Reasons to Leave Facebook

Motivi per lasciare Facebook

We are all familiar with active music bands, politicians, and actors, but we know much less about them after they change or stop their careers, resign, or retire. Often, however, the most interesting stories happen after someone consciously chooses a new life path.

Similarly, while participating in Facebook, we know almost everything about the people who are active, but we do not know much about the people who have slowed down their participation or left the site. There are at least as many reasons to slow down our commitment to or leave Facebook altogether than to be part of it.

If you are one of those who have chosen to not participate, to step down or take the full exit route from Facebook, please share your experience. Why did you leave Facebook? What were your concerns? Did anything happen to trigger your decision? I am collecting such experiences for an e-book about Facebook and about people’s attitudes toward social networks.  The e-book will be free.

I am especially interested in exploring your story and the inner motivations that made you step away from Facebook. I will quote your words without exposing your name or email address. I only need to know your gender, approximate age, and nationality (which can be as generic as “Southeast Asian,” “South American,” “Northern European,” or “Middle Eastern”). Of course, you will receive a copy of the e-book. In some cases, I will edit your words for stylistic reasons, but will always respect your content.

Please send your experience to ivotoshan (at) yahoo (dot) it. It can be few lines or several pages long as you like. Anyway I will give it my full attention. In case I need greater clarification, I will ask you. Also, if you know somebody who might contribute to my research, please forward this message to them.

You can see my opinion about Facebook on the following articles,

Resisting Facebook

After a Few Months on Facebook

The Game of Facebook

Thanks for any help you might give to ths project.

Ivo

Tutti conosciamo i gruppi musicali attivi, o gli attori del momento, ma sappiamo molto meno di loro dopo che cambiano o interrompono le loro carriere o quando si ritirano. Tuttavia, spesso le storie più interessanti di vita accadono quando qualcuno cambia consapevolmente il suo percorso di vita.

Analogamente, nella partecipazione a Facebook, sappiamo quasi tutto delle persone che sono molto attive, ma non sappiamo molto delle persone che hanno rallentato la loro presenza o hanno lasciato il sito. Ci sono perlomeno altrettanti motivi per diminuire il nostro impegno o per lasciare Facebook che per farne parte.

Se sei una di quelle persone che hanno scelto di non partecipare, rallentare o di prendere la via d’uscita da Facebook, per favore condividi la tua esperienza. Perchè hai lasciato Facebook e quali erano i motivi di discontento?  C’è stato qualcosa che ha scatenato la tua decisione? Sto raccogliendo esperienze simili per un ebook su Facebook e sulle opinioni delle persone riguardo ai social media, in particolare sui motivi per andarsese. L’ebook sarà gratuito.

Sono particolarmente interessato ad esplorare la tua storia con le motivazioni interiori che ti hanno portato ad allontanarti da Facebook. Riporterò le tue parole senza esporre il tuo nome o il tuo indirizzo email. Necessito solo sapere se sei maschio o femmina, l’età approssimativa e la nazionalità. Naturalmente, riceverai una copia dell’ebook. In qualche caso potrei lavorare sul tuo testo per motivi di scorrimento, ma ne rispetterò comunque il significato.

Per favore manda le tue esperienze a ivotoshan (chiocchiola) yahoo (punto) it. Può essere di alcune righe o diverse pagine, come preferisci. In ogni caso gli darò la mia completa attenzione. Nel caso che io necessitassi di maggiori chiarimenti, ti manderò una email. Inoltre, se conosci qualcuno che potrebbe contribuire alla mia ricerca, per favore mandagli questo messaggio.

Puoi leggere la mia opinione su Facebook ai seguenti articoli

Resistendo a Facebook

Dopo qualche mese su Facebook

Il gioco di Facebook

Grazie per qualsiasi contributo tu possa dare,

Ivo

Reading Aloud

“The printed or mass-produced book discouraged reading aloud, and reading aloud had been the practice of many centuries. Swift, silent scanning is a very different experience from manuscript perusal, with its acoustic invitation to savor words and phrases in many-leveled resonance. Silent reading has had many consequences for readers and writers alike, and it is a phase of print technology which may be disappearing” (Marshall McLuhan in a 1972 interview, from Understanding Me, MIT Press, 2005).

If nowadays we see somebody reading aloud, we may think that he is not fully literate. But we are not surprised to see people talking aloud on their mobile phones on the streets.

The advent of silent reading, according to McLuhan, had consequences both for privacy and for developing an individual point of view. Through Internet technology, we are back reading louder and louder. When we share our readings on social media, we read as loud as to the whole world, but what is weakening is the connection of words to our inner selves. It seems that, to hear our voices, we have to hear it in the echo of other people’s feedback through social media.

We no longer feel an inner resonance of what we read but need it to be bounced back to us by the infinite reverberations of the Net.

The game of Facebook

Il gioco di Facebook

In one of my rare Facebook appearances, I mumbled about the absurdity of spending more than an hour to carefully read (as it should be with people we care about) a friend’s updates of the last hour.

The last comment I received on my note (in Italian) was, “If you don’t like the game, just don’t play it.”  This friend is very active on Facebook, sharing words, videos, links, and whatever.  He is an artist and a spiritual researcher, a real friend with whom I have shared deep talks, meditation practices and fun, not a typical “friend” the way Facebook has redefined this word.  I feel he has a big heart.

After a few days, I realized that I had often heard people who are in spiritual work say that Facebook is just a game, and you can play it, enjoy it, but you can keep detached, knowing that it is a game of the mind that can be enjoyed, but we do not have to become attached to it, much as an enlightened being who could see the activity of his mind just as ripples on the surface of his consciousness.  Under this line of reasoning, consciousness is unaffected by those ripples.

I think there’s a deep misunderstanding under this assumption.  As long as is true that an enlightened being is beyond the hiccups of the mind and can observe them as a witness rather than a participant, for the rest of us, being involved repetitively with a tool is going to affect our relationship to the tool itself, as well as to the people on the other side of the screen.

Despite the confidence that we can be stronger than whatever activity we do for many hours a day, the reality is that we can and often actually do become attached to the tool and to the repetitive tasks connected.  Even spiritual researchers do.  If we feed the body continuously with unhealthy food or chemicals, chances are that we are going to feel the consequences.  This applies even to spiritually advanced people, since the body responds at least as much to mechanical stimuli as to a higher awareness.  A higher consciousness is not a guarantee of long life or health on the physical level.

Many spiritual teachers say that the mind also is a mechanism, and that the body and mind are actually a body-mind pair, in which the mind isn’t any less mechanical than the body.  Every spiritual researcher knows how the mind can be heavily conditioned by early experiences, external messages received, and even by the thoughts we produce.  Those conditionings cloud our awareness and don’t allow our lives to flow freely.
One of the classic teachings for the liberation of the mind is not to be dragged by the never-ending chatter of the mind, which is a source of distraction, a barrier to inner exploration, and the silence from which insights and depth come.

Why shouldn’t the mind also be conditioned by Facebook, not only in terms of the content seen there, but especially by the way we interact, by the interface itself?  While I have heard some people say that they look at Facebook’s messages in a “meditative way,” looking at the flow without becoming attached (and I wonder, anyway, if that is the non-attached view of a meditative mind or just plain indifference and boredom?), the interface and the way we communicate through Facebook is going to affect us more deeply than the actual content posted.  We know since McLuhan’s time that “the medium is the message.”

The very way we communicate, through scrolling and clicking the mouse (or the touch screen), by having windows on the screen, by associating friends with small icons, and communicating basically on a mental level with no embodied presence while being distracted by other events on the same screen, is going to morph our inner meaning of friendship and communication.  For younger people, this modality could even represent an inner imprinting.

Sites like Facebook tend to suck out our time and attention; they feed on our user-generated content, analyzing our words, messages, links, profiles, and friends for the sake of selling our data and attention to advertisers.  We can for sure play such a  “game,” but I would check first if I am the player or the one being played.

See also Resisting Facebook

After a Few Months on Facebook

The Digitally Divided Self: Relinquishing our Awareness to the Internet is on Amazon

In una delle mie rare apparizioni su Facebook, ho scritto una breve considerazione sull’assurdità di trascorrere più di un’ora per leggere con cura (come dovrebbe essere per le persone a cui teniamo) gli aggiornamenti degli amici… dell’ultima ora.

L’ultimo commento che ho ricevuto alla mia nota è stato “Se non ti piace non giocarci…”. Questo amico è piuttosto attivo su Facebook, condivide parole, video, link, e altro. E’ un artista e un ricercatore spirituale, un vero amico con cui abbiamo condiviso dialoghi profondi, meditazioni e ci siamo anche divertiti assieme, non come uno dei tipici “amici” nel modo in cui Facebook ha ridefinito questa parola. Ha un grande cuore.

Dopo qualche giorno dal commento, ho realizzato che ho sentito diverse volte persone che fanno un lavoro spirituale, affermare che Facebook è solo un gioco, che ci si può divertire ma rimanendone distaccati, sapendo che è un gioco della mente senza per questo dovercisi attaccare, come un essere illuminato che potrebbe osservare l’attività della sua mente come increspature alla superficie della sua coscienza. Secondo questo ragionamento, la coscienza non rimane influenzata da queste increspature.

Credo che ci sia una profonda incomprensione alla base di questo presupposto. Per quanto sia vero che un essere illuminato è al di là dei singhiozzi della mente e può osservarli come un testimone invece che rimanerne coinvolto, per tutti noi, interfacciarsi ripetutamente con uno strumento andrà ad influire sulla nostra relazione con lo strumento stesso e sul rapporto con le persone dall’altra parte dello schermo.

Nonostante la sicurezza di essere più forti di qualsiasi attività che ci coinvolge per diverse ore al giorno, la realtà è che possiamo e spesso effettivamente ci attacchiamo allo strumento e alle azioni ripetitive connesse. Questo si applica anche per i ricercatori spirituali. Se continuiamo ad alimentare il corpo con cibo malsano e chimica, ci sono buone probabilità che ne sentiremo le conseguenze. Anche per le persone spiritualmente evolute, in quanto il corpo risponde perlomeno tanto agli stimoli meccanici quanto ad una consapevolezza elevata, la quale non dà garanzia di vita lunga o salute sul piano fisico.

Diversi insegnanti spirituali affermano che anche la mente è un meccanismo, e che il corpo e la mente in realtà sono un’accoppiata corpo-mente, dove la mente non è meno meccanica del corpo. Qualsiasi ricercatore spirituale sa che la mente è soggetta a forti condizionamenti da parte di esperienze precoci, da messaggi esterni ricevuti, e anche dai nostri stessi pensieri. Tali condizionamenti appannano la nostra consapevolezza e non consentono alle nostre vite di fluire liberamente.

Uno dei classici insegnamenti per la liberazione della mente è di non farsi trascinare dall’infinito chiacchiericcio della mente che è una fonte di distrazione, un ostacolo all’esplorazione interiore, e un ostacolo al silenzio da cui sorgono le intuizioni e la profondità.

Perchè mai la mente non dovrebbe anche essere condizionata da Facebook, not solo in termini dei contenuti visualizzati, ma specialmente dal  modo in cui interagiamo, dall’interfaccia stessa? Nonostante abbia sentire affermare da alcuni che “guardano ai messaggi di Facebook in un modo meditativo”, osservandone il flusso senza attaccamenti (e mi viene da domandarmi comunque se si tratta dell’approccio senza attaccamenti di una mente meditativa oppure semplice indifferenza e noia), l’interfaccia e il modo in cui comunichiamo con Facebook ci tocca più in profondità dei contenuti veri e propri. Sappiamo dai tempi di McLuhan che “il medium è il messaggio”.

Il modo stesso di comunicare, tramite lo scorrimento dello schermo, i click del mouse (o il tocco del touchscreen), con delle finestre aperte, associando gli amici con delle piccole icone, e comunicando di base ad un livello mentale senza la presenza del corpo, mentre si è pure distratti da ulteriori eventi che sono attivi sullo stesso schermo, porterà inevitabilmente ad una trasformazione del significato interiore di amicizia e di comunicazione. Per le persone più giovani, potrebbe diventare un imprinting.

I siti come Facebook tendono ad assorbire il nostro tempo e attenzione, si alimentano dei contenuti generati dagli utenti ed analizzano le nostre parole, messaggi, link, profili e le nostre amicizie allo scopo di vendere i nostri dati agli inserzionisti.Certamente possiamo giocare al gioco di Facebook, ma mi accerterei prima se sono il giocatore o la pedina giocata.

Vedi anche: Resistendo a Facebook

Dopo qualche mese su Facebook

The Digitally Divided Self: Relinquishing our Awareness to the Internet is on Amazon

 

The Roots of Information Technology

excerpt from Chapter 3 of “The Digitally Divided Self : Relinquishing our Awareness to the Internet

In the West there are layers of deep conviction that keep us bound to the idea that everything good will come from economic and technological development. Despite a few doubting voices, those beliefs have been part of our society for so long that they’ve become taken for granted, part of the collective unconscious. The forces behind the “will to produce” can be seen as a self-reinforcing loop.

1) The expectation of a better world (social welfare, peace, justice, democracy, rights) through production, distribution and consumption of goods and technologies.

2) The necessity to intervene in the entire world to achieve such goals. Exploitation of natural resources is essential to grease the machinery of production. Easy access to the earth’s resources requires the consent of governments. The consequence is the exportation of economic, political and cultural systems – a phenomenon known as globalization.

3) All actions are carried out compulsively and in a rush, a crucial factor which hinders the ability to be aware of the social and environmental consequences that will be wrought in the middle/long run. It also hinders our capacity as individuals to slow down and reflect.

4) The radiant future envisioned never arrives, despite what has been achieved up to that point. The only solution is to increase production. There is never “enough.”

5) We are back at point 1. This mechanism looks much like the vicious cycle typical of drug addiction.

Although this vision of the world is predominant in ideologies such as “democratic market economics,” the Western world is entirely permeated by it. The roots of this thinking are more ancient than the political/social divisions that have emerged with the industrial revolution.

While the basic Western ideas seem to belong exclusively to the political system we call capitalism, even its historical antagonist, Marxism, envisages a similar heavenly condition for mankind. Marx thought that by reappropriating the means of production – machines – people would be freed from exploitation, bringing equality, peace, and progress.

The mythological communist cycle is essentially similar to the capitalist one:

1) There’s the vision of a better world through access to the instruments of production.

2) The need to act on a worldwide scale (the Communist International, “workers of the world unite”).

3) There is compulsion and rush in the race against capitalism.

4) Work is for a bright future that never comes – every communist society has been in a perennial “transition to communism.”

IT was Started by the Bible

The deep roots of the idea that technology will bring a better world come from the Judeo-Christian tradition. The Bible says that God created humankind at the very end of creation. The world and everything in it existed before human beings – and it is all fundamentally different from mankind which was created in God’s image and likeness. That leaves the rest of the universe as something objective, “out there,” devoid of the divine element. Having souls, consciousness, and free will are what make human beings unique and superior.

Alan Wallace in The Taboo of Subjectivity (2000) analyzed how Western inquiry and research have been directed only at the “objective” side of creation, rather than at human subjectivity:

In order for man to comprehend God’s creation, he must divest his modes of inquiry of all that is merely human, which, after all, came at the very end of creation. Man must explore the universe in ways that approximate God’s own perspective on creation. He must seek to view the world beyond the confines of his own subjectivity, just as God transcends the natural world. In short, he must seek a purely objective (divine) God’s-eye view and banish all subjective (profane) influences from his empirical and analytical research into the objective universe. In this way, the seeds of objectivism were introduced into Mediterranean thought by Jewish, Christian, and Muslim theology.(p. 41).

The scriptures say that only human beings were created in God’s own image and likeness. However, according to this tradition, humankind will never be able to completely reach the divine in this earthly life, with one exception: Jesus Christ. The Bible also says that nature was created so that human beings could make use of it for their own benefit. Man, therefore, has the right, bestowed on him by a superior authority, to use creation for his goals.

Christianity adds the concepts of sin and free will. Human beings, although born into original sin, are also given free will – therefore, they can decide whether to act for good rather than evil, and thus redeem themselves. These messages have been essential for the technological and social development of the West.

In the ancient Taoist culture, tools were known but intentionally discarded. In classical Greece, the massive development in art and philosophy did not arise with any big technical development. “They could not even devise ways of using horsepower efficiently. Both Plato and Aristotle scorned the ‘base mechanic arts,’ probably in the belief that nobility of mind was not enhanced by efforts to increase efficiency or productivity” (Postman, 1993, p. 25).

Technology as Returning to the Lost Perfection

David F. Noble (1997) analyzed the events that led to the current relationship man has with technology in the Christian world. He concluded that the dynamism of Western technology has its actual roots and spirit in the Middle Ages. In classic Christianity, manual activities were disregarded, but in the early Middle Ages technology began to be identified with transcendence, linked to the Christian concept of redemption from sin.

As time went on, technology became more clearly identified with the possibility of renewing human perfection after the Fall. Erigena, one of the most important forces in medieval Christian Scholastic philosophy, affirmed that knowledge of the arts, innate in the perfect man, was in time clouded by the Fall. However, its recovery, through study and hard work, could help restore man, at least partially, to his pristine state. Progress in the “useful arts” became the identification mark of the divine image in mankind. Learning the useful arts was preparation for redemption.

Technology as a route to transcendence was particularly strong during the later puritan revolution – which shaped the beginning of capitalism with its colonial aims by linking “faith” and “useful arts” with “the glory of God” and the recovery of control over nature. New scientific ventures of that time widened the fields of human intervention.

Recovering our lost perfection was no longer enough. Science was progressively expanding toward divine knowledge. And action – no longer limited to the original creation –was moving toward a new creation. The Christian project of redemption through practical actions started to slip out of hand, however, as scientists began to consider themselves creators.

Francis Bacon foresaw that mankind one day would create new species and become like gods, because “the footsteps of the Creator [were] imprinted on his creatures” (Noble, 1997, p. 67). Science has carried on the work of giving man dominion over nature, as originally bestowed by the Bible. In so doing, it has also demonstrated that man is created in God’s image and likeness through divine acts.

To recapitulate the messages that Christians have received: Human beings should consider themselves special within creation, though basically they are sinners. They have the chance to redeem themselves through good deeds, which include technological creations. To do this, nature is at their disposal.

But there is a problem. Good deeds will not bear fruit during the earthly life of doers. In fact, according to the scriptures, eternal life and happiness belong only to the kingdom of heaven. All we can do in this lifetime is prepare to deserve our future afterlife by our virtuous actions.

However, one could argue, a man has existed who was joined with the divine while in human form: Jesus. The Bible, though, considers Jesus God’s only son, and no one else can ever aspire to such a state. All we can do is imitate his example. We cannot meet the divine in this life – at best we can only deserve that in the future.

In scriptural truth, there is another way to reach the divine: salvation at the end of time, after a phase of calamity and destruction: the Apocalypse.

New recap: human beings have a special place in creation, but they were born in sin. Using their free will, they can redeem themselves through their actions, emphasizing creation to this end – but they cannot expect to meet the divine in this lifetime, because that was exclusively for Jesus. They have the chance to enter the kingdom of heaven in the future, presumably after death (if they have behaved well enough), unless they live during apocalyptic times.

In contrast to those religions which contemplate reincarnation, Christianity clearly states that we live only one life on Earth. Therefore, there is no second chance. Redemption from sin must be attained in this lifetime. Which demands another ingredient: haste. If we are in a rush to act for “good,” our lack of responsibility in preventing the future consequences of our actions is inevitable. And if we stop producing, developing, expanding our interventions in the world, we will feel lost and our lives will lack meaning.

God can give us signals to guide our choices toward redemption. But since we have free will, the act of redemption depends entirely on us. If we behave badly, we will wind up in eternal damnation. However, even if we do good in the world, we won’t benefit from it in this lifetime.

Contradictory Messages Short Circuit the Psyche

After receiving such messages, human beings find themselves trapped in a series of double binds – which were defined by Gregory Bateson (1972) as contradictory messages with a highly emotional content, lacking both an exit route and a clear interpretation of the messages themselves. For instance, someone asking for a hug, but then becoming cold and stiff when approached. Bateson conjectured that such double binds could lead to schizophrenia.

Here are the double binds of life in the West:

– We were born in the image of God and must imitate the virtuous actions of Jesus, but we are never able to reach his connection with God.

– We have to redeem ourself through doing good deeds, but have no certainty of attaining salvation.

– We are separate from the world and special, and are to exploit nature for our own aims, but since in reality human beings – both environmentally and spiritually – are not separate from the world, the attempt to relate to nature as a separate entity will necessarily lead to alienation and to digging our own graves through environmental disaster.

– We are to work for eternal salvation and a bright future, but it will never come in this lifetime.

Confused and anxious to free ourself from the labyrinths of double binds, we try to resolve them by creating heaven on Earth – by using technology for our salvation. We feel fine when our conscience is clear because we perform virtuous actions, however separate they are from the integrated world. But despite virtuous action, we can never be like Jesus, as we are unsure of achieving salvation.

Therefore, technology leads to the search for a pseudo-salvation within this earthly life – such as using biotechnologies to operate on the divine plane of creation and immortality. The same culture that has considered miracles as proof of the existence of God has now developed technologies that resemble the miraculous.

To abandon the drive toward production with its search for miraculous technologies would also mean abandoning hope of redemption and salvation. We must also then let go of the idea that mankind has a special place in creation, concomitantly releasing the individual identity built on what we have “done” in life. Individual action can lead to redemption on Earth, but without being able to act on nature, human beings would feel lost, crushed by guilt feelings.

Order  The Digitally Divided Self on Amazon

“It’s Only a Tool”?

“It’s Only a Tool”?

excerpt from Chapter 2 of “The Digitally Divided Self : Relinquishing our Awareness to the Internet

Order on Amazon.

“It’s Only a Tool”

If there were a law stating that “people should stay in front of a screen for most of their waking time, both indoors and out, avoiding real-life meetings as much as possible, shop without touching or seeing the product, find their soulmates through Internet announcements, consume an average of 34 gigabytes of information daily” (University of California, 2009), there would be a revolution. But if it’s seen as our “freedom,” then it’s fine. Technology can do this because it acts on a higher level than laws, rules or impositions. As Neil Postman (1993) wrote, “Technology imperiously commandeers our most important terminology. It redefines ‘freedom’ ‘truth,’ ‘intelligence,’ ‘fact,’ ‘wisdom,’ ‘memory,’ ‘history’ – all the words we live by” (p. 8). Facebook now has even transformed the meaning of “friend” and “like.”

For most of us, technology acts deeply in moving awareness away from the connection with our inner world – powerfully redefining both our inner and outer life. Sustained attention, awareness and introspection—the qualities needed to break out of the automated mind – become especially difficult when we are drowning in information, mostly brief and directed to the latest news.

Joseph Weizenbaum (1976), exploring the character of compulsive programmers as early as 1976, found them disinterested in their bodily needs and detached from the world around them. We are not surprised to meet such figures in countries where advanced technologies are part of everyday life.

Cubans I met traveling there in 2000 were usually lively people, with direct personal contact, sensual, relating to immediate reality. It was striking to see two computer technicians, on the contrary, detached, immersed in their own worlds, neglecting themselves, communicating with few words. I realized how daily contact with a tool – in this case computers and programming (tools which had been available there for only a few years) – can have a stronger impact on social attitude and personality than the collective conditioning of society.

There is probably a mutual feedback between personality and life choices, but without doubt technology also shapes psyches. Even early in history, Taoists observed that the use of instruments carries the risk of becoming mechanical ourself. Today – from Hong Kong to Brazil, from Lithuania to South Africa, from Egypt to New Zealand – wherever people use the Internet, they click on the same icons, use the same shortcuts in email and chats, connect with people through the same Facebook modalities. This is the globalization of mind.

Technology is not Questionable

Mark Slouka, in War of the Worlds (1995), conveyed how eerie it is to be permeated by the digital revolution, with no or little reflection about what it really means, “where the only concern heard in the land, by and large, is that some of us may be left behind” (p. 9).

In the history of media, there has never been much reflection about the impact on human psyches. The few who reflected negatively on it were considered against progress and innovation.

The technological person doesn’t believe he can be transformed by technology. In fact, he has been persuaded that he is the master of technology. He believes that his inner life (actually as unknown to him today as it was before Freud) cannot be modified by any tool. His mind is supposed to rise above all else; tools can at most extend the possibilities of his mind, but can never influence his choices. While this wasn’t even true for mechanical tools, it is even less true for information technologies.

The technological person is subject to the Cartesian separation between the world of matter and the world of ideas – and considers the latter superior. Much before Descartes, the Bible assigned us the role of masters of matter and God’s terrain. This unconscious belief that our mind is superior to everything else has contributed to the lack of debate about the transformation of our psyches by technology.

Knowing through the Body                            

Birds build their nests instinctively, and many animals “know” how to hunt or find food, but humans have been dispensed a limited set of instincts, such as sucking and grabbing. Everything else derives from learning – which is very much an embodied process. Despite emphasis on the 3Rs in kindergarten, the factors most likely to lead to later academic success are play and social skills. Research shows that young children learn through their bodies. For example, the child’s early understanding of geometric relationships and physics is almost physical.

A study published in Nature by researchers at the University of California at Santa Cruz demonstrated that as animals learn motor tasks, connections between brain cells begin to form almost immediately and become permanently consolidated in the brain. We all know that when we learn something involving the body, like riding a bicycle, this knowledge stays with us.

Along the evolutionary trail, we first see muscles appearing, then motor function as consequence of interacting with a certain habitat, and later the associated neurophysiological functions. Motor activity acts on the brain, which in turn acts back on the body to perfect an action. Engels (1985) perceived that the opposability of the thumb and the erect position of human beings came millions of years before the further development of the brain. It was the activity that altered the brain, and not vice versa. This was later confirmed by the fossil record.

The hand especially, with its sophisticated movements, shaped our nervous systems. The “technologies” of body movement and of manual labor shaped and developed our human brain from earliest times. In mutual feedback, our brain shaped our tools with growing complexity – until we arrived at contemporary tools. These interact almost exclusively with our minds and shape our nervous system.

In a famous experiment by University College London in 2008, researchers used magnetic scanners to read the brain activity of twenty taxi drivers while they navigated their way through a virtual simulation of London’s streets. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) scans, they obtained detailed brain images as taxi drivers delivered customers to their destinations.

Different brain regions were activated as they were planning their routes, spotting familiar landmarks, or thinking about their customers. Brain areas were activated and grew by building information needed to find the right way around complicated London streets. Earlier studies found that taxi drivers have a larger hippocampus – an area of the brain important in navigational abilities – than most of us.

Detailed table of contents, introduction and chapter 1.

The Digitally Divided Self: Relinquishing our Awareness to the Internet

The Digitally Divided SelfThe Digitally Divided Self: Relinquishing our Awareness to the Internet is on Amazon.

ISBN 9788897233008
274 Pages – Format: 6″ x 9″ – $17.90 (discounted on Amazon)

It is nearly half a century since Marshall McLuhan pointed out that the medium is the message. In the interim, digital technologies have found an irresistible hook on our minds. With the soul’s quest for the infinite usurped by the ego’s desire for unlimited power, the Internet and social media have stepped in to fill our deepest needs for communication, knowledge and creativity – even intimacy and sexuality. Without being grounded in those human qualities which are established through experience and inner exploration, we are vulnerable to being seduced into outsourcing our minds and our fragile identities.

Intersecting media studies, psychology and spirituality, The Digitally Divided Self exposes the nature of the malleable mind and explores the religious and philosophical influences which leave it obsessed with the incessant flow of information.

I am deeply touched and extremely grateful to the people who took the time to read, support and endorse The Digitally Divided Self. Being my first English book, and basically self-published, I didn’t expect to receive many reviews, much less from such leading thinkers and writers – nor such positive responses.

It was also a surprise to find common interests around eastern spirituality with so many people into technology and media. This makes me hopeful for an evolution of the information society – from chasing external stimulation to inner explorations and silence.

Detailed table of contents, introduction and chapter 1.

Order on Amazon.

Praise for Digitally Divided Self

 “Quartiroli’s The Digitally Divided Self is a must read for anyone seeking to understand the ever-increasing hegemony of the digital world in the individual psyche. Drawing on diverse fields and traditions, the author analyzes numerous mechanisms by which IT separates us from ourselves. Readers stand to benefit from such an understanding that is a prerequisite for mounting a defense of one’s individuality.” —Len Bracken, author of several novels and the biography Guy Debord—Revolutionary

 ­“With great insight, Ivo Quartiroli captures the subtle as well as the gross impact that media use has on our individual and collective psyches. The challenge before all of us is how to adapt to the new technology in a healthy way that allows us to retain our essential humanity. He offers us a solution born of his experience and confirmed by neuroscience. This is a must read.” —Hilarie Cash, PhD, co-founder of reSTART: Internet Addiction Recovery Program

 “It is difficult to offer a spiritually based critique of today’s network culture without sounding like a nostalgic Luddite crank. Immersed in the tech, but also in various meditative traditions, Ivo Quartiroli is the perfect person to offer integral wisdom-tech with clarity and bite.” —Erik Davis, author of Techgnosis and Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica.

  “Aware of the profound and rapid psychological and social metamorphosis we are going through as we ‘go digital’ without paying attention, Ivo Quartiroli is telling us very precisely what we are gaining and what we are losing of the qualities and privileges that, glued as we are to one screen or another, we take for granted in our emotional, cognitive and spiritual life. This book is a wake-up call. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates should read it.” —Derrick de Kerckhove, Professor, Facoltà di sociologia, Università Federico II, Naples, former Director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology.

 “The Digitally Divided Self alerts us about the insidious dangers of our growing dependence on Information Technology. Ivo Quartiroli warns us that Internet can easily develop into an addiction that undercuts our connections with nature, with other people, and with our deeper inner reality. The spiritual nourishment coming from genuine relationships is then replaced by the empty calories of fake relationships, with the resulting deterioration of our personal and social lives. Using an incisive style, Ivo Quartiroli can be provocative, iconoclastic, at times exaggerated, but never boring. Behind each observation there are pearls of wisdom that are guaranteed to make you think.” Federico Faggin, designer of the microprocessor.

 “Global culture is not only the latest step in the human evolutionary journey. It is also, as Ivo Quartiroli shows in The Digitally Divided Self, a critical opportunity to apply non-Western techniques of awareness to ensure healthy survival in the 21st century.” —Michael Heim, author of The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality, Virtual Realism, and Electric Language.

 “Question the merits of technology in the past and you’d be called a Luddite. But now technologists are leading the way toward a new, more balanced view of our gadget-driven lives. Drawing from his fascinating expertise in computer science and spirituality, Ivo Quartiroli presents a compelling critique of the corrosive impact of the Net on our humanity. It’s a warning we must heed.” —Maggie Jackson, author of Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age.

“A profoundly premonitory vision of the future of the 21st century, The Digitally Divided Self unlocks the great codes of technological society, namely that the very same digital forces that effectively control the shape and direction of the human destiny are also the founding powers of a new revolution of the human spirit.” —Arthur Kroker, author of The Will to Technology and Canada Research Chair in Technology, Culture and Theory.

 “People today, especially young people, live more on the Internet than in the real world. This has subtle and not-so-subtle effects on their thinking and personality. It is high time to review these effects, to see whether they are a smooth highway to a bright interconnected future, or possibly a deviation that could endanger health and wellbeing for the individual as well as for society. Ivo Quartiroli undertakes to produce this review and does so with deep understanding and dedicated humanism. His book should be read by everyone, whether he or she is addicted to the Internet or has second thoughts about it.” —Ervin Laszlo, President, the Club of Budapest, and Chancellor, the Giordano Bruno Globalshift University.

 “The Mind-Body Split is a pervasive condition/affliction in the developed world, wholly un-recognized; yet fundamental to the great worldwide problems of health, environment, and economic inequity. Ivo Quartiroli’s Digitally Divided Self masterfully examines the effects of the insulated digital experience on the mind and the body self: exacerbating illusions and the Mind-Body Split; and contrasts it to the processes of self-discovery, growth, and healing: true inter-connectedness with nature, each other, and our selves. If the digital age is to solve our real problems, rather than create them, it will be with the knowledge contained in The Digitally Divided Self. Well done!” —Frederic Lowen, son of Alexander Lowen, Executive Director, The Alexander Lowen Foundation

 “Ivo Quartiroli here addresses one of the most pressing questions forced upon us by our latest technologies. In disturbing the deepest relations between the user’s faculties and the surrounding world, our electric media, all of them without exception, create profound disorientation and subsequent discord, personal and cultural. Few subjects today demand greater scrutiny.” — Dr. Eric McLuhan, Author and Lecturer

 “The internet is an extension of our central nervous system. When you operate a computer, you are extending yourself, through its interface, potentially all over the world, instantaneously. Extending yourself in such a disembodied, discarnate fashion only further entrenches your separateness, your ego self. In contrast, the introspective freeing from the physical through meditation also has the effect of creating a discarnate, disembodied state. That state is one that is progressively less identified with the ego self. This is the dichotomy that Ivo Quartiroli explores in The Digitally Divided Self. This book is well worth investigating.” —Michael McLuhan

 “We should all be asking the questions Ivo Quartiroli asks in this bold and provocative book. Whatever you think right now about technology, The Digitally Divided Self will challenge you to think again.” —William Powers, author of the New York Times bestseller Hamlet’s BlackBerry

 “It isn’t easy to find an informed and critical look at the impact of digital media practices on human lives and minds. Ivo Quartiroli offers an informed critique based in both an understanding of technology and of human consciousness.” —Howard Rheingold, author of The Virtual Community and Smart Mobs.

 “Ivo Quartiroli is mining the rich liminal territory between humans and their networks. With the integrity of a scientist and the passion of artist, he forces us to reconsider where we end and technology begins. Or when.” —Douglas Rushkoff, Media Theorist and author of Cyberia, Media Virus, Life, Inc. and Program or Be Programmed.

 “You might find what he writes to be challenging, irritating, even blasphemous and sacrilegious. If so, he has proven his point. The Internet, Ivo suggests, might just be the new opium of the masses. Agree with him or not, no other book to date brings together the multitude of issues related to how the seductions of technology impinge upon and affect the development of the self and soul.” —Michael Wesch, Associate Professor of Digital Ethnography, Kansas State University

 The Digitally Divided Self is a refreshing look at technology that goes beyond the standard, well-worn critiques. Ivo Quartiroli charts new territory with a series of profound reflections on the intersections of computer science, psychology and spirituality.” —Micah White, Senior Editor at Adbusters magazine.

Detailed table of contents, introduction and chapter 1.

Order on Amazon.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: From Awareness of technology to technologies of Awareness .. 1
Chapter 2:“It’s only a tool” .. 17
Chapter 3: The Roots of It .. 39
Chapter 4: The Digitization of Reality .. 53
Chapter 5: Intimacy and Sexuality.. 73
Chapter 6: Commoditizing and Monetizing.. 89
Chapter 7: Politics, Participation and Control .. 97
Chapter 8: Come together: the Rise of Social networks.. 115
Chapter 9: Digital Kids ..125
Chapter 10: Literacy and the Analytical Mind.. 133
Chapter 11: Lost in the Current .. 143
Chapter 12: The Digitally Divided Self.. 165
Chapter 13: The Process of Knowledge .. 189
Chapter 14: Upgrading to Heaven .. 205
Chapter 15: Biting the Snake.. 223
Appendix: The People of Contemporary It and what Drives them.. 233

Introduction

Like many people nowadays, much of my personal and professional life is related to technology: I use the Internet for keeping the connection with my work projects and friends wherever I am in the world. I published the first book in Italy about the Internet. I run a blog and a Web magazine, do my investments online, shop on the Net, do interviews by email and Skype, and have even indulged in cybersex. Right now I’m in Asia developing this book – which is full of references to Web articles, blogs and material found only on the Internet – with online support: an editor and writing coach in California, copy editor in India, book designer in Italy, and a printing and distribution service with multiple locations in USA. My life is immersed in the digital loop.

I have been involved in IT since I was a student. As I learned meditation and explored spiritual paths, I developed an inner observer and discovered states beyond the mind. Thus, I found myself going back and forth between processing consciousness and information. Slowly my focus has shifted from what we can do with technology to what technology does to us. As a first-hand explorer, I’ve observed the subtle changes of our massive use of the Net.

Just as a spiritual researcher can go beyond the mind only after having observed and mastered it, it is necessary to enter the digital world to step beyond it. We can’t become aware of its effects without being engaged in it. Since digital technology is unavoidable now, we need to master it without becoming lost in it, using its tools with our full awareness.

In this time, the intensification of mental inputs is a phenomenon that must be kept in balance. Our contemporary culture does not acknowledge anything beyond the mind, but in other traditions the mental world is just one of the aspects of our wholeness. In the West a sort of Cartesian “pure thinking” has been given priority. Although the mind is the best-known organ of thought, it is not the only cognitive modality. Nervous systems have been discovered both in the heart and in the belly, and the global awareness that can be accessed by spiritual practitioners is pervasive and non-localized. Yet these modalities cannot be represented digitally, so they are relegated to the sidelines.

Our technological society militates against uninterrupted conscious attention. Several authors have documented the effects of IT on attention, literacy and intellectual skills. It also intrudes on the silent time needed to be aware of inner transformations. We don’t realize we have become servomechanisms of IT – precisely because IT has weakened the inner skills of self-understanding. Shrinking of the rich range of human qualities to privilege only those which can be represented and operated digitally arises from the nature of the ego-mind and our particular Western history which has engendered – then valued – mental representations of reality. My focus here is to understand why the mind can be lured by the magic of the tools, while forgetting the person who is using them.

We believe we are empowered individually and politically as we post articles on our blogs and participate in social networks. In actuality, we feed the machine with our “user-generated content” which becomes candy for advertisers who then design ads based on what we say on Twitter, Facebook, and even our emails.

Jumping from information to self-understanding is necessary if we are to regain real freedom, a freedom from conditioning of our mind and the manipulation by information – whether self-created or from external sources. We mistake the transmission of gigabytes of data for freedom.

In our advanced technological society there is a reticence to acknowledge the inner, spiritual or metaphysical dimensions of life. What cannot be calculated – which is, thereby, “not objective” – is considered unworthy of investigation. Even more strongly denied is the relationship between technology and the impact on our psyche. Technophiles declare that it’s only a tool, as if our psyche could remain untouched by continuous interaction with digital media, and as if we could control its impact on us. We can indeed be in control of digital media – but only after we become fluent in those cognitive modalities which can’t be reached by such media.

To be unaffected by digital media, we need a Buddha-like awareness with sustained attention, mindfulness and introspection. Yet these very qualities which are needed to break out of the automated mind are especially difficult to access when we are drowning in information – information that is predominantly ephemeral and transient, and which lacks a broader narrative. Awareness is what gives meaning and depth to information, but for awareness to expand we need to empty our mind. A story will illustrate this. A university professor approached a master to learn about Zen. Tea was served, but when the cup was full, the master did not stop pouring. The cup, like the professor’s mind with its concepts and positions, was full. It must first be emptied to understand Zen. So, too, for the digital world.

The world over, people using the Internet click on the same icons, use the same shortcuts in email and chats, connect with people through the same Facebook modalities. This is the globalization of minds. In the process of the digitization of reality, regardless of content, we use predominantly the same limited mental channels and interact with the same tools. We bring the same attitudes, gestures and procedures to working, dating, shopping, communicating with friends, sexual arousal, and scientific research. And most of these activities are impoverished by this phenomenon. Everything is seen as an information system, from the digitization of territory (like Google Earth and augmented realities software) to our biology.

Judeo-Christian culture places nature and the world of matter at man’s disposal. Acting on them is a way to garner good deeds and regain the lost perfection of Eden. In this culture that has considered miracles as proof of the existence of God, we have developed technologies that resemble the miraculous and the divine. We are compelled to welcome the advent of new technological tools with the rhetoric of peace, progress, prosperity and mutual understanding.

The telegraph, telephone, radio, TV and other media have been regarded as tools for democracy, world peace, understanding and freedom of expression. The Internet is just the latest in a succession of promising messiahs. Yet we don’t have more democracy in the world. In fact, big media and big powers are even stronger, while freedom of expression has ceded to control by corporations and governmental agencies. The Internet, like TV, will be entertaining, dumbing people in their own separate homes where they will be unable to question the system. The Internet might already be the new soma for a society experiencing economic and environmental degradation. But with the huge economic interests connected to it, criticizing its effect is akin to cursing God.

Many technological developments appeal to people because they answer psychological and even spiritual needs – like the quests for understanding and connection with others. Already digital technology has taken charge of truth and love – the drives which are distinctly human. Those primordial needs have been addressed, on the mental level, with information. Reflected only at that level, our soul is left empty with craving for the real qualities, and our mind is left restless, craving more information and chasing after satisfaction in vain.

The need to extend our possibilities through technology derives from the need to recover parts of ourself that were lost during the development of our soul – the states of sharp perception, fulfillment, and peace. Information technology (IT) also satisfies our ancient drives for power and control, even giving us several options with a simple click or touch of a finger.

The endless multiplication of information can keep the ego-mind busy – and thus at the center of the show. IT is the most powerful mental “pusher” ever created, feeding the duality of the ego-mind (which is symbolically mirrored by binary technology). More than TV whose attractions are framed between the beginning and ending time of a show, the Internet, video games, and smartphones have no structural pauses or endings. Hooked on a “real-time” stream of information, they take us farther away from both the real and the appropriate time frames.

The computer charms us by reflecting our mind on the Net. Like Narcissus, we mistake the reflected image and enter a closed loop, charmed by our reflection. The Internet, since the beginning, has been considered a technology which could crumble central governments and organizations. Perhaps that forecast was an external projection of what can happen inside us: disturbance of the integration of our psyches.

Meditation helps us recognize that we construct reality and that the mind leads us astray. Meditation is a path back to reality, to truth, to knowing and mastering our minds – instead of mastering the computer as a way to outsource our mind’s skills. It is a way to expand our awareness and join the other global “Net” – of awareness that permeates everything.

Though I am Italian, I am publishing this book for the English market because it is a post-digital book which can be better appreciated in countries where digital culture has spread throughout society. In Italy, one politically powerful tycoon owns most of the media, and uses it to demonize the Net. In that setting, being critical of the Net invokes the accusation of aligning with power to castrate freedom of expression, which is the polar opposite of my intention.

I welcome every medium which expands our chances of expressing ourselves, but I am aware that true self-expression can happen only when there’s a true self, which can hardly be shaped by screen media.

I am grateful to my spiritual teachers who opened new dimensions for my soul in my journey toward awareness, especially the intensity of Osho and the brilliant clarity of A. H. Almaas. I thank my copy editor Dhiren Bahl (www.WordsWay-Copyediting.com) for his painstaking corrections of my English text and my editor David Carr (www.MovingWords.us) for his clarifications and stylistic improvements. I’m grateful to my friends, too many to list here, for the numerous talks bringing together heart and mind in sharing our passion for truth.

Detailed table of contents, introduction and chapter 1.

Order on Amazon.

The Digitally Divided SelfThe Digitally Divided Self: Relinquishing our Awareness to the Internet is on Amazon.

ISBN 9788897233008
274 Pages – Format: 6″ x 9″ – $17.90

It is nearly half a century since Marshall McLuhan pointed out that the medium is the message. In the interim, digital technologies have found an irresistible hook on our minds. With the soul’s quest for the infinite usurped by the ego’s desire for unlimited power, the Internet and social media have stepped in to fill our deepest needs for communication, knowledge and creativity – even intimacy and sexuality. Without being grounded in those human qualities which are established through experience and inner exploration, we are vulnerable to being seduced into outsourcing our minds and our fragile identities.

Intersecting media studies, psychology and spirituality, The Digitally Divided Self exposes the nature of the malleable mind and explores the religious and philosophical influences which leave it obsessed with the incessant flow of information.

I am deeply touched and extremely grateful to the people who took the time to read, support and endorse The Digitally Divided Self. Being my first English book, and basically self-published, I didn’t expect to receive many reviews, much less from such leading thinkers and writers – nor such positive responses.

It was also a surprise to find common interests around eastern spirituality with so many people into technology and media. This makes me hopeful for an evolution of the information society – from chasing external stimulation to inner explorations and silence.

Order on Amazon.

Praise for Digitally Divided Self

 “Quartiroli’s The Digitally Divided Self is a must read for anyone seeking to understand the ever-increasing hegemony of the digital world in the individual psyche. Drawing on diverse fields and traditions, the author analyzes numerous mechanisms by which IT separates us from ourselves. Readers stand to benefit from such an understanding that is a prerequisite for mounting a defense of one’s individuality.” —Len Bracken, author of several novels and the biography Guy Debord—Revolutionary

 ­“With great insight, Ivo Quartiroli captures the subtle as well as the gross impact that media use has on our individual and collective psyches. The challenge before all of us is how to adapt to the new technology in a healthy way that allows us to retain our essential humanity. He offers us a solution born of his experience and confirmed by neuroscience. This is a must read.” —Hilarie Cash, PhD, co-founder of reSTART: Internet Addiction Recovery Program

 “It is difficult to offer a spiritually based critique of today’s network culture without sounding like a nostalgic Luddite crank. Immersed in the tech, but also in various meditative traditions, Ivo Quartiroli is the perfect person to offer integral wisdom-tech with clarity and bite.” —Erik Davis, author of Techgnosis and Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica.

  “Aware of the profound and rapid psychological and social metamorphosis we are going through as we ‘go digital’ without paying attention, Ivo Quartiroli is telling us very precisely what we are gaining and what we are losing of the qualities and privileges that, glued as we are to one screen or another, we take for granted in our emotional, cognitive and spiritual life. This book is a wake-up call. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates should read it.” —Derrick de Kerckhove, Professor, Facoltà di sociologia, Università Federico II, Naples, former Director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology.

 “The Digitally Divided Self alerts us about the insidious dangers of our growing dependence on Information Technology. Ivo Quartiroli warns us that Internet can easily develop into an addiction that undercuts our connections with nature, with other people, and with our deeper inner reality. The spiritual nourishment coming from genuine relationships is then replaced by the empty calories of fake relationships, with the resulting deterioration of our personal and social lives. Using an incisive style, Ivo Quartiroli can be provocative, iconoclastic, at times exaggerated, but never boring. Behind each observation there are pearls of wisdom that are guaranteed to make you think.” Federico Faggin, designer of the microprocessor.

 “Global culture is not only the latest step in the human evolutionary journey. It is also, as Ivo Quartiroli shows in The Digitally Divided Self, a critical opportunity to apply non-Western techniques of awareness to ensure healthy survival in the 21st century.” —Michael Heim, author of The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality, Virtual Realism, and Electric Language.

 “Question the merits of technology in the past and you’d be called a Luddite. But now technologists are leading the way toward a new, more balanced view of our gadget-driven lives. Drawing from his fascinating expertise in computer science and spirituality, Ivo Quartiroli presents a compelling critique of the corrosive impact of the Net on our humanity. It’s a warning we must heed.” —Maggie Jackson, author of Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age.

“A profoundly premonitory vision of the future of the 21st century, The Digitally Divided Self unlocks the great codes of technological society, namely that the very same digital forces that effectively control the shape and direction of the human destiny are also the founding powers of a new revolution of the human spirit.” —Arthur Kroker, author of The Will to Technology and Canada Research Chair in Technology, Culture and Theory.

 “People today, especially young people, live more on the Internet than in the real world. This has subtle and not-so-subtle effects on their thinking and personality. It is high time to review these effects, to see whether they are a smooth highway to a bright interconnected future, or possibly a deviation that could endanger health and wellbeing for the individual as well as for society. Ivo Quartiroli undertakes to produce this review and does so with deep understanding and dedicated humanism. His book should be read by everyone, whether he or she is addicted to the Internet or has second thoughts about it.” —Ervin Laszlo, President, the Club of Budapest, and Chancellor, the Giordano Bruno Globalshift University.

 “The Mind-Body Split is a pervasive condition/affliction in the developed world, wholly un-recognized; yet fundamental to the great worldwide problems of health, environment, and economic inequity. Ivo Quartiroli’s Digitally Divided Self masterfully examines the effects of the insulated digital experience on the mind and the body self: exacerbating illusions and the Mind-Body Split; and contrasts it to the processes of self-discovery, growth, and healing: true inter-connectedness with nature, each other, and our selves. If the digital age is to solve our real problems, rather than create them, it will be with the knowledge contained in The Digitally Divided Self. Well done!” —Frederic Lowen, son of Alexander Lowen, Executive Director, The Alexander Lowen Foundation

 “Ivo Quartiroli here addresses one of the most pressing questions forced upon us by our latest technologies. In disturbing the deepest relations between the user’s faculties and the surrounding world, our electric media, all of them without exception, create profound disorientation and subsequent discord, personal and cultural. Few subjects today demand greater scrutiny.” — Dr. Eric McLuhan, Author and Lecturer

 “The internet is an extension of our central nervous system. When you operate a computer, you are extending yourself, through its interface, potentially all over the world, instantaneously. Extending yourself in such a disembodied, discarnate fashion only further entrenches your separateness, your ego self. In contrast, the introspective freeing from the physical through meditation also has the effect of creating a discarnate, disembodied state. That state is one that is progressively less identified with the ego self. This is the dichotomy that Ivo Quartiroli explores in The Digitally Divided Self. This book is well worth investigating.” —Michael McLuhan

 “We should all be asking the questions Ivo Quartiroli asks in this bold and provocative book. Whatever you think right now about technology, The Digitally Divided Self will challenge you to think again.” —William Powers, author of the New York Times bestseller Hamlet’s BlackBerry

 “It isn’t easy to find an informed and critical look at the impact of digital media practices on human lives and minds. Ivo Quartiroli offers an informed critique based in both an understanding of technology and of human consciousness.” —Howard Rheingold, author of The Virtual Community and Smart Mobs.

 “Ivo Quartiroli is mining the rich liminal territory between humans and their networks. With the integrity of a scientist and the passion of artist, he forces us to reconsider where we end and technology begins. Or when.” —Douglas Rushkoff, Media Theorist and author of Cyberia, Media Virus, Life, Inc. and Program or Be Programmed.

 “You might find what he writes to be challenging, irritating, even blasphemous and sacrilegious. If so, he has proven his point. The Internet, Ivo suggests, might just be the new opium of the masses. Agree with him or not, no other book to date brings together the multitude of issues related to how the seductions of technology impinge upon and affect the development of the self and soul.” —Michael Wesch, Associate Professor of Digital Ethnography, Kansas State University

 The Digitally Divided Self is a refreshing look at technology that goes beyond the standard, well-worn critiques. Ivo Quartiroli charts new territory with a series of profound reflections on the intersections of computer science, psychology and spirituality.” —Micah White, Senior Editor at Adbusters magazine.

Order on Amazon.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: From Awareness of technology to technologies of Awareness .. 1
The Limits of Technology.. 3
What’s Not Computable Isn’t Real .. 4
The Promises of the Early Internet .. 5
From Information Processing to Consciousness Processing.. 6
All in the Digital Mincer .. 7
Technology Can’t be Challenged.. 8
Technology Uses Us .. 10
Feeding the Soul with Bytes .. 11
The Immortal Mind .. 12
Inner Prostheses and Amputations through Technology .. 13
Beyond the Mind.. 14
The Fragility of Beliefs and Information Technology.. 15

Chapter 2:“It’s only a tool” .. 17
Technology is not Questionable .. 18
Knowing through the Body .. 18
Technology “Does” Us .. 19
Technology is a Matter of Life and Death.. 21
Binary and Inner Duality.. 21
Knowing through the Heart.. 22
Our Identity With Tools – from Chimps to Chips .. 25
Reconnecting with the Inner Flow.. 26
From Spectator to Witness .. 28
Inner Holes and Techno-Fills .. 28
Pure Thinking Without the Body.. 30
Tools for Inner Growth.. 31
The Mind Itself is a Medium.. 34
IT Weakens Our Presence .. 36
Constrained to Produce .. 39

Chapter 3: The Roots of It .. 39
Constrained to Produce .. 39
IT was Started by the Bible .. 40
Technology as Returning to the Lost Perfection .. 41
Contradictory Messages Short Circuit the Psyche .. 43
Children of a Lesser God .. 44
Psychological Defenses .. 44
Technology as the Ultimate Savior .. 45
The Nature of the Mind.. 46
Conceptual Debris and Technology as a Holding Agent for the Psyche 47
The Quest for Immortality .. 48
Copying, Improving and Creating Minds.. 50

Chapter 4: The Digitization of Reality .. 53
Data is King .. 55
The Digitization of Territory .. 56
Augmenting Reality .. 57
The Mind as the First Virtual Reality Tool .. 58
The Digitization of Biology .. 59
Analogical Models of Reality .. 64
Our Digital Nervous Systems .. 66
Programming .. 67
Thinking like Software .. 69
Digitizing All Life Events .. 71

Chapter 5: Intimacy and Sexuality.. 73
Eros and the Sexualization of Society .. 74
Cybersex.. 75
The Transformation of Seduction and of Relationship .. 77
Masturbation and Sex Toys.. 78
Orgasm 2.0.. 80
Cybervirgins .. 82
Gender Issues and the Vanishing Male.. 84
Earlier Exposure to Porn.. 85
Desires .. 87
Cybersex as a Tantric Path .. 87

Chapter 6: Commoditizing and Monetizing.. 89
Replacing the Real .. 90
Playing with Feelings .. 90
iMarket .. 92
Brave New World.. 94
Deconstructing Sense and Ethics.. 94
Toward the Denial of Truth .. 95

Chapter 7: Politics, Participation and Control .. 97
The Rulers of Our Psyches .. 98
Governments.. 99
Advertising and Our Attention.. 100
Google .. 101
Wikileaks .. 104
Into Our Digital Persona .. 104
You Can Tell What Somebody is Like by the Company They Keep.. 105
Is the Internet Empowering Us? .. 106
Illusory Participation.. 107
Slacktivism .. 110
The Yogic Geek.. 112
Renouncing the World .. 115

Chapter 8: Come together: the Rise of Social networks.. 115
Renoucing the World .. 115
The Inner Need of Connection and Facebook.. 116
Experiencing for Others to See .. 118
Empathy.. 119
Illusory Contact.. 121
Body/Mind Development in Childhood .. 125

Chapter 9: Digital Kids ..125
Body/Mind Development in Childhood .. 125
Denied Childhood .. 126
Computers in Education .. 127
Lack of Mentors .. 128
Technology as an Answer to Social Fear .. 129
Wired Children.. 130
Sleepless Children .. 132

Chapter 10: Literacy and the Analytical Mind.. 133
Analytical and Critical Skills .. 136
A New Literacy Through eBooks? .. 138
The Reading “Technology” .. 139
Digital Writing .. 140
Communication and the Transformation of Consciousness.. 141
Attend to This! .. 143

Chapter 11: Lost in the Current .. 143
Attend to This! .. 143
Attend to it Now and Forever! .. 145
New is Cool .. 145
Instant Gratification.. 145
Neurological Changes Related to Instant Gratification .. 146
Accepting Emptiness and the Eureka Effect.. 147
Faster and Faster, but just Apparently .. 149
Into the Loop .. 151
Technological Updates and the Right to Silence .. 152
Cogitus Interruptus through Multitasking .. 153
No History, No Narrative, No Past .. 156
Digital and Human Memory.. 157
Addiction.. 158
Awareness of Feelings and Addiction.. 162
Attention .. 165

Chapter 12: The Digitally Divided Self.. 165
Attention .. 165
The Construction of the Self .. 166
Technological Development as a Metaphor of the Psychological One .. 170
Millions of MP3s and the Missing “My Personality” .. 173
Attachment to the Machine .. 173
The Need for Mirroring .. 174
Maternal Feeding and Paternal Limit Setting .. 175
The Sand Castle Crumbles: Toward a Schizoid State.. 176
The Other as Image .. 178
Detaching from the Body .. 179
The Schizoid State is an Ontological Condition .. 181
The Eye, the Ear, and a Global Tribalism.. 181
The Mind as a Medium.. 183
No Identity.. 185
The Reign of Objectivity .. 189

Chapter 13: The Process of Knowledge .. 189
The Reign of Objectivity .. 189
Joining Inner and Outer Knowledge .. 192
Not Knowing.. 195
Words are Second-Best After Silence.. 198
Do We Know with our Brains? .. 200
Externalizing Thinking .. 202

Chapter 14: Upgrading to Heaven .. 205
Creating Consciousness.. 206
Technology as an Ego Maintainer .. 209
IT Beyond Me: Unlinking Ourselves through Technology .. 211
Here and Now.. 213
Devotionally Disappearing into Technology.. 214
The Immortal Mind.. 215
Spiritual Powers through Technology .. 217
Are we Machines? .. 218
The Will to Create Mental Worlds .. 220

Chapter 15: Biting the Snake.. 223
Out of the Loop.. 224
Screen Media vs. Meditation .. 225
Meditation .. 228
IT is basically Counter-Meditative.. 230
Another Maya Layer through Technology .. 231
Charles Babbage.. 233

Appendix: The People of Contemporary It and what Drives them.. 233
Charles Babbage.. 233
Ada Lovelace .. 234
John von Neumann.. 234
Norbert Wiener .. 235
Alan Turing .. 235
Al Gore.. 236
Steward Brand .. 237
Kevin Kelly .. 238
Bill Gates.. 239
Steve Jobs .. 239
Withdrawing into the Mind .. 240
Bibliography .. 241
Index .. 249

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The Digitally Divided Self. Table of Contents, Introduction and Chapter 1

The Digitally Divided Self

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Table of Contents

Chapter 1: From Awareness of technology to technologies of Awareness .. 1
The Limits of Technology.. 3
What’s Not Computable Isn’t Real .. 4
The Promises of the Early Internet .. 5
From Information Processing to Consciousness Processing.. 6
All in the Digital Mincer .. 7
Technology Can’t be Challenged.. 8
Technology Uses Us .. 10
Feeding the Soul with Bytes .. 11
The Immortal Mind .. 12
Inner Prostheses and Amputations through Technology .. 13
Beyond the Mind.. 14
The Fragility of Beliefs and Information Technology.. 15

Chapter 2:“It’s only a tool” .. 17
Technology is not Questionable .. 18
Knowing through the Body .. 18
Technology “Does” Us .. 19
Technology is a Matter of Life and Death.. 21
Binary and Inner Duality.. 21
Knowing through the Heart.. 22
Our Identity With Tools – from Chimps to Chips .. 25
Reconnecting with the Inner Flow.. 26
From Spectator to Witness .. 28
Inner Holes and Techno-Fills .. 28
Pure Thinking Without the Body.. 30
Tools for Inner Growth.. 31
The Mind Itself is a Medium.. 34
IT Weakens Our Presence .. 36
Constrained to Produce .. 39

The Digitally Divided Self

Order on Amazon.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: From Awareness of technology to technologies of Awareness .. 1
The Limits of Technology.. 3
What’s Not Computable Isn’t Real .. 4
The Promises of the Early Internet .. 5
From Information Processing to Consciousness Processing.. 6
All in the Digital Mincer .. 7
Technology Can’t be Challenged.. 8
Technology Uses Us .. 10
Feeding the Soul with Bytes .. 11
The Immortal Mind .. 12
Inner Prostheses and Amputations through Technology .. 13
Beyond the Mind.. 14
The Fragility of Beliefs and Information Technology.. 15

Chapter 2:“It’s only a tool” .. 17
Technology is not Questionable .. 18
Knowing through the Body .. 18
Technology “Does” Us .. 19
Technology is a Matter of Life and Death.. 21
Binary and Inner Duality.. 21
Knowing through the Heart.. 22
Our Identity With Tools – from Chimps to Chips .. 25
Reconnecting with the Inner Flow.. 26
From Spectator to Witness .. 28
Inner Holes and Techno-Fills .. 28
Pure Thinking Without the Body.. 30
Tools for Inner Growth.. 31
The Mind Itself is a Medium.. 34
IT Weakens Our Presence .. 36
Constrained to Produce .. 39 Leggi tutto “The Digitally Divided Self. Table of Contents, Introduction and Chapter 1”

The Situationists Still Enlighten Us

I Situazionisti ci illuminano ancora

“All that once was directly lived has become representation. . . . The real consumer has become a consumer of illusions” (Guy Debord, 1967).

The Situationists, an international revolutionary group of the ’50s critical of capitalist culture, spoke of “The Society of the Spectacle” – which alienated people through a mediated and commoditized social envinroment.

Media and products, in the Situationists’ view, dull the audience and control desire. Half a century later,  we have newly created media with greatly expanded scope –which reinforce the Situationists’ principles. In the new digital millennium it seems that desires are not controlled, yet are accepted as long as there is a market product associated with it, channeled through and stimulated by the media.

Situationists perceived that in capitalism, emotions become transmuted into market products – and we have to pay up to redeem our emotions. The market, as they saw it, first takes away our real needs for connection and authenticity, then offers a pale reflection of the real – making us always thirsty for a real which will never come.

The need for connection today is expressed through social networks which appear free and democratic. Yes, many Internet services are free of charge, but if we calculate hardware, software, the Internet connection – plus our time and attention – the cost must be reconsidered.

Moreover, the Situationists observed that people in our society are programmed to live a life that is merely a representation of a real life. Through technology needs have been created in order to sell solutions. And the hi-tech market doesn’t even require much in the way of commodities any more, since it is represented digitally – making Debord’s words about becoming consumers of illusions blatant.

“Once we have surrendered our senses and nervous systems to the private manipulation of those who would try to benefit from taking a lease on our eyes and ears and nerves, we don’t really have any rights left” (McLuhan, Understanding Media, 1964).

“Tutto quello che una volta era vissuto direttamente ora è diventato una rappresentazione… Il consumatore reale si è trasformato in un consumatore di illusioni” (Guy Debord, 1967).

I Situazionisti, un gruppo rivoluzionario internazionale degli anni Cinquanta, molto critico verso la società capitalista, parlavano della “Società dello Spettacolo”, la quale alienava le persone attraverso un ambiente sociale mediato e mercificato.

I media e le merci, secondo le idee dei Situazionisti, ottundevano il pubblico e controllavano il desiderio. Mezzo secolo dopo, abbiamo creato dei nuovi media con un campo d’azione più vasto, che rendono ancora più valide le affermazioni dei Situazionisti. Nel nuovo millennio digitale, sembra che i desideri non siano controllati, ma accettati fintantoché possono venire associati a un prodotto esistente nel mercato, incanalati e stimolati dai media.

I Situazionisti percepirono che nel capitalismo le emozioni vengono trasformate in prodotti di mercato, e che per recuperarle dobbiamo pagare. Il mercato, così pensavano, ci privava innanzitutto di relazioni interpersonali e di autenticità, poi offriva un pallido riflesso del reale, rendendoci in tal modo affamati di un’autenticità che non avremmo mai trovato.

Il bisogno di rapporti, oggi, trova espressione nei social network, che sembrano liberi e democratici. Certo, molti servizi Internet sono gratuiti, ma se prendiamo in considerazione l’hardware, il software, la connessione Internet – più il nostro tempo e la nostra attenzione – il calcolo dei costi cambia.

In più, i Situazionisti osservarono che i membri della nostra società erano programmati per vivere una vita che di fatto fosse una rappresentazione della vita reale. Attraverso la tecnologia, sono stati creati dei bisogni per poter vendere delle soluzioni. E il mercato hi-tech non richiede più nemmeno molte merci, in quanto esiste digitalmente. In tal modo, l’affermazione di Debord sull’essere divenuti consumatori di illusioni è divenuta fin troppo evidente.

“Una volta che abbiamo consegnato i nostri sensi e i nostri sistemi nervosi alle manipolazioni di coloro che cercano di trarre profitti prendendo in affitto i nostri occhi, le orecchie e i nervi, in realtà non abbiamo più diritti.” (McLuhan, Gli strumenti del comunicare, 1964).

Thinking Like Software

Pensare come un software

The chess master Garry Kasparov wrote a review for the New York Review of Books (note 1) saying that everybody can now have a chess program that will crush most grandmasters. But those programs work on the brute force of calculation, rather than style, patterns, theory or creativity.

“Although we still require a strong measure of intuition and logic to play well, humans today are starting to play more like computers.” He points out that new and innovative ideas in chess software are not needed, since brute-force programs are efficient enough for the goal of winning.

While chess software has become less creative with the strong computing power now available, chess players has adopted this same attitude of merely looking for “what works.” There is undoubtedly a mutual feedback between the digital representations of reality and the way we approach those aspects of reality. Musician friends have told me that since the advent of software for composing music, their creative attitude has changed along with the mechanisms of musical software production.

Graphics, video production, architecture, music and countless creative activities are now being aided by software. And algorithms and the programming attitude extend from computers to real life. Losing weight, talking to an audience, finding the right partner, keeping her/him, having great sex, improving our self-esteem has became a “how-to” problem. With the right instructions and following the right procedures we believe we can master anything in life.

Yet computers still can’t do many things which are easy for humans – so we must adapt human work to the machine’s needs. Amazon Mechanical Turk service thus describes precisely how it supports creation of the human servomechanism:

Developers can leverage this service to build human intelligence directly into their applications. While computing technology continues to improve, there are still many things that human beings can do much more effectively than computers, such as identifying objects in a photo or video, performing data de-duplication, transcribing audio recordings or researching data details (http://aws.amazon.com/mturk/).

Human history is full of connections between humans and technological instruments. And the use of tools to extend our possibilities has been a big step in human development. But what we are facing now is something different. With Mechanical Turk, all human activities are first converted into digital ones, even those requiring imagination and intuition which lie beyond the ability of computers. Then human brain resources are used to decode actions that the machine is incapable of performing well. It is a kind of modern assembly line where, in place of physical and manual repetition, we find the repetition of a banal mental activity ‑ such as recognizing an image and classifying it, or transcribing a spoken text.

As more and more human activities are being translated into digital form, we need to supply the computer with the broader mind power of the human. We participate in order for the tool itself to expand its possibilities, no longer just to expand human capacities. It can be said that in the end it’s humans who take advantage of the human-computer interaction, and it is still humans who decide what to process and elaborate. This is true in a way, but in the movement to digitize even non-computable aspects that require massive human intervention, humans are becoming servomechanisms of technology as they feed the machine.

Among the many and enormous advantages of efficient automatic machinery is this: it is completely fool-proof. But every gain has to be paid for. The automatic machine is fool-proof; but just because it is fool-proof it is also grace-proof. The man who tends such a machine is impervious to every form of esthetic inspiration, whether of human or of genuinely spiritual origin (Huxley, Aldous, The Perennial Philosophy, New York: Harper & Row, 1945. p. 171).

(1) Kasparov, Garry, “The Chess Master and the Computer,” New York Review of Books, Feb 2010. <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/feb/11/the-chess-master-and-the-computer/>

Il campione di scacchi Garry Kasparov ha scritto una recensione per il New York Review of Books (nota 1) dove afferma che oggi tutti possono avere un software di scacchi in grado di sconfiggere i più grandi campioni. Ma tali programmi operano solo con la forza bruta del calcolo e mai con lo stile, gli schemi, la teoria o la creatività.

“Benché oggi abbiamo ancora bisogno di massicce dosi di intuizione e logica per fare una buona partita di scacchi, gli esseri umani stanno cominciando a giocare come se fossero computer.” Egli aggiunge che nel software degli scacchi non occorrono idee nuove e originali, in quanto i programmi “che utilizzano la forza bruta” sono già più che sufficienti per vincere.

E mentre con i nuovi e più potenti programmi di calcolo il software degli scacchi diventa meno creativo, gli scacchisti cominciano ad adottare lo stesso atteggiamento consistente nel limitarsi a cercare “ciò che funziona”. Indubbiamente, vi è un feedback reciproco tra le rappresentazioni digitali della realtà e il modo in cui ci accostiamo ai vari aspetti di quest’ultima. Alcuni amici musicisti mi hanno detto che da quando esistono software per comporre musica, la loro creatività è mutata, evolvendosi parallelamente a questi software.

La grafica, la produzione di video, la musica e un’infinità di altre attività creative si appoggiano oggi su vari tipi di software. E gli algoritmi e l’approccio programmatorio si sono estesi dai computer alla vita reale. Perdere peso, parlare a un pubblico, trovare il partner giusto, mantenere una relazione con lui/lei, fare sesso in modo fantastico, migliorare la propria autostima sono tutti diventati problemi “fai-da-te”. Con le giuste istruzioni, e seguendo le procedure corrette, crediamo di poter padroneggiare tutti gli aspetti della vita.

Tutt’ora, i computer non possono fare molte cose che agli esseri umani riescono facilmente: quindi, dobbiamo adattare il lavoro umano ai bisogni della macchina. Il servizio “Amazon Mechanical Turk” descrive con precisione il modo in cui supporta la creazione del servomeccanismo umano:

Gli sviluppatori possono azionare questo servizio in modo da implementare intelligenza umana direttamente nelle loro applicazioni. Mentre la tecnologia dei computer continua a migliorare, vi sono tutt’ora molte attività in cui gli esseri umani possono essere molto più efficaci dei computer, come ad esempio l’identificazione degli oggetti in una foto o in un video, riconoscere dati duplicati, trascrivere registrazioni audio o ricercare dettagli di dati. (http://aws.amazon.com/mturk/).

La Storia dell’essre umano è fatta anche dei suoi rapporti con gli strumenti tecnologici. E l’uso di strumenti per estendere le nostre possibilità è stato un grande passo avanti nello sviluppo umano. Ma quello che ci troviamo di fronte, oggi, è alquanto diverso. Con “Mechanical Turk”, tutte le attività umane sono prima convertite in attività digitali (anche quelle che richiedono immaginazione e intuizione al di là della capacità dei computer); successivamente, le risorse del cervello umano vengono usate per decodificare azioni che la macchina è incapace di compiere in modo ottimale.

È una sorta di catena di montaggio moderna in cui, al posto della ripetizione fisica e manuale, troviamo la ripetizione di una banale attività mentale, come il riconoscere un’immagine e il classificarla, o il trascrivere un testo udito.

Man mano che le attività umane vengono convertite in forma digitale, abbiamo bisogno di fornire al computer più poteri “mentali” tipici degli uomini. Noi partecipiamo perché lo strumento possa espandere le sue capacità, non più per espandere le nostre capacità. Si potrebbe obiettare che alla fin fine sono gli esseri umani a trarre vantaggio dalla relazione uomo/computer, e siamo sempre noi a decidere cosa processare ed elaborare. In un certo senso è così, ma è pur vero che quando digitalizziamo anche aspetti non-computabili che richiedono un massiccio intervento umano, riduciamo gli esseri umani a servomeccanismi della tecnologia, strumenti della macchina stessa.

Tra i molti ed enormi vantaggi dei macchinari efficienti automatici c’è questo: sono completamente inattaccabili dagli sciocchi. Ma ogni acquisto si deve pagare. La macchina automatica è inattaccabile dagli sciocchi; ma proprio per questo è anche inattaccabile dalla grazia. L’uomo che opera su questa macchina è impermeabile a ogni forma d’ispirazione estetica, sia di origine umana sia genuinamente spirituale. (Huxley, Aldous. La filosofia perenne. Adelphi Edizioni. Milano. 1995. p.235)

(1) Kasparov, Garry, “The Chess Master and the Computer,” New York Review of Books, Feb 2010. <http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/feb/11/the-chess-master-and-the-computer/>

Soma for the Globalized Minds

Il soma per le menti globalizzate

The world over, people using the Internet click on the same icons, use the same shortcuts in email and chats, connect with people through the same Facebook modalities. This is the globalization of minds. In the process of the digitalization of reality, regardless of content, we use predominantly the same limited mental channels and interact with the same tools.

We bring the same attitudes, gestures and procedures to working, dating, shopping, communicating with friends, sexual arousal, and scientific research. And most of these activities are impoverished by this phenomenon. Everything is seen as an information system, from the digitalization of territory (like Google Earth and augmented realities software) to our biology.

Judæo-Christian culture places nature and the world of matter at man’s disposal. Acting on them is a way to garner good deeds and regain the lost perfection of Eden. In this culture that has considered miracles as proof of the existence of God, we have developed technologies that resemble the miraculous and the divine. We are compelled to welcome the advent of new technological tools with the rhetoric of peace, progress, prosperity and mutual understanding.

The telegraph, telephone, radio, TV and other media have been regarded as tools for democracy, world peace, understanding and freedom of expression. The Internet is just the latest in a succession of promising messiahs. Yet we don’t have more democracy in the world. In fact, big media and big powers are even stronger, while freedom of expression has ceded to control by corporations and governmental agencies.

The Internet, like TV, is entertaining, dumbing people in their own separate homes where they will be unable to question the system. More than TV whose attractions are framed between the beginning and ending time of a show, the Internet, video games and smartphones have no structural pauses or endings. Hooked on a “real-time” stream of information, they take us farther away from both the real and the appropriate time frames.

The Internet might already be the new soma for a society experiencing economic and environmental degradation. But with the huge economic and psychological interests connected to it, criticizing its effect is akin to cursing God.

In tutto il mondo, chi usa Internet clicca sulle stesse icone, usa le medesime scorciatoie linguistiche nelle email e nelle chat, si connette con gli altri attraverso le stesse modalità di Facebook. Questa è la globalizzazione delle menti. Nel processo di digitalizzazione della realtà, a prescindere dai contenuti, usiamo prevalentemente gli stessi limitati canali mentali e interagiamo con gli stessi strumenti.

Portiamo gli stessi atteggiamenti, gesti e procedure nel lavoro, nelle relazioni, nello shopping, nella comunicazione con gli amici, nell’eccitazione sessuali e nella ricerca scientifica. Con il risultato che ognuna di tali attività viene impoverita da questo fenomeno. Tutto viene visto come un sistema informativo, dalla digitalizzazione del territorio (come Google Earth e i software di realtà aumentata) alla nostra biologia.

La cultura giudeo-cristiana mette la natura e il mondo materiale a disposizione dell’uomo. Agire su di essi è un modo per compiere opere buone e riacquistare la perfezione perduta dell’Eden. In questa cultura che ha considerato i miracoli prove dell’esistenza di Dio, abbiamo sviluppato tecnologie che ricordano il miracoloso e il divino. Quindi ci sentiamo costretti a salutare l’avvento di nuovi ausili tecnologici con la retorica della pace, del progresso, della prosperità e della comprensione reciproca.

Il telegrafo, il telefono, la radio, la TV e altri media sono stati considerati strumenti della democrazia, della pace mondiale, della comprensione e della libertà d’espressione. Internet è solo l’ultimo di una serie di messia dalle facili promesse. Tuttavia, non abbiamo una quantità maggiore di democrazia nel mondo. In realtà, i media e i poteri forti sono più forti che mai, mentre la libertà di espressione è stata rimodellata dal controllo da parte delle imprese e dei governi.

Internet, come la TV, si sta trasformando in un intrattenimento che rincoglionisce la gente nel chiuso delle loro case, dove sarà incapace di mettere in discussione il sistema. A differenza della TV, le cui attrazioni sono comunque comprese tra l’inizio e la fine di uno show, Internet, i videogame e gli smartphone non hanno pause o conclusioni strutturali. Agganciati a un flusso continuo di informazioni “in tempo reale”, ci allontaniamo ancora di più dal tempo disponibile e dal reale.

Forse Internet è già il nuovo soma di una società fortemente degradata dal punto di vista economico e ambientale. Ma visti i grandi investimenti economici e psicologici connessi alla Rete, criticarne gli effetti è come maledire Dio.