This is by no means a criticism of my friend’s daughter (or anyone else). What was concerning, at least to me, was that in between being photographed and posting, my friend’s daughter had no interest in the artwork, a fact which didn’t seem to matter or have anything to do with wanting to post herself as someone enjoying the experience.  The only time that she looked at the artwork in fact was when we were photographing her looking at it, and even then, she was mostly gazing in the direction of the art, with a soft focus that didn’t seem to take in the art itself.  When I asked her why she wanted to put up pics of herself in the museum since she pretty clearly didn’t want to or like being there, she smiled, shrugged her shoulders, and asked me to take another photo of her.

Now when I was her age, I had no interest in going to museums either, and when I did get dragged there, I couldn’t wait to get out of the building.  Having no interest in art at her age (and any age) is completely normal and not disturbing in the least.  But what is disturbing is how much of a young person’s energy these days goes into creating an image of the life they’re living and the character they “are” in that life.  While creating a self-image has always been a big part of growing up and figuring out our identity, social media seems to have changed the rules of the game.  Social media has not just intensified the pressure and possibility to create a self-generated self-image, but also distorted the process by which we become who we are.  Young people now seem to be creating an image of who they are in place of becoming who they are, posting their life rather than living it. The effort that goes into creating an identity and getting it noticed or “followed” has replaced the effort of actually getting interested in the life that they are posting.

Social media has turned life and its experiences into an exercise in narcissism.  No matter what the experience is actually about, it becomes about you, the person who is living it.  A concert is not about the music, a restaurant not about the food, a sporting event not about the sport, a funeral not about the loss; it’s all about you, the doer, and what the event says about you.  Life experiences are not lived directly so much as they are used as opportunities for announcing what kind of person you are.  Life now is a product through which to promote your image, but (and here’s where it gets really strange) with little connection to whether that screen image accurately reflects the inside you.

Our relationship with social media: the fact that posting where we are and what we’re doing is often more important than being where we are or doing what we’re doing, is one of the most disturbing ways that we are changing in the wake of technology and its offspring.  Our experience has meaning only in the way it says something about us–how it helps create our self-image.  As a result, we feel more separate and disconnected from our life; meaning feels harder to find.  The more we use life to create an identity, the more cut off from life we feel. Instead of being part of it, in the flow of life, we feel as if we have to keep generating new life material, more life stuff, which will announce, establish us, and ultimately, prove our existence.  In the meanwhile, the chasm between us and life grows wider and wider.

An invitation: the next time you are inclined to post your story and all that goes with it, pause for a moment and experience where you are, feel what it feels like to be live what you’re living, sensing what you’re sensing, without doing anything with it—without using life for your benefit, or for anything at all.  Just live, without the narrative.  While it may feel like this exercise could pose a threat to your identity, cause you to miss an opportunity to establish your value, in fact, the benefit it can offer to your true self, to that within you that longs to be part of and not separate from life, will far outweigh any loss incurred.  But don’t take my word for it, try it out for yourself… I look forward to your reports from the field.

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The problem is that anyone with a brain who knew anything about Manhattan would also know that the street the GPS was telling us to cross was a terrible option and the last street on earth one would want to choose in good conditions, much less the conditions on that particular day.  A human brain with intelligence and life experience, that could factor in the context of rush hour, pouring rain, construction, and a bridge set at the east end of exactly that street, would know that any other path would be a better option to get to where I was going.  But alas, technology told us to go that way—and so we did.

After sitting in entirely stopped traffic for ten minutes and then crawling bumper to bumper for another ten, just to travel half a city block, I asked the driver if he could get off this particular street and take a different route, to which he replied, “But the GPS tells me that this is my path,” “But what happens if we know better than what it tells you to do?” I asked.  While I don’t remember his exact words, the message was that regardless of what we in the car know to be true, he has to follow the directions of the computer.  If the computer chirps it, we do it.

The fact that this path might be the shortest physical distance between the two points was irrelevant at this time of day, with this particular weather, and with the reality of urban planning.  Nonetheless, we honored the computer’s determinant, geographical distance, as if it were the only important element in making this decision.

Five minutes later, still moving an inch at a time, I asked the driver if would be possible for him to text the company and tell them that unforeseen (by the computer) conditions had rendered its usual genius inaccurate, and to inquire whether we humans could override its intelligence and take another route.  He told me at this point, 25 minutes into the street crossing, that only the passenger could text the office to tell them that real life dictated a route other than what the computer indicated. But he certainly couldn’t do that.  When I then asked him why he had not suggested that I text the company earlier, when we were talking about the traffic, he looked confused and reiterated that he had to do what the computer told him to do.

I didn’t say anything after that, but I did get out of the van and walk in the pouring rain the rest of the way.  What I knew about traffic and my city didn’t matter, but what I knew about myself did matter, and that was that I needed to be out of that black Suburban as soon as possible.

Have we gone mad as a species?  Are we so anxious to surrender our authority, to not have to think, not be in charge, that we will follow any computer that tells us what to do—even when we know better?  Do we really want to be passive lab rats?  What has happened to our respect for and trust in our own intelligence, and our ability to figure things out for ourselves?

While algorithms can decide a lot of things, they cannot substitute for human intelligence, which can factor in the wisdom of experience, context, circumstance, psychology and a whole lot of other factors too, all at once.  To make wise decisions we need a lot more than just facts, and yet, we are behaving as if data is the central key to a good life.

In truth, the expression on my driver’s face when I asked him if he could take another route, was the spookiest thing I encountered, and what made me feel most hopeless.  This grown man, who I am sure has lived a life filled with experience, and who probably has a tremendous amount of wisdom, looked like someone who had been vacuumed of his own life force, his basic humanness.  He looked, dare I say it, like a robot.

How can we regain authority in our own lives?’ This is the question that is not just interesting, but existentially urgent.  How can we stop ourselves from becoming robots, handing over our intelligence and life force to the computer?  How far are we from a time when the computer chirps us a message that is not just inconvenient, but actually destructive?

The human brain has the capacity not just to gather, store, and link data, but also to bring to that data an intelligence and wisdom of experience that is not just profoundly important, but also changes that data into something else.  We need more than information to live a good life, we need the ability to process and to make meaning, which (still) only humans can provide.

In the meanwhile, use the computer to text the head office and tell them that the human on board knows better.  Grab the reins back in your own life.  And remember, we humans, at least for now, are still the ones in charge—if we decide to be.

Copyright 2015 Nancy Colier

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