A few thoughts regarding the Look Up video, which has gone viral:
Firstly, given that it advocates stopping using technology, it's not (as many have claimed) ironic at all that it's popular online. To be fair to the makers, they are trying to reach out to technophiles; if you were trying to get fishermen to trawl less, you'd head to the coast. Being Luddite serves no purpose here. But that's probably where my sympathy for this 'piece of work' ends. I think it's reductive, condescending nonsense, shot through with enough sentimentality to give it the appearance of gravitas and substance. And don't get me started on the sub-sixth form poetry slam delivery.
I assumed it was aimed mostly at teens, given the false belief that teenagers are constantly 'looking down', never interacting in the real world, and are more atomised than ever before. Let's despair at the behaviour of our older children: plugged into the mainframe, atrophying, sun-starved, juggling their various devices. I don't buy that vision. Sure, some children do spend more time using technology than is good for them. Sure, many parents are far more 'protective' and stranger-wary nowadays than they were in, say, my generation or those before me. But children playing out less in the street doesn't equal children not socialising beyond tech. Many more now have sleepovers, see friends at each others' houses, go shopping, bowling, etc: activities where the parents feel they can better monitor and surveille their kids. And anecdotally, I often see groups of teens - unsupervised - wandering around suburban shopping centres. Yes, sometimes they're texting or instagramming or snapchatting (I'm not stalking them, honest!), but mostly they're being, well, teenagers. No Matrix-style alienation here. And I - together with those in Britain of my vintage - can remember a very popular kids' programme called Why Don't You?, which used the medium of television to encourage children to "Just Switch Off Your Television Set And Go Out And Do Something Less Boring Instead". I did both: watched some telly, then went out to play with my mates.
And yet the narrative of the video seems to concentrate on a pair of 20somethings, playing out a Sliding Doors-syle alternative reality message: look up, or you'll die sad and alone. But surely we are engaging all the time with what might have been. Every single decision has consequences of some magnitude. This is a cheap trick which simplifies the unfathomable complexity of our lives to suggest that, if only you closed that laptop or left that phone at home, your life would be massively improved in every way. For a start, you'd find your soul mate. Well, I (and millions of others) would not have known of the existence of my partner, and my life would not be taking the turn it is about to take, were it not for that damnable Facebook. Positives and negatives: they're there in everything we do.
The crux for me lies in moderation. Good old Aristotle proposed that one's best actions lay between excess and deficiency. It feels almost as simplistic as the accursed video to recommend this, but surely technology - with its proven benefits - has a part to play in the human project. Overdoing anything is detrimental - I don't have to give examples. So yes, by all means use Facebook, Twitter, all the other social media platforms, and connect in ways which weren't feasible 20 or 30 years ago. I have learned so much about the minutiae of life in Australia, America, other European countries and parts of Asia, through people I've related to on Facebook; things which guidebooks and television programmes don't detail. And, beyond even the edifying aspects of it all, I enjoy using technology. There is no shame at all in saying that, dammit! I am also aware that sometimes I binge on it. But that is my issue. Facebook is not an inherent evil, enticing me to the rocks of isolated insomnia with its notification pings, any more than television in the 70s, when the most popular programmes on the Big Two channels in the UK would garner 20+ million viewers, was destroying civilisation. If you watched TV for six to eight hours every single evening, however, then your brain would probably begin to jellify.
As for whether this modern demon of technology is ruining our species, I would be very interested to read a sophisticated history of human interaction, up to and including the technological age, rather than have this proselytising sledgehammer of a video doing the rounds. How technology has changed and continues to change the world of work; the fetishisation of progress and how that informs the profit-driven need to upgrade devices; how planned obsolescence assists this unfettered growth; the part played by technology in the obesity boom of developed nations; the use of technology in aiding developing countries; technology's role in sustainable development - for me, these issues are far more important and fundamental.
I think I've had enough of writing this now. I'm going out to buy a massive slab of chocolate. Yep, moderation in all things; and that includes moderation...
