I am typing this article about forgoing devices with screens, quite fittingly, from my cellular device with a screen. Throughout February and into March, I lived life without a phone and it was for the most part much better for my mental clarity, presentness, and activity levels. While not having a phone was certainly inconvenient and left me vulnerable in some ways, it was by far much more preferable to having a phone. In the coming year or so, I will probably be switching to a phone that does not have a screen because if I can retain the utility of a phone without the distractions and psychological harm, it retains its benefit in my opinion.
For upwards of a year now, I’ve wanted to write an article on the mind-body dichotomy and I suppose that digital devices with screens are worth talking about finally. When we look at the mind-body dichotomy, there is a fantasy in modern civilization that the mind is independent of the body, when the mind is in fact a byproduct of the body. While I sit here on my couch, typing away on a small screen lost in my own thoughts, my mind and body are doing two separate things for the most part. While my fingers may tap away at the phone in synchronization with what I think, my body is inactive for the most part while my mind is fixated on something of no benefit to my body.
For any animal watching me, it would appear that I am almost staring blankly at a wall, lost in a psychosis of sorts. While we may say this or that and try to wave away the notion that digital devices lead to psychosis, it really is apparent that these devices create bizarre and seemingly psychotic behaviors in human beings. Imagine if you were a crow and you witnessed a common occurrence: school children not talking to one another, seated next to one another, looking down at a glass square for the better part of an hour or more without any intermissions. As an animal that hasn’t had its mind-body dichotomy destroyed by the lack of tactile and tangible properties inherent in the use of digital devices, the crow would think the site was disturbing and rightfully so.
This strange form of social isolation, in which cellular phones replace typical socializing activities, would appear to be a form of mass psychosis for the crow that observed it. This isn’t because the internet or video games are necessarily bad but because the mind, in being allowed to become unchained from its physical surroundings, neglects the body that sustains it. Rather than viewing the body as simply a vessel for the mind, it is better to view the mind as a servant of the body, and accept that we have obligations as minds to engage our bodies in sustainable and extropic practices.
Going off of that, in order to preserve a healthy relationship between the mind and the body, we must first do away with the gratuitous usage of screens in our everyday lives. It does actively harm you to scroll through social media content and that has been proven by numerous studies. Just as our bodies can become physically dependent on drugs, our minds can become mentally dependent on digital activities. Just as we legislate and do away with channels that could give citizens access to harmful drugs, we must create the same legal protections against channels that could give citizens access to harmful activities. In my opinion, the phone screen is not much different than the drug dealer, and should be regulated as such.
I have started looking into how to forgo digital devices and screens entirely eventually, due to the fact that they really do not serve that great of a purpose. Analog computers, which require physical manipulation of the body to interact with in many cases, allow for a human being to retain a sounder mind-body relationship. In addition to that, through the use of headless software in combination with headless analog computers, you can completely nullify the psychological threats that come with exposure to digital devices and screen time. While some may deride this as backwards or not fun, if we do not approach technology with control and pragmatism, then we are surely left vulnerable.
Just as in the last several decades, a deal of health consciousness among the general population has arisen, we need a similar degree of health consciousness regarding the use of digital devices to arise. In the same ways that consumers avoid items that contain High Fructose Corn Syrup, perhaps in the future people will make the choice to avoid items that contain digital technologies and / or screens. I hold no hope that society will regain its mental footing, because I think that the powers that be are swollen with so much money at this point to make any consumer movements against digital technologies and screens moot. In addition to that, we live in a world of addicts at this point and as time goes on, succeeding generations will know less and less about what it means to live outside the digital psychosis that they are born into and raised within.
The DMSG membership has discussed how to go about implementing these headless and analog technological alternatives in the commune to come. It is challenging to do and will require years of effort to make work on a scale fit for a community, but it will preserve the community and its members in ways that nothing that the world offers today can. In time, we will publish more about our plans regarding implementation of these ideas and stances.
