digital life

Knowledge at Our Fingertips; You Ain't Seen Nothin' Yet

We have spent the first half of June exploring concerns and dangers of our ever-emerging digital world.  This is the first of four articles which looks at the incredible benefits it brings us. There are plenty of reasons to celebrate.

Learning things, gaining knowledge, and wisdom which came with great patience and effort only a few years ago now lies at our fingertips.  Information once stored away at libraries and museums is just as easily accessible as your favorite television show.  Poetry, literature, art, science, and technology can be studied and explored at a whim from the comfort of home. How miraculous and exciting to live in such an age.

Some of my grown children and spouses make a living in the technology fields.  One is a Data Quality Manager, another Director of Technology Recruiting and a third is an Account Executive Manager of Cloud Technologies.  Our son, who just came back from an international convention in Nashville, was explaining to us how a new program solves logistic problems as easily as organizing Lego's.  His father-in-law, an accounting professor, chirped in that he was lost in whatever Steven was describing.  Though not exactly lost myself, our techy pro was telling the story of languages and applications which mystify me in so many ways.

I am no neophyte to computers.  My experiences began with them back in early 1971 when, as a young behaviorist working with troubled boys, I learned Fortran in an effort to use computers to predict adolescent behavior.  It didn't work.  My guess is that even the newest programs and languages explained by our son couldn't accomplish that heady task.  But you never know. Long story short, I was hooked on the burgeoning technology right then and there.  Over the years I have modernized hospital communications between treatment teams using personal computers, created programs to diagnose the severity of addictive illness while inventing individual strategies for recovery, and on and on.  But here I am today, swimming in a sea of technological evolution which overwhelms my head, heart, and gut.  Extraordinary wonders await us which are just around the corner...and we are at that corner already. It is developing at lightning speed and not a single aspect of life is devoid of tech influence and guidance.

Five Awesome Digital Wisdom Revolutions

  1. Human Brain Project: Research neuroscientists are mapping the brain creating a 3D atlas stitching together thousands of brain cross-sections showing details as small as a human cell. This will advance neuroscience medicine in ways unimaginable a decade ago.
  2. Three Dimensional Printing: Architecture, engineering, medicine, aerospace, and the auto industry (to name a few) are all using this amazing technology to make things in new and innovative ways.  Home users are creating projects that are mind-blowing.  You can get an industrial grade 3D printer on Amazon for $1,500 and have it shipped with a guaranteed delivery date in four days.  Yikes.
  3. E-Learning for Anyone: It's not just for school kids anymore.  E-Learning (technology-based learning) is an industry that has been embraced by schools, corporations, teachers, and students of every ilk. Lee Ann Obringer, Communications Director of The Walking Classroom Institute says that "E-learning is to classroom learning as cell phones are to a pay phone at the bus station." It provides self-paced programs at low cost in convenient locations with continually updated content. What a benefit for traditional and non-traditional learning milieu.
  4. Artificial Intelligence: AI is the replication of human intelligence by computers.  The technology allows machines to learn from experience in part by recognizing patterns.  New Deep Learning software recognizes speech, identifies images and makes predictions.  Self-Driving cars, medical diagnosis, nanorobots, design/security systems, and personal assistant robots (here comes C-3PO) are all on the AI horizon.
  5. DNA Engineering: Gene editing technology is giving scientists the ability to change our DNA. They can add to, edit or remove genetic material.  There is such great interest in this miraculous medical engineering as it offers new hope in curing diseases such as cancer, sickle cell, mental illness, and HIV among many others. Ethics concerns are valid of course and have halted research in many countries.

There is a seemingly endless list of dynamic digital technologies happening and developing right now.  Managing them in our micro and macro lives are daunting.  Each of us is responsible to the extent of digital impact on ourselves and our families. But one thing is certain...our reality is changing dramatically and will continue to change regardless of any effort to slow it down.  I suggest this...Hold on and enjoy the ride.

Getting Soft; Casualties of a Digital Age

At the turn of the century, Theodore Roosevelt preached the gospel of the “strenuous life; of toil and effort, of labor and strife”. Over one hundred years later, American’s lead increasingly sedentary lives.Bob Jones explores the cost both physical and spiritual of the digital age.

Digital Life; Challenges of A New Frontier

The topic we are investigating in June is "Mastering Our Digital; Recovering the Real World."  In a series of four articles and four follow-ups, our hope is to better grasp the nature of this barely charted course before us in order to maintain at least one firmly planted foot in the material dimension where we live and breathe.

We have a dilemma. Portable screens, social media, internet gaming, virtual reality, artificial intelligence, and cable television have intruded to a point that we seem beyond the control of them and of ourselves.  Even elections are compromised by dark forces bent on influencing who we are and what directions governments should take.  It's all pretty overwhelming, especially to skeptical generations which lived most of their lives without these machines. Though the dilemma may appear insoluble, it is not. Or at least it doesn't have to be.  After all, these 'things' are designed to make our lives better.  The quandary is whether we should fully embrace, begrudgingly accept, or run away screaming as this New Frontier of Digital Life looms before us.

There is a wonderful story about President Eisenhower which circulated among my IBM friends back in the early 1980s. Ike had commissioned an early supercomputer for the Pentagon.  When completed, an entire section of one subterranean floor was devoted to the machines.  A master control station was set up behind impenetrable glass walls.  According to legend, the President came to see his creation and asked to be alone with it for a minute.  He typed out this question, "Is there a God?" and the computers all started flashing and whirring.  After several minutes, a single card spits out of its' slot toward Eisenhower.  It said, "There is now."

Bill Moyers queried renowned author, historian, and professor, Joseph Campbell during a 1988 PBS documentary called "The Power of Myth." concerning computers and the role they might play in the future.  Campbell looked over at his computer screen and said: "To me, that machine is almost alive. I could mythologize that damn thing." but went on to say, "The first time anybody made a tool, I mean, taking a stone and chipping it so that you can handle it, that’s the beginning of a machine. It’s turning outer nature into your service. But then there comes a time when it begins to dictate to you." It seems that Joseph Campbell had already foreseen thirty years ago what might happen in a computer age.  But there is no reason to rage against the machine.  With the Eisenhower story and Campbell's warning in mind, what we must take charge of is the extent to which we allow the digital world to dictate our daily life.

Trying to find a good perspective of the digital era involves looking at some of the negative and positive aspects of its landscape as we experience it today.  This is an early stage of technological development really. We have a better chance to guide and adapt now than if we wait very much longer.  I am reminded of the popular modern myth "Game of Thrones" which just finished its' final season on HBO.  Despite a chorus of voices that warned "Winter is coming" everyone procrastinated.  Old ways of dealing with conflicts, security, and enemy threat persisted even when the almost invulnerable White Walkers were in plain sight and civilization seemed doomed. Myths like this one have the power of validating or maintaining a society while providing a path forward (as Campbell tells us). Now is the time for action as we master our digital and recover the real world.

This is the direction we will take over the next four weeks together.  Hopefully, our eyes will be opened a bit and we will be able to better navigate the seas ahead without too much upheaval. Follow the content link on each of the 'concerns and celebrations' below as you experience one of the many wonders of the digital age.  Instant information.

Four Areas of Concern
There are plenty of areas in which we can focus our concerns about modern digital life. These are four which stand out as ones deserving of our attention:

  1. Digital Addiction/Electronic Screen Syndrome
  2. Personal Privacy and Security/Real Stranger Danger
  3. Global Cyber Crime/Hacking our Future
  4. Physical and Mental Health/Soft Brains and Bodies

Four Areas of Celebration
It's a small world after all.  Our digital world has connected us in ways we could have never imagined.  People who are not like 'us' become potential friends as we forge into this new frontier.  Here are four of many reasons to celebrate our screens.

  1. Wisdom at Our Fingertips; The Future of Research, Learning, and Education
  2. Alternative Environments; Family Enrichment by Work-at-Home Providers
  3. Social Media; Staying Close and Keeping In Touch with Old friends and Family
  4. Medical Miracles; From Diagnosis to Treatment OnLine.