Design. Charity. Life.Website and Blog of Daniel Francavilla

Rarely sitting on a muskoka chair by a lake in Ontario away from the chaos of the city, I found myself reading the print version of Adbusters magazine (something I pay to receive in the mail regularly but rarely get to read through). But why not?

The article in Adbusters Whole Brain Catalogue that really jumped out talks about the Ecology of the Mind, and this new movement being born: where we can’t just sit and focus on one thing for very long at all.

“Drowning in an endless stream of connectivity”

Noise: there used to be a lot less of it (like just rain and people talking); but now it’s rush-hour roar, cell phones buzzing, loud tv commercials. There’s always noise! I was impressed how accurately the writer captured my simulation-addicted lifestyle:

“Can’t work without background music. Can’t jog without earphones. Can’t sleep without an iPhone tucked under the pillow.”

I completely agree that quiet feels foreign now. But it might be what we really need, to have a healthy mind.

Are you ever tired of receiving 3,000 + marketing messages per day? “From the moment your radio alarm sounds on the morning to the wee hours of late-night TV, micro-jolts of commercial pollution flow into your brain.”

One effect that’s really accurate is the fragmentation of our psyches: Jumpy Brain Syndrome! I definitely experience this, where constantly texting, posting links, browsing blogs, bookmarking sites, and emailing files result in “digital daze”, where Lason and White say it’s what leads to being “unable to concentrate, feeling foggy, anxious and fatigued”.

And I’m constantly online. Waiting for an elevator? in Texting friends. On the bus? Replying to emails. At an event even? Reading Twitter updates. And it’ll only get worse for future generations, if the average American teen sends 50+ texts per day and spend around 8 hours using electronic devices.

I’ll stay connected. There’s too much out there to miss. But it’s not terrible being away for a bit. In Haiti, though I did reach for where my iPhone would’ve been if I were in Canada, not having it there didn’t kill me.

JESS3 / The State of The Internet from JESS3 on Vimeo.

JESS3 designed and animated this for the JESS3 lecture at AIGA Baltimore in Feb 2010.

What do you think of this BBC news headline: “Youth cannot live without web”?

A survey of 16 to 24 year olds found that 75% of them feel they “couldn’t live” without the Internet. Ok, maybe there is some truth behind it, but I wouldn’t say we’re that dependent as in life or death! If Facebook simply disappeared one day though, I’d be pretty disoriented and disconnected.

A report recently that said that young people feel happiest when online! Do you? An article called Young people leading ‘hybrid lives’ and almost half ‘feel happiest when online’ references the survey that calls us a generation of ‘digital natives’, and I agree that yes, we are “at ease with a range of modern communications technologies”, don’t you?

What I don’t think we are all doing is “neglecting human contact”. I mean, sure there are those teens and even adults that live online, but for the most part most of us still meet up and go to events and talk at school or work, right? Either way, apparently 1/3 felt no need to talk to a person face to face about their problems because there are online resources.

I also came across a great photo competition, the topic being to show a scene from the world with no Internet. See the top 20 entries in The World of Tomorrow (If The Internet Disappeared Today).

One thing addressed is our way of getting the news? Many of us get it through Twitter or links posted on Facebook and other social networks. Most young people haven’t been reading the actual newspapers, especially with everything now online. So this entry to the competition is hillarious representation of what could be reported if there were no Internet:

One of the entries for the same photo competition shows a student getting an “A” on a Spelling and Grammar Test. OK, is your spelling really that bad online? I guess MSN talk and quick Facebook wall posts has really changed the way a lot of kids are growing up and learning to spell – so with no Internet, apparently everyone would be getting perfect on spelling tests.

That initial report published by online charity YouthNet also talks a lot about the risks and dangers of young people online. While there have been some serious cases, what do you really think about your safety online as a young person or young adult?

I agree with this guy, an Open University psychologist Graham Jones, who simply says that “I think children, teenagers and people under their mid-20s have grown up with technology and they understand it deeply”. So maybe those doing the studies just don’t understand. What do you think?

What were they thinking back then? Do you think they ever thought that in the future, people would tweet what they’re having for breakfast, and upload pictures of it to Facebook – and that, here it comes: other people would make comments?! Interesting graphic below, which I didn’t make (credit to whoever did, let me know!):