Until very recently, connection was always framed in terms of individual choice. If people found issue with being connected, perpetually distracted, or dulled to their immediate surroundings by their devices, it was the users themselves, and their lack of self-control that was to blame. Any solution or “escape” was to be found in the individual’s approach to the technology, and not the technology itself.
Yet with the release of books like J Twenge’s i-gen there has been a public turn to the designs of our devices and systems of connection themselves to explain the negative features and consequences of our extremely connected lives. Connectivity has now begun to transition from consumer preference and self-control to an issue of public mental health and structural coercion.
Under a new scrutiny, Facebook, Google and other tech companies have begun to take some claim of responsibility for the present state of things. They have vowed to alter their systems to be less distracting, addictive and consuming, to make it easier for us find disconnection amongst our connected world. Yet these companies’ business models depend upon the very user interaction they claim they are attempting curb: that hunger for connection that means that every idle (and not so idle) moment can be turned into a micro-transaction or bit of minable-data for future ad-targeting. We may wonder if the whole affair is simply a matter of fine-tuning our dependency to be less overtly noticeable.
Outside moderation perhaps holds the most promise. France’s bold move to ban phones from schools (for children under 15) presents a kind of structural counter-measure to constant connectivity, marking out a patch of disconnected space and time for young minds. Similarly, German legislation limiting the checking of work email to business hours suggests another carving out of (partially) disconnected space in favour of the work-life balance. In Silicon Valley, the Centre for Humane Technology growing out of the Time Well Spent movement represent a direct attempt to create industry wide standards and practices in the tech field to promote a more measured and less-addictive relationship with our connected devices.
Yet even with such developments at play, how free are we still to make the choice to disconnect? Just as access to healthy food, and the leisure and means to exercise, are in practical terms not equally accessible, there is now a class of those who can afford to disconnect, and those who can’t. Those whose jobs offer the stability and defined working environment to permit concerted disconnection, or the affluence to make a complete retreat from the digital, and the “gigging” whose very livelihood depends on constant digital presence, constant hustle and “flexibility” within a shifting a market. The Uber and Ubered.
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