iCulture
Technology, Communication, and the Fate of the Wired
I often find myself on the bus these days, going to the U District in Seattle from my current residence in Shoreline seeking… something, anything to relive the exciting bits of recently left college days (while ignoring painful memories of exams, homework and due dates, gratefully no longer part of my life). Hindsight is not only 20/20, it is through rose-colored glasses too. On the bus, I’ve come to observe a very common sight, a habit both of myself and others. Enter: the iPod.
Inevitably, someone arrives on the bus, ear buds blaring, essentially ignoring the bus driver (and everyone else), eyes darting, not to the faces of others, but rather about a small brightly lit screen searching playlists. I use the iPod as the supreme example, though texting is a close second, of what I would like to call, “iCulture,” a relatively recent but major phenomenon and subject of this essay.
iCulture has begun to spread amongst all ages though it is especially prevalent in my age group, the college-age, young folk. It is definitely a force, a cultural move and shift that can be seen everywhere. To ignore it seems unwise, perhaps even reckless. When we look deeply at this trend, it appears that the faults outweigh the merits of our unbridled search for happiness through technology. The goal of this essay is to outline some of the downsides to iCulture and really to reassess our own behavior and the technological trends that have taken hold of our communities, both locally and globally.
We are becoming a culture of bubbles, pod-people, if you’ll excuse the pun. In our bubble, we have our iPod, our cell phone, our precious Facebook, all manner of gadgets and technology which, though they promise happiness and increased communication with others, an exciting and rewarding lifestyle, are sadly having the opposite effect: isolation, confusion, death of communication.
We no longer know how to communicate. We text our friends, rather than meet them face to face. We ignore strangers, humans just like us, instead of introducing ourselves and starting a conversation, even a new friendship. Instead of our real world and culture, we prefer artificial, digital communities, like Facebook or World of Warcraft. We “friend” with the click of a button. We chat, not even with our voices, but through the silence of letters and abbreviations. So, why is this?
One theory is that we like to numb out. Terrified to face our self, our mind, or our world we try to drown out all suffering with manic sounds, blazing light, and endless text all accessed easily with our newest, latest and greatest electronics. With the hope of making life easier and more livable, we try with all our might to ignore all that is around us. Why? To put it bluntly, the world is unbearable. We are surrounded by suffering, so much so that to face it feels impossible. Cancer, oil spills, war, earthquakes, torture; there is so much suffering in the world and so, much like a turtle whose head retreats into its shell at the slightest hint of danger, we try to protect ourselves by numbing out. We have become very good at ignoring, becoming callous, becoming jaded. So, what’s wrong with this? Why change, why not continue?
Firstly, iCulture is unrealistic. We are a community of connections, of interrelations, not of individuals. Everything that we enjoy, even the technology we surround ourselves with, is the product of others, the result of the intelligence and effort of others. Others depend upon us and we, too, depend upon them. Isolation is unrealistic and potentially dangerous. To explain this, I would like to talk very briefly about a Buddhist concept called “dependent origination” or “dependent arising.”
Dependent origination or dependent arising is the notion that all the things around us are the product of other factors. For example, in Seattle we enjoy both endless rain and an endless stream of lattes; both are examples of dependent arising, of phenomena that are the product or result of a great number of causes and conditions. The lattes are perhaps more fun to talk about, so I will use these as an example. The next time you purchase a latte, try to be mindful of the process and interrelations involved.
On a very basic level, we can see that there are several ingredients and materials involved. All are essential; the coffee beans, the milk, the cup, the barista, the café itself, everything comes together to produce the phenomenon, “latte,” which we drink in the morning, delicious. The latte depends on all these factors to come into existence. Without coffee beans, there is no latte. Without the cup, it is undrinkable. Without the milk, it’s an Americano. Now let’s take this a bit further.
Where did the coffee beans for the latte come from? They came from a farm with plants, soil, moisture, sunlight, the hard work of the farmer, his food, home, family, the transportation of the beans and all the elements and people involved there. All of these are “ingredients” or factors that must be included to produce our beverage. If any are taken away or changed we no longer have something to sip in the morning. At this point, we begin to see the infinite number of causes and conditions that produce a given phenomenon. For example, we could look even closer at the process of producing the latte and learn all about the people involved, what their needs and wishes are and so forth. The main point is that this search is exhaustive. This is dependent origination. You can break this chain down further and further and find that there is no phenomenon independent of its parts, causes, conditions and, if you want to be more profound, the mind itself that labels these factors. So what does this have to do with iCulture?
Simply put, dependent origination applies not only to inanimate things like rain and lattes, but also to our local and global communities. We are not at all individuals; we are not isolated from each other, though we may try desperately to shut down and ignore, politely, all those around us as we slip in the ear buds. Whereas the newest gadgets we are sold try to convince us we can be independent from others, that we can live with no real human interactions or relationships and enjoy a life of independence and self-responsibility, dependent origination shows that we cannot survive without each other, let alone find happiness. Without others, their efforts, actions, assistance and so on we could not live, let alone have anything to make our life enjoyable and happy. Our pod-people culture is not based on reality.
Another theory as to why iCulture is potentially destructive, and I must credit one of my best friends, Laura O’Neill, with this one, is that we’ve forgotten how to listen. To truly listen in an undistracted, face to face fashion has become somewhat old-fashioned. Our ability to communicate is decaying before us. This may seem an odd statement when we consider the example of the cell phone, a device that promises unmatched communication with everyone and everything, but nevertheless when we investigate, we find that even this device has many pitfalls.
Simply walk through a college campus and see how few people talk to each other at a table. We are all immersed in our iPhones, our “crackberries,” our netbooks, sending texts, checking e-mail and so on. Someone may argue that texting and email are new forms of communication; how can you claim that these interfere with our ability to communicate? Yes, they are new, fast, and powerful tools, but at what cost? What are we willing to sacrifice to be able to check our e-mail 24/7? Conversation at dinner with our friends? A healthy relationship with our family? I may sound old-fashioned, but perhaps it is time to reassess the way we communicate with others. Let’s create communities of warmth and compassion, full of kind and caring members, instead of blowing each other apart online in nightmarish, thankfully digital, environments.
To do this, perhaps we do not need to totally “unplug” for the rest of our life, but take a middle way approach and limit the use of our gadgetry or take a step back from time to time. For myself, I can say that going one day, just one day, without my cell phone is both relaxing and surprisingly difficult. I would recommend everyone give it a try. You will be very surprised how difficult it is to go even a day without internet, for example. We are becoming a world of junkies. We’re addicted to our gadgets; this is precisely why everyone is so excited to get their next hit, a newer, better, faster iPhone and will wait in line for hours to purchase technology that will be outdated in a year.
In a world of ever more powerful technology, we must learn to use what we invent responsibly. We must learn when it is time to step back and take a deep breath. Most of all, we must learn how to be happy with less. Newer, faster and fancier electronics cannot bring lasting happiness. In fact, to produce our gadgets we are polluting and harming our planet, causing global warming and so forth which will cause lasting damage, not contentment. If we reflect on our own experience, we will find this to be true, contrary to every iPod, Xbox, or Starcraft ad our eyes happen to come across. In my own experience, I can say confidently that the happiest moments of my life are when the phone stays at home and the ear buds come out so as to fully enjoy the splendor of nature, the stillness of my own mind in meditation, or tea with a great friend.
