Silicon Valley Says Step Away From the Device

[still.trucking]

The concern, voiced in conferences and in recent interviews with many top executives of technology companies, is that the lure of constant stimulation — the pervasive demand of pings, rings and updates — is creating a profound physical craving that can hurt productivity and personal interactions.

The actual science of whether such games and apps are addictive is embryonic. But the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, widely viewed as the authority on mental illnesses, plans next year to include “Internet use disorder” in its appendix, an indication researchers believe something is going on but that requires further study to be deemed an official condition

Some people disagree there is a problem, even if they agree that the online activities tap into deep neurological mechanisms. Eric Schiermeyer, a co-founder of Zynga, an online game company and maker of huge hits like FarmVille, has said he has helped addict millions of people to dopamine, a neurochemical that has been shown to be released by pleasurable activities, including video game playing, but also is understood to play a major role in the cycle of addiction.

But what he said he believed was that people already craved dopamine and that Silicon Valley was no more responsible for creating irresistible technologies than, say, fast-food restaurants were responsible for making food with such wide appeal.
Along those lines, Scott Kriens, chairman of Juniper Networks, one of the biggest Internet infrastructure companies, said the powerful lure of devices mostly reflected primitive human longings to connect and interact, but that those desires needed to be managed so they did not overwhelm people’s lives.

“The responsibility we have is to put the most powerful capability into the world,” he said. “We do it with eyes wide open that some harm will be done. Someone might say, ‘Why not do so in a way that causes no harm?’ That’s naïve
Mr. Crabb, the Facebook executive, said his primary concern was that people live balanced lives. At the same time, he acknowledges that the message can run counter to Facebook’s business model, which encourages people to spend more time online. “I see the paradox,” he said.

The emerging conversation reflects a broader effort in the valley to offer counterweights to the fast-paced lifestyle. Many tech firms are teaching meditation and breathing exercises to their staff members to help them slow down and disconnect.

Google has started a “mindfulness” movement at the company to teach employees self-awareness and to improve their ability to focus. Richard Fernandez, an executive coach at Google and one of the leaders of the mindfulness movement, said the risks of being overly engaged with devices were immense.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/24/techn ... wanted=all

[the mingo]

Holy Stilts & Rumple Skirts! Whatever are we to do with ourselves now?! The sorcerer of the painted caves reaches for the future we are headed for - don't know if I'll be around for it but the implanted chip in the brain ain't far off - direct connection to the world wide web just by thinking about it - but then there is the shadow world of it all - like in Forbidden Planet. Things unguessed roam dopamine heaven - and O! Anne Frances in that Jetson's outfit! I was so young and she fried my eggs on the spot! I never had a chance!

[stilltrucking]

thanks for picking up

a friend back in virginia writes a weekly column for the local newspaper in Lexington Virginia. A pretty hip college town (VMI and W &L). He used to call it Up The Pisgah, it was a chit chat column set in an imaginary country dinner out in the boonies on The Pisgah river. He would muse about the characters that dropped in and the wildlife he had seen or his dogs, or where the fishing was good that day. Later he changed jobs went to work delivering newspapers for another local paper and the old job would not let him take the name with him, intelectual property rights, so he changed the name of his column to UP Yonder. That is kind of how I imanine these text boxes with you and dame, like we are neighbors who get together at pisgah dinner for for breakfast and conversation, talking about what we been doing or seeing or feeling or thhinking since the last time we alll sat down and chewed the fat.

and I imagine there is a juke box there that plays two songs for a quater