13 minute read
The Key to Digital Freedom
Learning to Deal with Discomfort
by Boyd Collins
The tall, spindly guy standing in the doorway to my office had the whitest face I had ever seen. As I watched him stare at the floor with a skewed grin, I felt an overwhelming sense that this case would not be easy. Due to my background in user interaction design, I had long practiced the art of taking control over user attention in the interests of my clients. In the right hands, this set of practices can create user habits that generate rich profits for platforms such as Facebook. Though I’m not a professional counselor, on occasion parents and friends have asked for my help in freeing loved ones from the demons I helped unleash.
He was a young man in his mid-20s who had a hard time talking about himself, but after twenty minutes or so of coaxing I found that he had studied data science at a top-ranked university and earned straight A’s. But after two years, he had dropped out and started sitting alone in his room all day long. He would start the day with Facebook and the hours would fly by chatting about random YouTube videos with his “friends.” Then he would binge on videos hour after hour, particularly cosmological visions and urban design experts unfolding their fantasies of the metropolitan future.
In this way, the morning would merge into the afternoon and the afternoon would darken into the evening. He had no job, no school, and no prospects. He refused to engage with anything more threatening than a microwave meal. I spoke with his parents. They had struggled to find the right therapist, the right job, the right school, or maybe to just get him out of the house and on a bench in the city park once a week, but without success.
One day during my bi-weekly meeting with him, he shared with me that a monkey lived inside his brain and steered his online obsessions. It told him what to watch on YouTube and made him binge on videos hour after hour. Later, he would plunge into Facebook and alert his “friends” about the neverending crises reported on social media. At the end of the session, he asked me with a sigh of desperation if I could wrench the steering wheel back from the monkey for him.
I began to work with him using some of the techniques described below. Once I convinced him that they might make the monkey relax its grip, he tried them for a few weeks. Gradually, the color of his face got a shade or two less white than new-fallen snow on a sunny day. His voice began to project a sense of self-ownership that sounded like insolence, but which signaled the emergence of a delicate new identity that needed a shield. I believe he’s slowly wrestling the driver’s wheel out of the monkey’s grip.
Monkey Brains
There is a part of us that enjoys letting go of the self-control that shapes the core of our humanity. It often seems as if the internet was intentionally designed to induce the mental state called the “zone” by machine gamblers. Natasha Dow Schull, who studied gambling addiction for many years, describes the “zone” as “… the world-dissolving state of subjective suspension and affective calm [gamblers] derive from machine play.” [1] The book that summarizes her research, Addiction by Design, is a detailed exploration of how video slot machines can become so compulsive that many gamblers habitually “play to extinction” — until their funds are exhausted. Similar principles are used by the major social media platforms and generate comparable “time-on-device” metrics.
To “enter the zone” means to surrender to a stream of stimuli devised to monopolize our attention. Recent studies have correlated Facebook addiction with the “flow” state that many Facebook users experience. [2] A “flow” state is a mode of action in which we become so engrossed in an activity that our normal sense of time disappears. One proven way to induce “flow” is to aim images, sound bytes, and texts directly at the amygdala located deep within the temporal lobes of the brain where emotional memories are stored and triggered. Like television news, social media tends to focus on content that activates a sense of impending crisis. By appealing to primitive survival instincts, experience experts can ensure obsessive user engagement.
A clue as to how social media manipulates users is contained in a leaked memo from Facebook, which reveals that
If that phrase isn’t clear enough, Facebook’s document offers a litany of teen emotional states that the company claims it can estimate based on how teens use the service, including “worthless,” “insecure,” “defeated,” “anxious,” “silly,” “useless,” “stupid,” “overwhelmed,” “stressed,” and “a failure.”” [3]
Psychological studies correlate depression with increased user engagement. Shoshana Zuboff reports the results of a three-phase investigation conducted in 2014 which “… found that spending a lot of time browsing profiles on Facebook produced a negative mood immediately afterward. Then, upon reflection, those users felt worse, reckoning that they had wasted their time. Instead of walking away, they typically chose to spend even more time browsing the network in the hope of feeling better, chasing the dream of a sudden and magical reversal of fortune that would justify past suffering.” [4] What level of emotional stability can be maintained when Facebook users consume the precious hours of their lives justifying past suffering? Depressive emotions can keep us locked in a hopeless struggle for approval.
Social media often traps us in a maze constructed out of our own feelings from which we hope to break out of through more and more interaction. But these anxieties are expertly orchestrated to keep users algorithmically poised on the edge of a fulfillment that it never actually delivers.
Unfortunately, trying to douse anxiety by using social media is like trying to put out a fire with petrol. As Shoshana Zuboff puts it,
Compulsive social media users continually struggle to break out of crisis mode, and this might well be because that is the state in which their behavior is most easily exploited for profit.
To regain control, we need to stop monitoring the “crisis” for new developments. Compulsive involvement reinforces the often-delusive belief that our actions are contributing to a solution. As one social media analyst suggested,
When we act to bring the crisis to a resolution, this reinforces our sense of control and heightens the intensity of our engagement—exactly the behavior that provides the optimal outcome for the platform. Social media serves up a stream of stimuli meticulously devised to benefit the platform’s paying customers—the advertisers. The more we surrender to this flow, the more predictable and profitable we become for those able to emotionally manipulate us. Once we outsource our attention, we also outsource our identity.
Knowledge is Born from Pain
My formula for freedom from digital addiction rests on these principles and practices: 1. Self-regulation guided by a deep sense of self-respect; 2. Developing the capacity to focus on one topic or task for a significant length of time, and 3. Learning to bear life’s necessary pain.
For these principles to be effectively implemented, the addict needs to identify a focal point around which a new identity can form. Attention control is not the main issue—it tends to follow naturally once we find activities that bring us joy in living. As Cal Newport says, “When the void is filled, you no longer need distractions to help you avoid it.” [8] If we can’t generate our own intentions, outside powers will gladly provide them for us.
The young man’s retreat from life was triggered by an inability to handle social discomfort. His pain management strategy was to hide in his room and numb the guilt of his dereliction with digital hypnosis. The high level of social approval currently accorded to digital media allows us to treat it as an acceptable substitute for a life fully lived. By constantly assuring us that artificial intelligence will soon rule modern society, we are provided with the perfect excuse to abandon what’s left of our humanity. However, the fundamental issue is our inability to bear life’s necessary pain long enough for it to communicate its much-needed message.
Most people no longer have the inner resources to creatively cope with the pain of emptiness. Levels of boredom that a few years ago would have been considered almost imperceptible have now become intolerable. In earlier times, learning to endure empty moments was not optional for most people, but with smartphones, we now have continual access to instant relief.
To stem an addiction, one needs to become aware of the craving as soon as it emerges and “surf the urge” [9] without immediately grasping for relief. For example, as soon as we feel the presence of empty moments such as when we’re stuck in traffic, the urge to grab the smartphone is often as automatic as lighting up was to previous generations. What we can do during such moments is to pour consciousness into this urge so that our action is no longer a mechanical reflex. Researchers have found that if we can delay gratification for even a few seconds, the heightened consciousness aroused by the effort can be sufficient to weaken the habit. We need to feel the moment’s emptiness rather than avoid it. Practical wisdom is the result of accepting the pain that is essential to growth.
Overturning the Idols of Attention
So how has the young man begun to wrest the steering wheel back from the monkey? Essentially, he has identified the false god that had taken over his attention. A metaphor for this digital control mechanism can be found in the Tibetan tradition. His “monkey” might be called a “tulpa”—a psychic entity invoked through visualization and willpower. The young man now understands that the online services managed by this algorithmic tulpa were designed to plant intentions in his mind that he falsely identified as his own. He had accepted a manufactured identity that kept his attention engrossed in digital fantasies.
He also began to understand that perception is an active process that is learned and can be creatively developed. The act of perceiving the world around us is not the mere acceptance of canned content as we are led to believe. Instead, we actively fabricate reality by sewing together inner and outer perceptions. Though it usually happens in a flash, we combine visual and auditory fragments with memories of similar scenes and talk ourselves through the result using abstract thinking until the scene around us gains coherent form. Douglas Rushkoff put it this way:
It is the “confusing moments” that allow us to experience our ownership of the act of perception. Instead of letting his intentions be modeled by digital stimuli, the young man now forms them for himself.
His obsession with digital distractions was due to an inability to understand that life is a participatory task. I assigned him attention exercises in which he had to focus on a non-digital artifact such as a blooming sunflower for several minutes at a time. He would try to memorize every detail of the flower. Eventually, he was able to hold his attention steady on a single object for up to five minutes. By focusing on living forms, he activated a participatory thinking which is impossible with digital images. It was at that point that his voice took on an insolent-sounding tone that signaled the awakening of a self worth protecting.
One day, he stepped into my office with a crazy grin and asked excitedly, “Do you know about Deep Q Networks?” After we had chatted for a few minutes, it became clear that the overwhelming void that had taken over his life was starting to be filled by a fascination with neural networks. Evidently, he had stumbled onto one of the little-known principles of attention mastery. In the words of Nir Eyal, …
The young man had discovered a source of keen enjoyment beyond the digital bubble, a field of play in which his attention is no longer managed by the platform, but by himself.
By turning to pursuits that awaken new powers in ourselves, we can transform the machine agents which seek to control us into intelligent and loyal servants. We achieve this by thinking through the role that smart devices play in our lives so that they obey our conscious intentions rather than merely blasting our inner emptiness with digital noise. As Steve Talbott says,
Boyd R. Collins (boydcster@gmail.com) was a web application architect for several large multi-national corporations over an IT career of 22 years. Previous to that, he worked as an academic librarian in Rutgers University. As an environmental activist, he contributed articles to the influential Dark Mountain Project (http://darkmountain.net) in the U.K., “… a network of writers, artists and thinkers who have stopped believing the stories our civilization tells itself.” Feeling the need for a spiritual foundation for his ecological efforts, he began an intensive study of the works of Rudolf Steiner. In these works, he discovered an inspiring vision of spiritual evolution that provides a solid foundation for hope. He is currently retired and living in the Philippines where he dedicates his time to writing articles on anthroposophy and related topics.
Endnotes
[1] Natasha Dow Schull, Addiction by Design: Machine Gambling in Las Vegas, (Princeton University Press, 2012. Scribd Edition) p. 41.
[2] J. Brailovskaiaa, H.-W. Bierhoff, E. Rohmann, F. Raeder and J. Margraf, “The relationship between narcissism, intensity of Facebook use, Facebook flow and Facebook addiction” Addictive Behaviors Reports, February 2020. <https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2352853219301695>.
[3] S. Machkovech, “Report: Facebook helped advertisers target teens who feel ‘worthless’,” Ars Technica, 01 05 2017. <https://arstechnica.com/ information-technology/2017/05/facebook-helped-advertisers-targetteens-who-feel-worthless/>.
[4] Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power, (New York: Hatchette Book Group, 2019. Kindle Edition), p. 464.
[5] Stefan Higgins, “Crisis Mode: Platforms thrive on making you feel bad,” Real Life, 7 November 2019. <https://reallifemag.com/crisis-mode/>.
[6] op. cit. note 4, p. 467.
[7] op. cit. note 5.
[8] Cal Newport, Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World, (New York: Penguin Publishing Group, 2019) p. 169.
[9] S. Bowen and A. Marlatt, “Surfing the Urge: Brief Mindfulness-Based Intervention for College Student Smokers,” Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, pp. 666–71, December 2009.
[10] Douglas Rushkoff, Team Human, (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2019. Kindle Edition) p. 136.
[11] Nir Eyal, Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life, (Dallas, TX: BenBella Books, Inc., 2019) p. 57
[12] Steve Talbott, Devices of the Soul: Battling for Ourselves in the Age of the Machine, (Sebastopol, CA: O’Reilly Media. Kindle Edition, 2008) p. 215.
