Navigating the new Human-Technology Paradigm

This blog post is majorly inspired by the books Meganets: How Digital Forces Beyond our Control Commandeer Our Daily Lives and Inner Realities by David B. Auerbach, The Mindful Brain by Dr. Daniel Siegel, and i-minds: 2.0 by Dr. Mari Swingle. I highly recommend these reads! 

What is our relationship to complexity? How do we make sense of ineffability? It may be that dealing with complexity, impermanence, and ineffability is our chief responsibility as humans. One way of addressing this "problem" is to simplify the world around us, or rather, develop tools and attitudes towards it that allows us to navigate life in a way that promotes human flourishing, insight, alleviation of suffering, and meaning. This has manifested in the exponential growth and integration of a hyper-connected, digital reality into our human experience. As a result of this hyperconnectivity, our consciousness is constantly bombarded with messaging, imagery, information, bells, sounds, whistles, political opinions, ways of thinking, positive content, negative content, neutral content, subway surfers, 5 second videos, 3 hour video essays etc... The list goes on and on - and it is accessible 24/7 at incredible speeds. The integration of this digital reality into our human experience has created a new human-technology paradigm that is neither wholly human nor wholly technological - it is a complex, nebulous chaotic system defined, as David Auerbach puts it, by Virality, Velocity, and Volume. How fast can information spread, how many people interface with said information, and to what scale does it exist on; to compound on this complexity, the information is constantly changing and morphing depending on the human feedback given to it. The responsibility of how this complex system operates falls not only on the engineers of the algorithms but by the people who engage with them. There are two outcomes to this integration - the algorithms (and the data that it interprets) that facilitate this system cannot match the complexity of human desires, actions, and thoughts, therefore it behaves in a way not fully in line with human needs OR humans become more “algorithmic” in their behaviors and actions in order to be better understood by the algorithms. It seems to be an arms race, and the latter outcome is nudging ahead. Because the data being processed by algorithms needs to be relatively simple and pattern based, the inputs it thrives on are the ones we are seeing slowly infect our daily realities - short form videos (how much time do you spend on it and how often do you cycle through it), upvotes & down votes, simplistic reactions etc... - all of this data compounds into a profile of YOU - what the algorithm guesses (emphasis on guesses) what you will respond to based on this neutered form of feedback you're giving to it. Alright, so what? The problem arises when we consider the amount of TIME and ENERGY spent by each of us engaging with these platforms (whether it is in our control or not) - the more time we offload our consciousnesses onto these platforms, the more we may become algorithmic in our way of thinking, way of behaving, and way of viewing the nature of ourselves and the world. We are stripping down our ability to BE complex and BE ineffable in service of the algorithmic decision making that drives the digital realities that are intertwining with our human reality. The next question is, is this type of existence all that bad? isn't the goal to make our lives more convenient, more predictable, and less complex? What are the real consequences of this paradigm on human health (physiological and mental) and sustainable living? That's a great question, and I am not sure we fully know yet - but there are hints as to why this way of being can be catastrophic to human development if not completely restructured. Beyond the observed rise in mental health problems, especially in youth, we are seeing that the depth and beauty of human language, for example, is being replaced with an AI chatbot (one that hardly understands the complexity of human language itself). It simply estimates what a human might say given a specific prompt. The consequence of this is a feedback loop where we begin to use an AI's understanding of language to inform how we use it, and the more we use its interpretation of language, the more we begin to adopt and spread it and therefore become more algorithmic in our way of communicating - at least online. There must be a way to use this powerful tool to enhance creativity and keep it in its place - but this is far easier said than done. This phenomenon spreads far beyond just how we communicate. If all the feedback we give to content is either positive or negative (likes or dislikes) then we ourselves become binary and irrational in the way we view ourselves, each other, and the world; we lose nuance and complexity, because nuance and complexity is boring and effortful. By the way, I am inclined to believe that although major platforms got rid of a dislike button - a new metric for how much you enjoy a piece of content is how long you may spend viewing it, or the nature of the comment section. One area we see this causing harm is in the space of health and nutrition - the nature of these complex digital platforms prioritizes content that is attention grabbing and polarizing, because those metrics ARE THE MOST SIMPLE FOR THE ALGORITHM TO UNDERSTAND (again, humans pretty much forced to be more algorithmic in their feedback to content). So, nutrition information that is short, conclusive, polarizing, and telling people good things about their bad habits becomes the most viral and spreads the fastest. Because people spend so much time on these digital platforms and also tend to place trust in the information, the general public is more confused than ever about what a healthy eating pattern looks like. As we have progressed in our scientific understanding of human health and nutrition, we have seemingly regressed in informing the public on what those advancements are. This however is an inevitable outcome when we use systems that encourage virality and spreading of information at lightning speeds. An additional example that may resonate with people is the "selfie effect": The more you associate going places and accomplishing things with sharing them online, the more you end up doing things for the sole purpose of sharing them. The reward and social validation (or criticism) you receive when you share something can far outweigh, at least in the moment, the intrinsic reward of doing the activity; this behavior and attitude towards doing things is simply not sustainable. This is not groundbreaking, but the same principle applies to how we spend our time engaging in these technologies; the more time we spend engaging in a hyperconnected world, the more we begin to change to satisfy the mechanisms by which they work, whether we realize it or not. 

There must be a future that can balance the properties of this technology with the maintenance and wholesome evolution of our humanity. How can we ensure that these technologies augment not replace our humanity. This is not new information, we as a society are already noticing the consequences of the attention economy - but what is actually being done about it? 

We need a generation of people who deeply understand how and why these technologies function in the way that they do - we need everyone to be educated on the implications of exponential technologies, so that they can understand when it infringes on their civil and human rights. There is a growing awareness that something just isn't right with the nature of constant connectivity, social networking platforms, and ubiquitous access to information.  It is our right as a people to understand how this new paradigm is influencing our mental, physical, and social well-being just as we have the right to know that alcohol consumption is a known teratogen; we need to know the extent of the problem, so that we can use it responsibly. To keep using the alcohol example, adults should have the right to use alcohol as they please if they are aware of the totality of its consequences, but we provide strict shame and awareness towards the devastating effects of it when consumed during pregnancy. For technology, we may use it responsibly, but find that the impact of it on adolescent brain development is so damaging, that we restructure how we distribute and use it. 

Awareness of a problem is a great first step as long as it doesn't devolve into apathy or learned helplessness towards solving it. There lacks an effective solution to the problems highlighted above because it is such a layered, dynamic, and complex situation - the human-technology paradigm is a system as controllable and predictable as the weather is.

As long as we possess a brain and frontal cortex we can do our best to control the human part of this problem and leverage our capacity for mindfulness and behavior change. How can we make access to states of attunement to one’s self accessible and prioritized during online interactions? How can we ensure that a hyperconnected society can maintain its attention on the realities of interdependence, compassion, and self-awareness? So that we are especially sensitive when our technological augmentation begins to shake the foundation of well-being and the sustainability of our species. There needs to be a method of understanding exactly how our current reality is affecting our physiology (more specifically, our brain's functional connectivity). By creating a model of how an individual's functional connectivity is being restructured by a hyperconnected society, we can create personalized interventions that address any observed or demonstrated dysregulations. It is my personal belief, that the fruits of an intentional mindfulness practice with an emphasis on compassion/interdependence can help counteract the potential consequences of a hyperconnected society, but we will only know for sure what the best intervention is when we develop a scientifically rigorous framework on what exactly is being dysregulated by our current human-technology paradigm. For now, I encourage every single person to become more attuned and sensitized to their human experience. To spend time offline, not highly stimulated (to the best of your ability) and direct your attention inward, towards your subjective experience with an attitude of openness and compassionate self-inquiry. From that point, you may learn exactly what it takes for you, as an individual, to achieve well-being in this new reality we are creating for ourselves. Observe impermanence, investigate the interdependent nature of things, and approach yourself and others with curiosity and compassion - this is where all meaningful change starts.