If you grew up as a so-called “digital native” like myself, you probably have a reflexive dislike of anyone decrying the harms of modern technology.
Critics of video games, social media use, cryptocurrencies or any new fangled advancement are often seen by digital natives as Luddites, driven by an irrational fear of the new and different.
However, over the last few years I’ve changed my tune.
I now think we need more tech pessimism in contemporary discourse. In particular, we need to think more broadly about the impact of convenience on the human animal, and why our new tech-assisted world of limitless accessibility, connection and transformation may be stripping us of qualities which make life worth living.
Let me explain.
Shaking Off Tech Propaganda
I’ve gradually began to realise that a lot of the tech-utopian rhetoric that was so prevalent in the late 90s and early 2000s was pure propaganda.
When I was growing up there was no better rebel than the hacker - the cool geeky genius who smashed conventions and flipped off authority (usually the State).
Reflecting on this today, I now know that those “renegade geeks” would become the multi-millionaire overlords of our new age of techno-feudalism. Indeed, hacker anti-authoritarianism turned into corporate tax avoidance and deregulation in the blink of an eye.
Part of the effectiveness of this power grab, was to paint any figure urging caution about “digital disruption” or technological change as ignorant or overly emotional. The image of Helen Lovejoy from the Simpsons yelling “please think of the children!” was how most tech critics were depicted.
When I was in my early 20s, the focus of my disdain was someone like Baroness Susan Greenfield, a neuroscientist who has been decrying the impact of modern technology on developing brains since the mid-2000s.
As a maternal figure, she seemed to fit the Helen Lovejoy trope perfectly - if of course you conveniently ignore her imminent qualifications as a world leading expert on the brain (which as a young man, I did).
Greenfield’s research has been subject to a variety of attacks over the last few decades, and admittedly her particular claims that social media use and video games have a net negative effect on brain development, emotions and behaviour are not well established in the psychology literature.
However, whilst the pro-tech propaganda is that Greenfield’s concerns are mere speculative scaremongering, I’m increasingly convinced that the problem is her scope was just too narrow.
By focussing on individual psychological effects, Greenfield’s critiques are easily “debunked” - largely because the consumption of media is an incredibly individualised experience.
This means that social media can be the cause of developmental delay and poor self esteem for a small, but significant, proportion of teenagers but not meet statistical significance for teenagers as a group.
What’s missing from much tech pessimist commentary is a wider outlook which takes into account the sociological, cultural and -dare I say- spiritual effects of modern technology.
This broader picture is nothing short of disturbing.
Crippled By Convenience
With big shifts in technology at the end of the 20th century, an entire new way of life was created. How we work, socialise and rest is now determined by the “tools” we use.
It is not simply the case that we invented new techniques for our own purposes, technology has its own independent effects on us.
This is most evident in how modern conveniences have reshaped our bodies.
The number of people who are overweight or obese in Australia (and around the Western world) has climbed gradually over time since the 1990s.
For adolescents and young people aged 15–24, those born most recently (in 1993–2002) - the so-called “neo-digital natives” - were more likely to be overweight or obese (41%) than those born in 1983–1992 at the same age (36%) and those born in 1971–1980 at the same age (28%).
The 1993–2002 birth cohort was also more likely to be obese at age 15–24 (14%) than those born in 1971–1980 at the same age (8.4%).
As a result of these shifts the rates of stroke, diabetes, heart disease and many types of cancer are skewing younger, as hyper-caloric bodies lead to illness and disability.
Being overweight or obese is not a mere “personal choice”. The technology-facilitated conveniences of our modern world make our environment disastrously obesogenic. We are building tech-generated environments where movement is kept to a bare minimum, whilst caloric intake is merely an UberEats click away.
Whole fitness and nutrition industries have been generated to try and counter the recent detrimental effects of tech-driven lifestyle changes. These for-profit industries mean the harms of technology on physical health are often divided along socio-economic classes (particularly for women).
But it’s more than just weight gain.
Whilst many are aware of the modern occupational risk of repetitive strain injuries as a result of computing, we are now seeing new tech related injuries and disabilities such as “gamer’s thumb” and “computer vision syndrome” from screen use.
The sheer fact that most modern work environments involve sitting in front of a computer is itself a risk of disease. Occupational health researchers are now trying to find organic ways to counteract “excessive sitting” as a cancer risk, despite it being the nature of modern service-oriented, tech-assisted commerce.
Sometimes tech-related influences are a direct cause of death. “Selfie-related fatalities” are now a recognised factor in accidental deaths in the forensic literature, as is gaming-related deep vein thrombosis.
It’s not hard to trace these modern maladies directly to the “benefits” of technology - they are the result of not having to exert ourselves physically for simple daily tasks, they are pathologies of a body perpetually at rest.
For scholars of the flesh, this malformation of our physical form is not merely a matter of aesthetics or abstract “health” but a reflection of deeper spiritual harm.
Indeed, desecration of the body is historically tied to a decrease in sensuality - of a preference for the mental over the physical. As philosopher Scott Kretchmer notes his philosophical tribute to muscle:
We grew up as a species celebrating strong. One can only imagine the importance of muscle power for our hunter-forager ancestors who lived a hard-scrabble, physically demanding life or of countless and forever nameless warriors who lived and died by mostly hand- to-hand combat. But whether at war or in the daily routines related to survival, it is not an exaggeration to say they lived by muscle and died by muscle. Their stories of unusual strength and achievement are lost forever to history.
Author Yukio Mishima, one of the most important thinkers of sensuality, saw a body free of strain and struggle as one diminished by his environment:
The steel faithfully taught me the correspondence between the spirit and the body: thus feeble emotions, it seemed to me corresponded to flaccid muscles, sentimentality to a sagging stomach, and a over impressionability to an oversensitive, white skin. Bulging muscle, a taut stomach, and a tough skin.
It’s crucial we see the growth of tech-related illness and disability, not merely as a health issue - but as a much more concerning transformation of the self.
Tech Neurosis
To discuss the impact of modern technology on mental health is to run the risk of clichés.
There is an overly sentimental trope decrying the impact of tech on (particularly young) minds. This involves images of teenagers staring at black screens, young girls becoming anorexic looking at airbrushed images, young boys becoming porn addicted incels etc.
But this is just a tiny snapshot of what should be a broader picture of the impact of tech convenience on our mental wellbeing.
I recently wrote a piece on the rise of young girls displaying Tourette symptoms at clinics around the world and its alleged tie to TikTok. What is surprising about this phenomena isn’t that anxious teens developed tics in response to stimuli, but that this pathology seemed to result from an mutually dependent relationship between technology and modern identity.
As German clinicians put it:
Functional “Tourette-like” symptoms can be regarded as the “modern” form of the well-known motor variant of [mass sociogenic illness]. Moreover, they can be viewed as the 21th century expression of a culture- bound stress reaction of our post-modern society emphasizing the uniqueness of individuals and valuing their alleged exceptionality, thus promoting attention-seeking behaviours and aggravating the permanent identity crisis of modern man.
This gets to the heart of the real mental health impacts of modern technology. Not that it causes mental harm per se, but that it complements a certain pathologically individualistic identity.
Social theorists Hans-Georg Moeller and Paul J. D’Ambrosio view this as a move from 20th century self-conceptions tied to “authenticity” (that ‘I’ exist seperate to social expectations) to that of “profilicity” (that ‘I’ exist seperate to social expectations but conditional on being able to build an original social profile).
Profilicity relies on second-order observations to maintain identity. It combines both hyper-individualism and a hyper-vigilance regarding perceptions by others.
As Moeller and D’Ambrosio write:
The three core aspects of profilicity are (a) distinctness or visibility resulting in quantitative attention, (b) a certain ‘coolness’, or other forms of ‘excellence’ resulting in qualitative acclaim and (c) coherence with generally expected ethical expectations in a given context (e.g. political, academic or aesthetic) resulting in normative approval. The triple-A presentation of identity (i.e. those achieving attention, acclaim and approval) is capable of generating exhibition value.
This is similar to what philosopher Byung-Chul Han calls modern “achievement subjects” - individuals not plagued by the negativity of social limitations, but instead the excess “positivity” of being entrepreneurs of themselves. He writes in The Burnout Society:
Unlimited Can is the positive model verb of achievement society. Its plural form - the affirmation, “Yes, we can” - epitomises achievement society’s positive orientation. Prohibitions, commandments, and the law are replaced by projects, initiatives, and motivation.
This new form form of subjectivity is effectively complimented by technological convenience. Via the internet we are no longer limited by physicality whether by. location or our own bodies.
There is no clear “clocking off” in terms of our professional or personal lives, your “personal-brand” is all encompassing. There is also no escape from others - it is endless social connection, endless information and endless performance.
For Han, this is the cause of modern neurological maladies from depression to ADHD to borderline personality disorder to anxiety. Rather than resulting from “external pressures” these conditions are the result of self-actualisation, an excess of positivity without limitation. He notes:
The violence of positivity does not presume or require hostility. It unfolds specifically in a permissive and pacified society. Consequently, it proves more invisible.
Much modern mental illness involves a subject fighting with itself. Gone is beautiful melancholy, a natural human variation in mood, where a certain despondency or psychological quietism takes hold. Modern depression doesn’t allow subjects to wallow, individuals are plagued with a sense of wasting time.
This call for attention, action and excessive thought is strongly aided by the internet, which is pure stimulus and option-making, an open ended set of networks always available for further exploration.
Combine this excess with our need to build our identity through profilicity and the achievement-subject is a unique 21st century invention - carrying its own unique forms of misery.
Even if you’re not sold on Han’s theory, there’s no denying that something is happening to our mental wellbeing as a result of technology.
Based on the latest national statistics, 1 in 5 Australians have a mental health condition and 1 in 2 Australians will experience a mental health condition at some point in their lifetime.
Mental health diagnoses have been increasing over time globally, however understanding the cause of this change is complex due to changes in population demographics and increased awareness of mental illness.
Nevertheless, there is emerging evidence that shifts in personality and lifestyle may be playing a role in poorer mental health.
More people globally are exhibiting traits of perfectionism, and there is (albeit limited) evidence that levels of body dissatisfaction are becoming worse. Moreover, some maladaptive personality traits such as narcissism have been tied tech-related lifestyle changes such as social media use.
The American Psychological Association in 2019, noted that unusual shifts in mental health disorders amongst US adolescents and young adults appear strongly correlated with the rise of digital media. Generation “profilicity” coming of age.
The recently leaked internal research by Facebook appears to indicate emerging evidence between social media usage and poor mental health amongst adolescents. If Big Tech is concerned, you should be concerned to.
Far from being a moral panic, there are growing signs that the combination of the ideological individualism in Western countries and digital technology are creating a generation of troubled, neurotic young adults.
This isn’t Helen Lovejoy scaremongering, this is the world as it is.
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It’s time to reinvigorate a pessimist outlook when it comes to advances in technology. These changes do not occur in a vacuum and are likely having impacts we won’t fully realise until decades after they are have been embedded into our culture.
Call me a Luddite if you wish, but for this digital native the future isn’t looking so bright.