This is an extremely important piece. Found Bowling Alone fascinating, and the parallels are striking. I'm running an experiment right now, going phone free on my commute (two hours each day) to see if it improves my mood. One of the strangest effects has been loneliness. I am surrounded by people - 99 per cent of whom are on their phones - who are in another world. It has been an insight to how I must make my children feel when I'm on the phone at home.
I'm pleased to say that though it has been hard, after five weeks of rewiring the brain, now feeling genuine and overwhelming benefits.
To start with, I went hardcore: no books, no music, nothing. Although I might in future take a book, I do think imagining it as training rather than relaxation did help with expectations. The withdrawal is severe.
Because I'd failed with willpower alone before, I now wear a high-vis vest on my commute that announces I'm not allowed to touch my phone. It's a full-on social commitment that keeps me honest! (Though I'm beginning to realise a Phone Free sticker for the laptop or bag might be the more subtle version for the rebel toolkit!).
I initially committed to 60 days, but the Week 5 benefits are so profound I am carrying on for life. It’s been quite surprising - I started it because I wanted to stop looking at my phone when I’m with my kids, and that has happened. But it’s had the unexpected benefit of also stopping work worry encroaching into family life. A commute spent without scrolling turns out to be an effective mental airlock.
I'm posting the full Day 30 rewiring report tomorrow morning on my Substack if you're interested.
Excellent piece! The historic trajectory of disconnection often goes unexplored in the context of. the current loneliness crisis. Learning to forge commitments in the real world, rather than just focusing on unplugging, will be the first step toward restoring trust and community. My husband Peco and I explored this in our piece "High Fidelity: Bringing Back Commitment Culture"https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/high-fidelity-bringing-back-commitment. We'll soon be leading our fourth annual Communal Digital Fast coinciding with Lent, focusing not just on fasting from the virtual, but feasting on the real. Thanks for your work!
This is enlightened. What to do about it? Look to town planning, make the space outside the home shared public space and make sure that there is a primary school within walking distance. Take the cars of the streets, let people walk the last 100 meters and meet each other on a daily basis. It's really not that hard.
In 1957, Isaac Asimov wrote a science fiction novel entitled "The Naked Sun" In it, he describes the Solarians, a human civilization that found person-to-person contact repugnant and went to great lengths to avoid it. They communicated remotely and were trying to genetically engineer themselves to become hermaphrodites, thereby removing any biological need for sexual reproduction.
However I am coming to suspect that what the After Babel team have been calling "Act I" was not in fact the first act after all (or at least started further back).
Having read "Feminism Against Progress" by Mary Harrington, and "Against the Machine" by Paul Kingsnorth I would argue there is a "Zeroth Act" that started the destruction of culture...that then laid the groundwork for Act I.
Of course this means the problem is a little larger than first anticipated.
That being said, using digital technology less is a good place to start!
I have gotten off all social media (Facebook, Instagram, Nextdoor, etc.). I have disabled all notifications on my phone, except for text. No sound notifications however, only the banner. I restrict myself to checking news to once a day. Ditto checking email. Ditto checking the weather. My life has gotten so much more peaceful. I don’t have constant interruptions to distract and feed my ADD. More time to read and do other things. I invite various friends for coffee or lunch or a walk once a week, we meet in person. I stopped watching church online and go in person. All of these small changes have added up to a different, improved kind of a day. Before, I found myself constantly reaching for my phone, checking, checking, checking..…. Now, to my surprise, I find that I do not miss what I have eliminated.
Excellent overview and updating of Putnam’s important work 25 years ago. 25 years that included the digital revolution and social media. Sure hope your hope for improvement bears fruit. Thanks.
I enjoy this article, but I have a few critiques with it. The authors seem to suggest that the 1970s are closer to the present, as compared to decades earlier in the 20th century. I feel that there in many ways, the 1970's and surrounding decades were almost opposite to the present, in relation to the youth. For example, when Baby Boomers and Generation Xers were young, they "socially fast walked", they had less parental supervision and screens as compared to the present. kids then had to develop social "street smarts" very quickly. Now teens are "socially slow walking". They are reaching traditional milestones (driving, dating, drinking, working) significantly later than young people from decades past, like the 1970's. At the same time, back in the 1970's, Baby Boomers and Generation Xers were "professionally slow walking" It was much easier at the time to work at a "dead-end" job like pizza place just for gas money. The youth could spent many hours a day doing nothing with their friends because the "opportunity cost" of that time was low. Now Gen Z are "professionally fast walking". College is a hyper-competitive arms race, and teens today are under immense pressure to build a "resume" before they can even drive. This reduces independence.
Another point closely related, is the impact that the automobile had on young people back in the 20th century. Because of the automobile, baby boomers and Generation Xers could get further away from home and have an easier time doing this. I would argue that decades ago the automobile had the exact opposite impact as screens, in relation to young people independence. Perhaps new, emerging technology, like E-bikes, will help the youth get out of the house, like in past decades.
Now, going back to the points on Robert Putnam and "Bowling Alone". Besides reducing screens, another thing that will really help is reducing political polarization. I feel that the political chasm between groups and people is just as destructive to the disappearance of trust, and the resulting emergence of children being kept in the inside world, as screens. Political polarization is turning parent against parent and making it harder to create a fertile environment to return kids to the outside world. If parents were more alike to each other, it would be easier to create an environment, in which kids can go out and play and socialize with each other, without the supervision of adults.
I do think that things are starting to change. That the way children are being raised is, in minor ways, starting to become closer to the past and that overtime this "change" is going to turn into an avalanche that won't be stopped. That things are going to flip back to young people being "socially fast walking" and "professionally slow walking" like in decades past. And that these will cause many good things and then some not good things, but for whatever is negative, this will be up to a future Jonathan Haidt to fix.
Interesting article! IMO, the data could use some refinement wrt geographic/cultural enclaves. Already when I was a tween (1950s) a visit to NYC from my home in rural PA, was a BIG culture shock in the way people avoided interaction on the sidewalks. In 2006 my wife of nearly 60 years and I moved to a rural setting in western NC for retirement. I have really noticed the warmth and openness of country folks around here vs those we knew in the Midwest. I have no data on how much TV they watch, but I suspect it may be less "sophisticated" than urban viewers might choose. And while some still believe in "demons" they are able to carry on a conversation even while disagreeing.
I really like this work - putting a through line to the loneliness of young adults at the intersection of technology. As an early adopter and teen therapist (and SHS and NYU alumna!) I have been involved in online communities since 1999. I had such high hopes for all the shared communities getting new platforms to connect. Somewhere along the way something changed (as you say the iphone's ubiquity around 2011) and it all went to a polarizing dark place. My phone told me yesterday that I've been averaging 8 hrs a day on my phone ("but it's for work!" I would tell myself)... I want to be able to give the kids in my practice some more tools; they need it!!
I love that pieces like this are flooding my feed. It feels like an awakening to reality. I think the majority realize it but the minority realize the need to respond to it.
The solutions offered are not sufficient to counter being dependent on an impersonal global market instead of each other in our families and neighborhoods. We need to retry intentional communities in a way that people need each other in material and cultural ways. The tradeoffs need to be more radical: technology that can be done mostly within a village/community. We need to learn from how multi-cellular organisms nest different levels to create coherence and cheaply deal with free riding: organelles within cells within organs. This was also how human communities organized before the industrial revolution: integrated psychological parts (aka "an individual") within families, within villages, within federations of villages, within nations. At each level, the exchange and types of goods and services are different.
You can't fix the problem as long as your diagnosis is flawed, and I believe yours is flawed.
Made me immediately think of David Foster Wallace's 'E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction'.
“We can see Them; They can’t see Us. We can relax, unobserved, as we ogle. I happen to believe this is why television also appeals so much to lonely people. To voluntary shut-ins…lonely people tend, rather, to be lonely because they decline to bear the psychic costs of being of other humans. They are allergic to people. People affect them too strongly.”
Would give everything to his observations (of) today...
One by-product of the proliferation of communicative technology be it 24/7 news or social media is that we are feed a barrage of stories (true or not) about how untrustworthy the people who live around us are. I live in a top 5 media market and it feels like multiple times per week the top rated local news is highlighting some purported scam on the rise.
And social media is even worse. My neighborhood Facebook page is loaded with the dark recesses to paranoia to such an extent that I wouldn't consider letting my daughter sell Girl Scout cookies door-to-door lest some crusader hiding behind their Ring camera calls the police for soliciting without a license.
“More time and effort into people around us.” Yes, and the grief that this has to be said is the reality of the matrix deception; humanity is tactile, friction, face to face. The people around you is life, anything else is plugged in entertainment.
This is an extremely important piece. Found Bowling Alone fascinating, and the parallels are striking. I'm running an experiment right now, going phone free on my commute (two hours each day) to see if it improves my mood. One of the strangest effects has been loneliness. I am surrounded by people - 99 per cent of whom are on their phones - who are in another world. It has been an insight to how I must make my children feel when I'm on the phone at home.
I'm pleased to say that though it has been hard, after five weeks of rewiring the brain, now feeling genuine and overwhelming benefits.
Love this experiment, Will! I'd be curious to know how you are you spending the time on your commute, if not on your phone.
To start with, I went hardcore: no books, no music, nothing. Although I might in future take a book, I do think imagining it as training rather than relaxation did help with expectations. The withdrawal is severe.
Because I'd failed with willpower alone before, I now wear a high-vis vest on my commute that announces I'm not allowed to touch my phone. It's a full-on social commitment that keeps me honest! (Though I'm beginning to realise a Phone Free sticker for the laptop or bag might be the more subtle version for the rebel toolkit!).
I initially committed to 60 days, but the Week 5 benefits are so profound I am carrying on for life. It’s been quite surprising - I started it because I wanted to stop looking at my phone when I’m with my kids, and that has happened. But it’s had the unexpected benefit of also stopping work worry encroaching into family life. A commute spent without scrolling turns out to be an effective mental airlock.
I'm posting the full Day 30 rewiring report tomorrow morning on my Substack if you're interested.
Excellent piece! The historic trajectory of disconnection often goes unexplored in the context of. the current loneliness crisis. Learning to forge commitments in the real world, rather than just focusing on unplugging, will be the first step toward restoring trust and community. My husband Peco and I explored this in our piece "High Fidelity: Bringing Back Commitment Culture"https://schooloftheunconformed.substack.com/p/high-fidelity-bringing-back-commitment. We'll soon be leading our fourth annual Communal Digital Fast coinciding with Lent, focusing not just on fasting from the virtual, but feasting on the real. Thanks for your work!
This is enlightened. What to do about it? Look to town planning, make the space outside the home shared public space and make sure that there is a primary school within walking distance. Take the cars of the streets, let people walk the last 100 meters and meet each other on a daily basis. It's really not that hard.
In 1957, Isaac Asimov wrote a science fiction novel entitled "The Naked Sun" In it, he describes the Solarians, a human civilization that found person-to-person contact repugnant and went to great lengths to avoid it. They communicated remotely and were trying to genetically engineer themselves to become hermaphrodites, thereby removing any biological need for sexual reproduction.
Are we there yet?
Very good stuff.
However I am coming to suspect that what the After Babel team have been calling "Act I" was not in fact the first act after all (or at least started further back).
Having read "Feminism Against Progress" by Mary Harrington, and "Against the Machine" by Paul Kingsnorth I would argue there is a "Zeroth Act" that started the destruction of culture...that then laid the groundwork for Act I.
Of course this means the problem is a little larger than first anticipated.
That being said, using digital technology less is a good place to start!
See Karl Polanyi's The Great Transformation for more on "Act 0"
I have gotten off all social media (Facebook, Instagram, Nextdoor, etc.). I have disabled all notifications on my phone, except for text. No sound notifications however, only the banner. I restrict myself to checking news to once a day. Ditto checking email. Ditto checking the weather. My life has gotten so much more peaceful. I don’t have constant interruptions to distract and feed my ADD. More time to read and do other things. I invite various friends for coffee or lunch or a walk once a week, we meet in person. I stopped watching church online and go in person. All of these small changes have added up to a different, improved kind of a day. Before, I found myself constantly reaching for my phone, checking, checking, checking..…. Now, to my surprise, I find that I do not miss what I have eliminated.
Excellent overview and updating of Putnam’s important work 25 years ago. 25 years that included the digital revolution and social media. Sure hope your hope for improvement bears fruit. Thanks.
I enjoy this article, but I have a few critiques with it. The authors seem to suggest that the 1970s are closer to the present, as compared to decades earlier in the 20th century. I feel that there in many ways, the 1970's and surrounding decades were almost opposite to the present, in relation to the youth. For example, when Baby Boomers and Generation Xers were young, they "socially fast walked", they had less parental supervision and screens as compared to the present. kids then had to develop social "street smarts" very quickly. Now teens are "socially slow walking". They are reaching traditional milestones (driving, dating, drinking, working) significantly later than young people from decades past, like the 1970's. At the same time, back in the 1970's, Baby Boomers and Generation Xers were "professionally slow walking" It was much easier at the time to work at a "dead-end" job like pizza place just for gas money. The youth could spent many hours a day doing nothing with their friends because the "opportunity cost" of that time was low. Now Gen Z are "professionally fast walking". College is a hyper-competitive arms race, and teens today are under immense pressure to build a "resume" before they can even drive. This reduces independence.
Another point closely related, is the impact that the automobile had on young people back in the 20th century. Because of the automobile, baby boomers and Generation Xers could get further away from home and have an easier time doing this. I would argue that decades ago the automobile had the exact opposite impact as screens, in relation to young people independence. Perhaps new, emerging technology, like E-bikes, will help the youth get out of the house, like in past decades.
Now, going back to the points on Robert Putnam and "Bowling Alone". Besides reducing screens, another thing that will really help is reducing political polarization. I feel that the political chasm between groups and people is just as destructive to the disappearance of trust, and the resulting emergence of children being kept in the inside world, as screens. Political polarization is turning parent against parent and making it harder to create a fertile environment to return kids to the outside world. If parents were more alike to each other, it would be easier to create an environment, in which kids can go out and play and socialize with each other, without the supervision of adults.
I do think that things are starting to change. That the way children are being raised is, in minor ways, starting to become closer to the past and that overtime this "change" is going to turn into an avalanche that won't be stopped. That things are going to flip back to young people being "socially fast walking" and "professionally slow walking" like in decades past. And that these will cause many good things and then some not good things, but for whatever is negative, this will be up to a future Jonathan Haidt to fix.
Interesting article! IMO, the data could use some refinement wrt geographic/cultural enclaves. Already when I was a tween (1950s) a visit to NYC from my home in rural PA, was a BIG culture shock in the way people avoided interaction on the sidewalks. In 2006 my wife of nearly 60 years and I moved to a rural setting in western NC for retirement. I have really noticed the warmth and openness of country folks around here vs those we knew in the Midwest. I have no data on how much TV they watch, but I suspect it may be less "sophisticated" than urban viewers might choose. And while some still believe in "demons" they are able to carry on a conversation even while disagreeing.
I really like this work - putting a through line to the loneliness of young adults at the intersection of technology. As an early adopter and teen therapist (and SHS and NYU alumna!) I have been involved in online communities since 1999. I had such high hopes for all the shared communities getting new platforms to connect. Somewhere along the way something changed (as you say the iphone's ubiquity around 2011) and it all went to a polarizing dark place. My phone told me yesterday that I've been averaging 8 hrs a day on my phone ("but it's for work!" I would tell myself)... I want to be able to give the kids in my practice some more tools; they need it!!
I love that pieces like this are flooding my feed. It feels like an awakening to reality. I think the majority realize it but the minority realize the need to respond to it.
The solutions offered are not sufficient to counter being dependent on an impersonal global market instead of each other in our families and neighborhoods. We need to retry intentional communities in a way that people need each other in material and cultural ways. The tradeoffs need to be more radical: technology that can be done mostly within a village/community. We need to learn from how multi-cellular organisms nest different levels to create coherence and cheaply deal with free riding: organelles within cells within organs. This was also how human communities organized before the industrial revolution: integrated psychological parts (aka "an individual") within families, within villages, within federations of villages, within nations. At each level, the exchange and types of goods and services are different.
You can't fix the problem as long as your diagnosis is flawed, and I believe yours is flawed.
Made me immediately think of David Foster Wallace's 'E Unibus Pluram: Television and U.S. Fiction'.
“We can see Them; They can’t see Us. We can relax, unobserved, as we ogle. I happen to believe this is why television also appeals so much to lonely people. To voluntary shut-ins…lonely people tend, rather, to be lonely because they decline to bear the psychic costs of being of other humans. They are allergic to people. People affect them too strongly.”
Would give everything to his observations (of) today...
One by-product of the proliferation of communicative technology be it 24/7 news or social media is that we are feed a barrage of stories (true or not) about how untrustworthy the people who live around us are. I live in a top 5 media market and it feels like multiple times per week the top rated local news is highlighting some purported scam on the rise.
And social media is even worse. My neighborhood Facebook page is loaded with the dark recesses to paranoia to such an extent that I wouldn't consider letting my daughter sell Girl Scout cookies door-to-door lest some crusader hiding behind their Ring camera calls the police for soliciting without a license.
Give me a bar I can walk to and a coffee shop that rhymes. Third places or nothing.
I find the supermarket to be a replacement for city streets -- though the endless sea of not-enough-parking (nor could there be) defines plans.
Wanting to have a little space for oneself is understandable, but when *everyone* has it, things get far away.
“More time and effort into people around us.” Yes, and the grief that this has to be said is the reality of the matrix deception; humanity is tactile, friction, face to face. The people around you is life, anything else is plugged in entertainment.