I'm taking it back in my hands. The melancholy of resistance, excited in advance to travel through dense, long and hypnotic sentences. Notifications buzz every few minutes. Although I choose not to watch messages, news, notices and announcements, every sound jolts me, bringing me back to the world from which I try to escape, if only for an hour. My attention starts to wander. On page twenty, unprovoked, I pick up the phone, play Sudoku, read the headlines. Only the most important. I return to Krasnahorkai with already scattered thoughts. I am a child of my time, nothing more. That real, deep, focused attention is chipped away; the latter, split, which can track five things at once, is in good momentum. But it can be worse.
"Do we Google dumbing down?" Nicholas Carr wrote twelve years ago in "The Atlantic". Because the media not only provide material for thinking, but also shape the thinking process itself (we all remember McLuhan). "And what the Internet seems to be doing is gradually unraveling my ability to concentrate and think. My mind now expects to receive information the way the Internet distributes it: in a rapid, fragmented stream. I used to be a diver in the sea of words. Now I'm gliding across the surface like a guy on a jet ski," Carr concluded.
Media theorists write about how new media are transforming the way our attention works - from focus and long-term memory to short-term, to performing multiple routine tasks simultaneously, but without real commitment. And precisely thanks to the translation of short-term into long-term memory, new knowledge is connected with the previous one.
Already at the beginning of the new millennium, Thomas Hylan Eriksen d The tyranny of the moment he concluded that something is seriously wrong: the ocean of information, instead of being brilliantly informed, has created crowds of confused people: our thoughts are short and interrupted, the world thickens, the spaces between are filled... Speed is an addictive drug, it produces simplifications, and we are not even aware of the consequences, writes this Norwegian anthropologist. More than 20 years have passed since then.
Of course, fascinating technological developments, including social networks, have brought a handful of good things. We are witnessing the chain of solidarity that social networks have helped, incomparably easier access to information, greater efficiency and facilitation of a large number of jobs... However, the emphasis of this text is on some of those aspects due to which something has been taken away from us thanks to social networks. Are we thinking about it enough? Do we resist? Are we even aware of the dangers that are opening up for the generations to come?
RECORDING SUFFERING
On New Year's Eve, a fire broke out in a bar in the Swiss ski resort of Crans-Montana: forty people died and 119 were injured. Some lost their lives trying to save others. But one of the videos circulating shows the first moments of the fire - the music is still playing, the ceiling is on fire, the flames are terrifying. For those who know how fast the fire is spreading, it is clear that tragedy will soon occur. However, one man tries to extinguish it with a rag, while everyone else is filming and singing.
Questions arise: would there have been fewer victims if there had been no filming? In some other situations, would the suffering have been less if the eyewitnesses had not reached for the phones instead of coming to help? The Internet is full of videos - not from security cameras, but those that record someone's "last moments", violence against the weak, scenes in which those present, the "passerby" behaves like an audience in a theater, and not as a witness of real suffering.
Is it possible that human instincts are really changing in modern society? Are our brains changing? Can the fear of existential danger be suppressed by the desire to be seen and our content to be popular? Could this translate into a new fear of rejection and social invisibility? What long-term consequences can technological changes have not only on an individual but also on society as a whole?
Suppression of Empathy
It is not a question of changing instincts in the modern age - they are, after all, the product of much longer evolutionary processes - but about changing behavior and habits, everything that is shaped by learning, Tamara Džamonja Ignjatović, a professor at the Department of Psychology at the Faculty of Philosophy in Belgrade, explains to "Vreme". "In situations of existential threat, the basic urge is protective activity; fight, flight and freezing mechanisms are automatic responses," says Džamonja Ignjatović, adding that in situations like the one in the Swiss bar, some people are able to quickly establish rational control over their behavior. Then, instead of running away in panic, they can look for a way out or help others - which are useful rational behaviors for emotionally stable people. However, there is another side.
"The modern way of life also imposes other values, not only altruistic and solidarity. This new model says - if you are present on social networks, it is proof that your life is exciting, valuable. Hence, situations in which someone's suffering is recorded come as a natural reaction of taking control after an emotional automatic response, but that control is shaped by social and cultural values that today are in a certain sense twisted", continues Džamonja Ignjatović.
In other words, this control is not functional from the point of view of basic human values, but acts as a dampener of empathy. Social networks, as a dominant way of existence for many, affect our attitude towards others - they are no longer victims whom, say, we did not provide help, but events on the screen, devoid of valuing human life. "Recording becomes more important than helping others, and our importance is measured through visibility, i.e. the number of likes", points out Džamonja Ignjatović.
Also, there is another important aspect. As psychologist Dobrinka Kuzmanović, a professor at the Faculty of Philology, University of Belgrade, at the Seminar for Social Sciences, points out for "Vreme", "the digital space often exposes people to a large amount of other people's emotions and disturbing content, but without a realistic possibility to adequately react to them". Such disproportion, Kuzmanović further explains, can lead to emotional fatigue, withdrawal or superficial reaction, as a form of psychological self-defense. In this sense, recording can also serve as a form of psychological distancing. And when more people are filming, she adds, the subjective perception of danger is also reduced.
Similar mechanisms are observed in so-called digital challenges, especially widespread among young people. And here we come back to the need to belong.
"In those situations, individuals consciously expose themselves to risky circumstances in order to publicly share their behavior," continues Kuzmanović. "When dangerous behavior is socially rewarded with attention, likes, a sense of inclusion or belonging to a group, it takes on added value. The fear then does not disappear, but is suppressed by the need to be part of the group or gain status within it."
IT'S NOT JUST ABOUT THE INDIVIDUAL
In short, as our interlocutors say, instincts are the same, as are basic human needs, but the way we live them is changing. Desirable values, the way we work and think, social relations are changing. Despite the constant (like) communication, there is an epidemic of loneliness, theorists write about shallow relationships that dominate more and more. First of all, and related to all of the above, the ways in which we use our own psychological capacities are changing, Kuzmanović points out, and these changes "do not happen suddenly, but through daily habits that over time become the new standard of functioning".
"Basic human needs today are deeply woven into the design of the digital space", explains Kuzmanović, adding that the designers of the digital environment are very aware of these needs and actively manipulate them. That is why the so-called exploitative design, i.e. design aimed at the user's attention - systems designed to keep attention as long as possible, enhance emotional reactions and create a habit of constant return is increasingly being talked about.
First par excellence are social networks. Otherwise, certain social networks, like TikTok, act similarly to slot machines in a casino, with the release of dopamine, addiction and the pursuit of only instant gratification. In addition, young brains are more susceptible to sophisticated algorithmic manipulations and embellished, filtered (as) realities.
And the need to belong to a community and to be noticed has always existed. "This need is not new, as Maslow's theory of the hierarchy of needs speaks about - it is a new technological environment that recognized its potential and learned how to use it systematically," says Kuzmanović. But as he goes on to emphasize, it is important not to overlook two things here: first, the responsibility cannot be solely on individuals - although personal choices, self-control and individual responsibility are often insisted on - because the environment is designed to attract attention, shape habits and encourage certain patterns of behavior. This is precisely why it is necessary to think about structural and systemic solutions. This topic then opens another broad and important field - about legal and other regulation of digital platforms and algorithms, strengthening media literacy, changing educational programs...
Then, we still don't know what long-term consequences all these changes will have on the individual. There are no reliable and unequivocal empirical findings, and besides, the changes are happening so fast that it is difficult for science to follow them. "Scientific processes are by nature slower - they require time, repeatability and distance", reminds Kuzmanović, adding that many effects of technological changes cannot be registered on us immediately, but become visible only much later.
(NE)CUSTOMIZED
There is also a feeling that technology is moving faster than we can "keep up with" it, or - as Džamonja Ignjatović summarizes - we are not physically and physiologically prepared for the speed of technological changes.
Kuzmanović adds that the real question is not how quickly we can adapt to technology, but how to harmonize it with human needs and capacities. As he further explains, from an evolutionary point of view, man is equipped with mechanisms of adaptation and self-regulation at all levels, biological, cognitive and emotional. Jean Piaget, the famous developmental psychologist, understood development precisely as a process of adaptation, that is, as a balance between assimilation and accommodation. In other words, adaptation occurs when a person partly changes himself, and partly adapts the environment to his own needs. However, "transferred to the digital plane, changes are happening so quickly and on such a scale that I would say they exceed the human capacity to adapt. There is no doubt that our body is not 'designed' for the constant vigilance and involvement imposed on us by the digital environment: an inexhaustible source of information is constantly in our hand or pocket..."
Professor Kuzmanović reminds that at the beginning of the 21st century, people talked about digital natives, the generations that grow up with digital technologies, as those who are destined for the digital world. "Today, however, it can be seen that it was a myth and that man has limited capacities."
Everyone suffers from the effects of excessive and problematic exposure to screens. The list is long: poorer concentration and memory, lower threshold for tolerance of boredom, wandering attention, more simplified thought, then problems of disturbed sleep, chronic fatigue, tension in the body, constant vigilance, reduced resistance to stress...
IS THE COMPUTER GOOD FOR THE SOUL?
Finally, how much do we really change, that profoundly? And what will the new huge change - artificial intelligence - do to us?
Kuzmanović reminds of a book Internet brain, by Small and Worgan, in which they present the thesis that the daily use of digital tools gradually strengthens new neural pathways in the brain, while some older, less frequently used ones weaken. "In other words, digital technology does not only change our habits, but also the way the brain works. The authors even talk about a kind of discontinuity in human evolution - that the brain is changing today faster than ever before in history," says the "Vremena" interviewee, underlining again that it is not about change as such, but about how we change, what we mean by progress and what by regression. "The key is what we will leave to technology and what we will keep as skills we want to develop. The evolutionary outcome will not depend only on technology but on social decisions, education and the values we ourselves set and nurture."
But all these dilemmas go back hundreds, even a few thousand years. "Back in ancient times, Plato expressed his fear that the written word would damage a person's memory. It turned out that the memory did not disappear, but it changed - part of the cognitive load was moved outside of the person into cultural resources," says Kuzmanović. "In this sense, artificial intelligence is another cultural tool, although different from all the ones so far, which will change our cognitive functioning - some functions will be strengthened, some will be weakened or taken over."
Speaking of the dilemma, one last interesting fact: In the introduction to his book, Eriksen points out how writing itself has changed - in the past, the author, no matter what he was composing, had to have a long, linear train of thought or a dramatic train in his head before the first sentence. Today, the manuscript, almost to the very end, can look like cheese from a Tom and Jerry cartoon, so parts are inserted into it, sections are added...
And exactly a decade earlier, on September 12, 1991, Charles Bukowski's computer broke down. Grumbling, he returns to the typewriter. In his to the diary (translated by Flavio Rigonat, 4th ed., LOM, Belgrade 2013) writes that his two publishers insult each other because he usually writes on the computer, they bother him and they are tiring. "I am aware that the computer cannot write for me. If it could, I wouldn't want one (…) (Their) point was that the computer is not good for the soul. Now, little is good for the soul (…) Those people think that you should always be on the cross and bleed to have a soul (…) Let them climb the cross, I will congratulate them. But suffering does not create writing, that's what the writer does." And then he concludes, in his style, when the publishers see that he has typed again, they will think: "Well, Bukowski's soul has returned. This reads much better."
New words
It is also interesting to mention the words that entered our speech, and skillfully illustrate the topic of the influence of social networks and generally living in a modern digital environment. We highlight the following.
FOMO, fear of missing out (fear of missing out). Although the term and the feeling itself have been known for a long time, only since 2004 has it been widely present on the Internet. In other words - if you are not on social networks, if you do not participate in the trend, if you do not live that parallel life, then you worry - are you there.
Rage bait, content intended to provoke anger, conflict and polarization. As attention is an extremely valuable resource today, content producers tend to "hijack" it, and this is done precisely through negative content, because it causes an emotional response. Here it could be said that the manipulation of fear is at work, first of danger, and then of not belonging.
Brainrot, the alleged deterioration of a person's mental or intellectual state, as a result of excessive consumption of material that, in the simplest terms, does not stimulate thought. For the young generation, these are fun and absurd mimes that everyone knows by heart.
Dumskroling, the compulsive habit of constantly scrolling through bad news and disturbing content, even when it causes us anxiety, restlessness or sadness.
