It may be decades until we know what living in a state of constant distraction will do to us.
Interpretation
The long-term effects of constant distraction on our lives are unknown and may take decades to understand.
In this quote, Douglas Rushkoff emphasizes the urgency of evaluating the implications of living in an age filled with distractions. He suggests that while we are caught up in our immediate experiences and technologies, the profound effects on our mental health, relationships, and societal structures may only become apparent much later, urging a deeper contemplation of our current lifestyles.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a seminar on mental health awareness to highlight the importance of focus.
Like most early enthusiasts, I always thought the way the Internet encouraged multitasking made users less vulnerable to manipulation, while simultaneously exploiting even more of our brain's capacity than before. Apparently not.
The faux now of Twitter updates and things pinging at you - all the pulses from digitality that we try to keep up with because we sense that there's something going on that we need to tap into - are artifacts, or symptoms of living in this atemporal reality. And it's not any worse than living in the 'time is money' reality that we're leaving.
Treating an age group as a demographic requires coming up with something that's common to every single one of them. Right?... So it's reductionist in that it reduces an entire segment of civilization down to one person with one habit.
Brains are tricky and adaptable organs. For all the 'neuroplasticity' allowing our brains to reconfigure themselves to the biases of our computers, we are just as neuroplastic in our ability to eventually recover and adapt.
As popular culture becomes more presentist, we move away from entertainment as the vicarious experience of a narrative - as watching someone else's story - and much more toward enacting one's own story. Moving away from myths and toward fantasy role-playing games, away from movies and toward videogames.
The first step toward maintaining autonomy in any programmed environment is to be aware that there's programming going on. It's as simple as understanding the commercials are there to help sell things. And that TV shows are there to sell commercials, and so on.
Thus the sum of things is ever being reviewed, and mortals dependent one upon another. Some nations increase, others diminish, and in a short space the generations of living creatures are changed and like runners pass on the torch of life.
Here are some passing thoughts. Imagine looking up at the moon and seeing it burning. Imagine seeing the grocery storeβs checkout girl grow horns. Imagine growing younger instead of older. Imagine feeling more powerful and more capable of falling in love with life every new day instead of being scared and sick and not knowing whether to stay under a sheet or venture forth into the cold.
It is often seen that in households where all members are exposed to the same danger, or again in schools or troops where everyone lives the same life, disease does not strike everyone indifferently.
It is ironic to think that man might determine his own future by something so seemingly trivial as the choice of an insect spray.
We earth men have a talent for ruining big, beautiful things.
I hold that without truth and nonviolence there can be nothing but destruction of humanity.
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