stream of news feeds, be it articles or other updates. I propose an idea that brings agreement to these conflicting issues.
