Our Social Media Addiction

~ Laura

In the New Republic, Evgeny Morozov mocks the new “Mindful” movement. Arianna Huffington and others ask that we turn off our 24/7 Internet lifestyle for an hour and… I don’t know what… do yoga or eat a Greek yogurt or look at a sunset or something. Morozov thinks that unplugging from Twitter and Facebook is a good idea, but not for some new-age, Oprah Winfrey, love-the-real-you reason. He sees it as an act of rebellion.

In other words, why we disconnect matters: We can continue in today’s mode of treating disconnection as a way to recharge and regain productivity, or we can view it as a way to sabotage the addiction tactics of the acceleration-distraction complex that is Silicon Valley. The former approach is reactionary but the latter can lead to emancipation, especially if such acts of refusal give rise to genuine social movements that will make problems of time and attention part of their political agendas—and not just the subject of hand-wringing by the Davos-based spirituality brigades. Hopefully, these movements will then articulate alternative practices, institutions, and designs. If it takes an act of unplugging to figure out how to do it, let’s disconnect indeed. But let us not do it for the sake of reconnecting on the very same terms as before. We must be mindful of all this mindfulness.

I like that. Unplug. It’s good for you. But don’t unplug from this blog. That would be a bad thing.

Published by Laura

11 thoughts on “Our Social Media Addiction”

  1. I have stopped Facebook and rarely use Twitter now. I’ve been spending the saved time on new creative projects, by which I mean Minecraft.

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  2. I got a dog a few weeks ago and tending to his physical needs has really cut into my social media time. I also have less time to eat. So if you want to spend less time dinking around on the internet AND lose some weight, I recommend getting a dog.

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    1. What kind of dog? A puppy? See, I got an older dog when I got a dog so that I wouldn’t have to take too much time away from the Internet. Now I just post as many pics of her (and my gerbils) as I can.

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    2. 9 months old. Not a puppy-puppy but still a dog with quite a bit of energy. I considered an older dog but I already feel sad for the point in the future when my young dog dies. I felt like I wouldn’t be able to handle the death of a dog if it happened within five years so I stayed away from older ones.

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      1. We’ve had ours for 4.5 years now, and if I thought about losing her, I’d be hysterical. So I don’t think about it. I call her Old Lady Dog now because she used to run far when I let her off leash (in a safe place), but now she runs halfway, turns around and looks back at me like “Uh, nah.”

        Mutt or a particular breed? I am a devotee of Pitbulls and Parolees and keep thinking I will get one after we lose our Old Lady Dog, but then I think about how big pitbulls can get. Is there such thing as a “mini-pit”?

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      2. It’s a mixed breed, dutch shepard and boxer, we think. Pit bull mixed with boston terrier might be like a mini-pit.

        This is my first dog so I feel like I’m finally fulfilling a childhood dream.

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    4. Same here! We just got a 2 year old rescue dog that needs a lot of attention, training, and a lot of time outside. We’re in Wisconsin, so that means lots of quality winter time. much less time for tv/computer…and some (unintended) weight loss here too. (probably from all the shivering…)

      I think he totally missed the point of mindfulness in that article. It’s not about turning off the computer and doing weird yoga or eating weird yogurt. It’s about living in the present – not worrying about the future/fretting about the past. He should get a dog. No one lives in the moment like a dog!

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  3. I think we worry too much about doing things we want to do (like read this blog :-), and the key is to reevaluate for one’s own self, in the context of one’s own personality. That is, are we not getting something else done — would setting rules about unplugging benefit? And then, to follow through.

    I thought this radio report (on To the Point) on kids in the internet was interesting for the fairly balanced reporting. No one called her on it, but when the MS researcher (Dana Boyd) said she understood that kids might not understand what “selling out” means, someone should have pointed out that Boyd has sold out, and that might have something to do with her belief that everyone at Microsoft is sincerely concerned with protecting the privacy of their customers. But, it was an thought-provoking discussion that went beyond the knee jerk reactions (say, to children texting).

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