Every school administrator and counselor needs listen to this! Cyber-bullying and student decorum on social media is one of the greatest challenges for parents and administrators. The technological arms race in education, especially in primary and secondary levels, unfortunately is not helping the matter.
Thank you - very timely. I have just reset my personal intention around technology (including email). Technology is servant, not master. The fact that technology contains very real potential for darkness (surveillance, elimination of cash, etc) is another strong motivator.
The other thing that happened is that the cost of text messages plummeted. Volume went up enormously and with it a cultural expectation of instant response.
Newport's lectures on why "following your passion" isn't a wise plan were subtle & brilliant. I find his work on digital minimalism to be nonsense. I wish I could say it surprises me that classically educated scholars accept arguments based on brain studies and supposed evolutionary history, but I'm not. Because classically trained scholars are quite blind to ideas and memes borne of Romanticism. It's just a blind spot for the vast majority of them. They've terminated their scholarship before doing a full survey of the humanities, and cast about in modern social scientific studies that are failing the academy and which are known to be in a crisis of replication. The idea that email causes fundamental disruption in some unique way that other communication technologies don't is silly, and no different than the specious fearful arguments from the past in the early years of every technology. People used to think-or at least media at the time found it useful to propagate-the idea that train travel could drive people insane, such speed would disorient humans you see. Radio, TV, telephone, video games, and on and on. And of course, writing itself as Plato famously argued several millennia ago. Every method and technology can and will be abused. It's up to the individual to moderate his/her use. All of them-and indeed everything in this fallen world-is a mix of good and bad. As a youth I watched way too much TV. Then later too much news, and later still too much web browsing. I never got into Facebook, because I never desired to advertise myself. I've been able to moderate all these things. And no, pace Newport nothing in brain studies or anything about we humans confirms romantic notions of what is ideal community or ideal human interaction, or an ideal form of study. Calls for "deep" concentration and study don't preclude short summary and paraphrase, and in fact these are necessary. Without them little or no learning or communication can occur. My mentor used to speak of following an idea "to the bitter end". This phrasing shows the distinction between deep and shallow *method* is superficial. Not stopping until you can prove to yourself you've exhausted every past thinker that had something to say that bears on the matter at hand, no matter the discipline. That will involve a lot of skimming and reading reviews and executive summaries. Whether the pursuit looks shallow or deep to outsiders is quite subjective. Pursuing ideas to the bitter end is what technology is what good scholars of the humanities need to be doing instead of fear-mongering from brain studies and reductive evolutionary understandings of humanity.
I never understood the attraction to social media. I thought facebook was for finding old friends. My first hint was when I saw people were rarely actually meeting up after finding each other on fb. Then I saw people addicted to facebook, quite seriously. I don't get it. I am repelled. I still look forward to attaching an old beige Western Electric phone to the kitchen wall and calling it good.
I read "The Lunatics are Running the Asylum" - a reflection on software and human interface development - twenty years ago. I was working in a paperless company at the time and it was very difficult to assess workload because there were no visual clues in the workplace betraying how busy or not everyone was. Things have not improved...the other day I was at a garage and reception were emailing service and parts in the workshop next door as if this was normal to keep a customer waiting and unsatisfied . My other grouse is these companies that don't have a phone! What's that about? don't tell me it saves costs because that's just accounting and not customer service. Then there are those voicemail menus that refuse to put you through to a human and cut you off once the prerecorded answers ("Go online") are delivered - they are the worst!
Not the best, surely. There's no analysis of data - the examples are anecdotal and personal - and the description of how eMail based workflow and the incessant use of personal social media and instant messaging before, at, and after, work - are hardly described, never mind developed as hacks or courses of action that can make for greater productivity and sanity
What I find problematic, with UA-cam, in particular, is attention "creep." I have been making summary notes on some of John Vervaeke's lectures, for example, but can quickly get sucked into other attention sucking clips if I momentarily break off the main task. Electronic media is THE main information conduit now so it is difficult to keep your brain trammelled on the task a hand. I sometimes feel like an alcoholic and the only place you can find cool-aid is in a pub.
right that's one simple solution. perhaps you should make use of it. there's good and evil in most, and to me it's not so obvious that just getting completely rid of it is a solution that is the most helpful and useful. i want to believe there's a middle-ground and perhaps some balance, maybe it lies in self restraint and the lack of it thats so induced by the seemingly easy comings of things, like a surge in dopamine is something you can now achieve by doing basically nothing as before you would have to actually accomplish something for your brain to give you that dopamine 'reward'. what do you think in response to this?
Applications for Ralston College's MA in the Humanities for 2023 are now open: www.ralston.ac/humanities-ma
This really calmed me down - as if coming back home......
This is probably the best podcast that i never hear
Every school administrator and counselor needs listen to this! Cyber-bullying and student decorum on social media is one of the greatest challenges for parents and administrators. The technological arms race in education, especially in primary and secondary levels, unfortunately is not helping the matter.
This was so good and truly illuminating!
Thank you - very timely. I have just reset my personal intention around technology (including email). Technology is servant, not master. The fact that technology contains very real potential for darkness (surveillance, elimination of cash, etc) is another strong motivator.
The other thing that happened is that the cost of text messages plummeted. Volume went up enormously and with it a cultural expectation of instant response.
Free speech is life itself. Love it
Amazing!! Thank you!
Newport's lectures on why "following your passion" isn't a wise plan were subtle & brilliant. I find his work on digital minimalism to be nonsense. I wish I could say it surprises me that classically educated scholars accept arguments based on brain studies and supposed evolutionary history, but I'm not. Because classically trained scholars are quite blind to ideas and memes borne of Romanticism. It's just a blind spot for the vast majority of them. They've terminated their scholarship before doing a full survey of the humanities, and cast about in modern social scientific studies that are failing the academy and which are known to be in a crisis of replication.
The idea that email causes fundamental disruption in some unique way that other communication technologies don't is silly, and no different than the specious fearful arguments from the past in the early years of every technology. People used to think-or at least media at the time found it useful to propagate-the idea that train travel could drive people insane, such speed would disorient humans you see. Radio, TV, telephone, video games, and on and on. And of course, writing itself as Plato famously argued several millennia ago.
Every method and technology can and will be abused. It's up to the individual to moderate his/her use. All of them-and indeed everything in this fallen world-is a mix of good and bad. As a youth I watched way too much TV. Then later too much news, and later still too much web browsing. I never got into Facebook, because I never desired to advertise myself. I've been able to moderate all these things.
And no, pace Newport nothing in brain studies or anything about we humans confirms romantic notions of what is ideal community or ideal human interaction, or an ideal form of study. Calls for "deep" concentration and study don't preclude short summary and paraphrase, and in fact these are necessary. Without them little or no learning or communication can occur. My mentor used to speak of following an idea "to the bitter end". This phrasing shows the distinction between deep and shallow *method* is superficial. Not stopping until you can prove to yourself you've exhausted every past thinker that had something to say that bears on the matter at hand, no matter the discipline. That will involve a lot of skimming and reading reviews and executive summaries. Whether the pursuit looks shallow or deep to outsiders is quite subjective. Pursuing ideas to the bitter end is what technology is what good scholars of the humanities need to be doing instead of fear-mongering from brain studies and reductive evolutionary understandings of humanity.
To be succint..it's meshing arts and science.....curating content ...
@@roniquebreauxjordan1302 I'd say what Newport say on this topic is 95% nonsense. That's succinct enough.
Here here!
I never understood the attraction to social media. I thought facebook was for finding old friends. My first hint was when I saw people were rarely actually meeting up after finding each other on fb. Then I saw people addicted to facebook, quite seriously. I don't get it. I am repelled. I still look forward to attaching an old beige Western Electric phone to the kitchen wall and calling it good.
We don't need to understand something to be addicted to it. But am glad to read your comment. Hope we all think that way.
I read "The Lunatics are Running the Asylum" - a reflection on software and human interface development - twenty years ago. I was working in a paperless company at the time and it was very difficult to assess workload because there were no visual clues in the workplace betraying how busy or not everyone was.
Things have not improved...the other day I was at a garage and reception were emailing service and parts in the workshop next door as if this was normal to keep a customer waiting and unsatisfied .
My other grouse is these companies that don't have a phone! What's that about? don't tell me it saves costs because that's just accounting and not customer service. Then there are those voicemail menus that refuse to put you through to a human and cut you off once the prerecorded answers ("Go online") are delivered - they are the worst!
Superb.
Not the best, surely. There's no analysis of data - the examples are anecdotal and personal - and the description of how eMail based workflow and the incessant use of personal social media and instant messaging before, at, and after, work - are hardly described, never mind developed as hacks or courses of action that can make for greater productivity and sanity
ND is not Franciscan-- it's the Congregation of the Holy Cross
What I find problematic, with UA-cam, in particular, is attention "creep." I have been making summary notes on some of John Vervaeke's lectures, for example, but can quickly get sucked into other attention sucking clips if I momentarily break off the main task. Electronic media is THE main information conduit now so it is difficult to keep your brain trammelled on the task a hand. I sometimes feel like an alcoholic and the only place you can find cool-aid is in a pub.
Can we make the Zuckerbergian fragmented life a thing?
If you do not like the technology , get rid of it. No need to be in "Christina's World'.
right that's one simple solution. perhaps you should make use of it. there's good and evil in most, and to me it's not so obvious that just getting completely rid of it is a solution that is the most helpful and useful. i want to believe there's a middle-ground and perhaps some balance, maybe it lies in self restraint and the lack of it thats so induced by the seemingly easy comings of things, like a surge in dopamine is something you can now achieve by doing basically nothing as before you would have to actually accomplish something for your brain to give you that dopamine 'reward'. what do you think in response to this?