VINT-The-Dark-Side-of-Social-Media-Alarm-Bells-Analysis-and-the-Way-Out

34
the WaY oUt
We therefore wish to recommend the following four golden
rules-of-thumb:
1. Do not forget that our memory becomes tangibly poorer
if we do not train it.
2. Accordingly, you should try to remember as many telephone
numbers, names, poems, sayings and aphorisms as
possible, just like memory champion Joshua Foer advocates
in his book Moonwalking with Einstein dating from
2011.
3. Try to put aside all digital devices and grow toward a new
balance and less dependence.
4. Read books, articles and watch films; to subsequently
discuss them with others and exchange ideas.
In combination this is a very important part of our Digital
Literacy. It is directed toward avoiding sinking into Digital
Lethargy or worse: Digital Dementia. It is a question of selfdiscipline.
Behavior and technology go hand in hand here,
oriented to the place we allocate to our digital privileges
in our life. Insight and responsibility – well-thinking, in
short — are what it’s all about, for our individual and collective
well-being.
In 2012, Manfred Spitzer, the renowned German psychiatrist
and professor, published his book Digitale Demenz:
Wie wir uns und unsere Kinder um den Verstand bringen
(“Digital Dementia: how we can wisen up ourselves and
our children”). This is quite a claim, and the criticism was,
of course, that he regarded such developments too pessimistically
and that we would teach ourselves to cope with
such resources. The issue of how many victims arise in the
meantime, people that could have been helped by a little
guidance, has not been addressed in this context.
In his book entitled Hyperaktiv! Kritik der Aufmerksamkeitsdefizitkultur
(“Hyperactive! Critique of Attention Deficit
Culture”) the German philosopher Christoph Türcke
points out that we are currently in an obsessive distraction
situation that is producing serious socio-cultural disturbance.
In addition, entertainment and divertimento are
leading to stress rather than relaxation. ADD and ADHD,
as structural cultural deviations, are the result.
But, at the end of this report, we will not begin all over again
by setting off alarm bells and unleashing analyses, which
are so strongly interwoven with an attempt to find a feasible
way out. Instead, we prefer to conclude with thirteen tips for
a happy and fulfilling life, provided by Manfred Spitzer at
the end of his Digitale Demenz:
• To start with, eat well and healthily.
• Take at least 30 minutes’ exercise a day.
• Do not live in your own conceptual world, but in the
here-and-now.
• Pursue feasible goals.
• Help other people, without self-interest and financial
profit.
• It is better to spend money on experiences than on
things.
• Surrender to music now and again, sing whole-heartedly.
• A good mood stimulates the brain areas for positive
feelings.
• Be active and sweep obstacles from your path.
• Make life easier for yourself where you can.
• Go out for a meal with friends instead of always hanging
around on Facebook.
• Spend enough time in natural areas, certainly if there are
children with you.
• Avoid digital media wherever possible, and this applies
especially to children.
On the basis of these tips, we can certainly instigate several
interesting discussions. But as a cognitive neurologist
and psychiatrist, Spitzer is not joking here. He regards the
problems of (digital) tumult in a much larger perspective
and in an extension of what the SlowTech/Slow Web movement
advises us. It is in line with what MIT Media Director
Nicholas Negroponte observed in 1995, and what we repeat
here for the third and last time, namely: “Computing is not
about computers anymore, it is about living.”
Image: sxc.hu > arinas74