Reboot
Reclaiming Your Life in a Tech-Obsessed World
Elaine Kasket
Having read it
★★★★☆
Well paced, considered and sectioned into the stages of human life and how they are and need to be (better) considered, understood and appreciated in this modern, digital world we’re making and are a part of, even if we don’t want to be part of it!
Organisations’ seeming obsession (and no doubt the state’s own in following the market!) with technology, data and management techniques to coral, control and justify itself and the progress and profit it can deliver is mostly becoming a surefire way to create more of a dystopian future for the younger generations currently facing and experiencing this hands-on, efficient and data-led and measured culture.
However, with the views and psychotherapist perspectives the author gives, it isn’t totally a lost cause in reclaiming and rebalancing our lives in amongst the ever-evolving digital world. It just requires a little more consideration and thoughtfulness from us rather than relying on the next great app or other technology that conveniences the existing digital conveniences, taking away the chance for more understanding and responsibility and giving away even more personal data so others can profit from it.
It all makes for a good perspective on existing human traits and life learnings by other, similar practitioners through the ages and interprets the view for this burgeoning digital age and makes a good case in the conversation and debate about these matters and, even becomes another good voice of reason to be investing in an adaptable and progressive way what could and should be done for all to make the important data about someone (their DNA, health data etc.) their own and that they themselves own and choose how and when it is used.
The very technology being created needs to be better used and understood by the very market that makes it so it can then actually increase and reward better and healthier efforts to benefiting, supporting and growing society’s efforts, not just acting as a silent platform to enable without much, or any, responsibility for the (long-term) consequences.
The Gen Zs and Alphas (despite the outdated systems and institutions that still guide their formative years) will likely be all right, considering, as they’ll have grown up and known no different. It’s the elders (and politics) you need to worry about!
Still, there are few helpful suggestions in the book’s conclusion that may be of use to take and make for those readers keen to start trying to get a little control back and away from their devices.
Oh, and...
If you’re a parent, for every electronic-surveillance decision you make about your kid, ask yourself some searching questions. What’s convinced you that this technological solution is necessary? What clever marketing, groupthink, scaremongering headline, or anxiety might have compelled you? Assess and perhaps research the whole picture: do you reckon this app or gadget is really going to decrease your worry? If you don’t choose to go ahead, what would the alternatives be? If you do proceed, what explicit or implicit messages might your kid be receiving from you, and how might you balance out some of the more negative ones?
A good passage
Imagine an eight-month-old whose parents have the resources to wire their home with fibreoptic cables, the salaries to splurge on fancy devices, the inclination to comb through product reviews. At half a year of life, that baby will on some level understand they are constantly watched, and that the mechanical eyes, lenses and lights scattered about the environment are integral to this enterprise. The baby sees and reaches out for the pretty bars or circles of colour on the glowing rectangles its parents are so preoccupied with, not yet realising that the face on the app is its own, that these shapes and hues represent the functions of its own body.
Perhaps the baby is starting to realise more abstract things too, things it would take many years to be able to put into words: that in this world, safety is king. Absolute, perfect safety, created and maintained through streams of data, achieved through what all that technology gives us: knowledge, or at least the illusion of it. Through observation and osmosis, the baby is learning that it is normal and expected for humans to relate and respond to one another through these objects, and that sometimes, because of competition from them, it might be difficult to extract a response from their parents at all.
A second good passage
[...] Surveillance technology, despite what’s advertised, doesn’t take the fear away – it does the opposite. It reinforces it, keeps it alive. You worry, you consult the app, you see the icon or the text, you feel momentarily better, and the app-consulting behaviour is reinforced – we can become problemat-ically dependent on the checking for a sense or illusion of safety. But we need to do it in today’s world, we tell ourselves. We impress on our children, again and again, that there are lots of dangers, that we love them and that we are using this technology only to keep them safe. This is what they learn. No wonder the whole of society now limps under the weight of its constant vigilance to potential harm.
A third good passage
I imagine the two rows of pine trees lining the drive to her [the author’s daughter at summer] camp, an iconic sight for all who love it there, kids who cannot contain their excitement at being on the cusp of total freedom from the everyday, from parental oversight and the demands of their usual lives. I picture a watching eye on every tree, nailed to the rugged fragrant bark, peeking from between the long green needles. If that happens, once that happens, once we become accustomed to it – how long will it take us to remember, if ever we knew, what problem we were trying to solve?