Keep Coming Back

In these posts on technology, I fear I have made a classic mistake. I’ve tried to convince, to share facts, in hopes it will help some of you discover that better through less is possible.

I was reminded of this by the words of Nassim Nicholas Taleb, “You will never fully convince someone he is wrong; only reality can.”

But to see suffering and say nothing is painful to me, so I keep trying to help in whatever way I can. To move the needle, even if the effort is little more than writing these posts—to unpack the argument, one word at a time. So you have been warned!

Again, I reach for Sam Johnson, as I so often do: “I had done all I could. No man is well pleased to have his all neglected.”

So today I humbly ask you to look around and notice your fellow humans. On your commute, at work, at home, in your free time…I ask that you look deeply at how the digital world is woven into their lives.

You might see a child locked into an iPad, or fighting to get back on one, as his parents try to regain control of it. Or perhaps a phone is leading a woman off the curb and almost into a car, and yet she doesn’t break the scroll. A train car in which every seat has a slack-jawed, craned-neck traveler unable to look away. Or a plane ride during which your row mate stares at TikTok from boarding to deplaning, with a slight pause only to plug in the phone as the battery drains (six hours of thirty-second videos!). The beach at sunset, and the arrangement of taking selfies, the posing then capturing, followed by checking the shots, debating which to post, and then moving on. The majesty of our star at perihelion, dissolving into the horizon, worthless unless captured by the phone.

I have witnessed all of these things, and countless more. Surely you too have some version of these easily at hand.

I can convince you of nothing. I accept that. But perhaps I can get you to notice that something has gone wrong, and at an almost unimaginable scale. That this is not a healthy way to live for so many of us. That for all the good these machines can do, there is harm and sadness in return, impossible to ignore if you just take notice.

And this sadness is measurable; it is a win for those in the business of daily active usage. People with massive amounts wealth and power will hurt us, for just a little bit more of both.

All we have is that to which we pay attention, and we must urgently pay attention to this.

We must ask questions of the tools we use, big questions like: Does this serve my highest good? Am I using this machine, or is it using me? Is the answer to this problem more or less digital connection?

My heart breaks at the scale of the suffering—needless and growing. One post, text, and swipe at a time.

In this noticing and questioning, do you see peace or pain? Do you see your part in it? Are you OK with that?

There is much in the way we live that causes others to suffer. Most of us are decent and good, and yet we know deep down that we are a part of this greater harm. This knowledge, if not acted on, will further corrupt if it does not catalyze change in us, especially if we are fortunate enough to be able to make change.

Some of us don't know, or remember, how to be in the world without continuous connection, and yet we know that we help and support those who exploit that good in us, that pain in us.

If you are lucky, you may find and release some of the pain you feel about your role in its continuation and spread, and if you do, forgive yourself.

Just as I have, you can quit, delete, and then ask for forgiveness. Delete for those you love. Delete for kids you don’t know, for those yet to be pulled down further into the drain.

Don’t aim for perfection but action of some kind, because your addiction, outrage, sadness, and delight are the fuel that fires the engine that juices the algorithm.

You will be enlarged, not diminished, by any time out of the digital bloodstream. Perhaps you can reconnect but on your terms and to platforms that align with your values, that are there to help, not hurt. I am not saying we leave the digital world completely, but that we cannot see what harms us and others unless we take a time out. The time to look at it objectively. Only then can we walk away from its harms and return to its good. Walking away to return, with new eyes. For many, as it was for me, this will bring up guilt. It will be painful, and yet the rewards of this examination are worth it, in what we get back as we more deeply connect with ourselves and with those we love.

In AA, we make amends.

And we ask for serenity to accept the things we cannot change, courage to change the things we can, and wisdom to know the difference.

You might make a few attempts and not make the turn, but whatever you do, keep coming back.