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Human Contact Is Now a Luxury Good:
Screens used to be for the elite. Now avoiding them is a status symbol.
[...] Life for anyone but the very rich — the physical experience of learning, living and dying — is increasingly mediated by screens.
Not only are screens themselves cheap to make, but they also make things cheaper. Any place that can fit a screen in (classrooms, hospitals, airports, restaurants) can cut costs. And any activity that can happen on a screen becomes cheaper. The texture of life, the tactile experience, is becoming smooth glass.
The rich do not live like this. The rich have grown afraid of screens. They want their children to play with blocks, and tech-free private schools are booming. Humans are more expensive, and rich people are willing and able to pay for them. Conspicuous human interaction — living without a phone for a day, quitting social networks and not answering email — has become a status symbol.
All of this has led to a curious new reality: Human contact is becoming a luxury good.
As more screens appear in the lives of the poor, screens are disappearing from the lives of the rich. The richer you are, the more you spend to be offscreen.
I remember when the tag line for AT&T was Reach out and touch someone and it was portrayed as a good thing.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Farkus888 on Tuesday March 26 2019, @01:37PM (18 children)
So rich people can be luddites too. Avoiding tech is just as stupid as letting it run your life. Smart people use tech with intention. Avoid bad tech like mindless infinity pools and choose good tech like all the free educational material. Sure YouTube has pewdiepie, it also has khan academy. Knowing that YOU have the choice and making the right one is the enlightened answer.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by bussdriver on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:23PM (4 children)
It probably applies to most everything. 80% of youtube is toxic shit which causes long term harm. Is the 20% of harmless or useful content worth it? That is the real question. Some people learn a few things... their betterment offsets the 80% who get worse?
People digging past the click-bait traps to use youtube productively most likely (at least 80%) would find other sources, often better in some way (likely faster since these people can read faster than listen to audio and skim a document with images faster than scrub a video on youtube.)
The low hanging fruit is probably 80%. I think it's reaching to say 20% of the web is actually useful; social media is hard to imagine even 10% being beneficial.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:31PM (2 children)
Don't worry about the percentages. Just do your best. Live a good life. Vote for decent social security. If people follow your example, all the better.
(Score: 2) by DannyB on Tuesday March 26 2019, @05:57PM
It's also good to vote for people who don't take away school lunches for four year olds. Just thinking of GWB.
The lower I set my standards the more accomplishments I have.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday March 26 2019, @07:52PM
Well, you can use one of the percentages [wikipedia.org] as a good starting point.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Tuesday March 26 2019, @03:34PM
You seem to be referring to the "lowest common denominator". Those people who spend their days being entertained by LCD entertainers, are, in and of themselves, LCD's. No, they aren't worse, after seeing the trash on television, or on the movie screens, or on Youtube. They are exactly the persons being marketed to, and they are getting exactly what they were looking for.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by AthanasiusKircher on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:06PM (11 children)
I mostly agree with you -- smart people use tech with intention. But I don't think most of the stuff in TFA would qualify as "Luddite" behavior.
Let's look at what's mentioned in the summary:
First, I don't think there's anything wrong or weird about kids playing with blocks, and screens at the age where building blocks are a major toy are probably not going to benefit much from screen time. They need to learn actual coordination with physical objects in the real world. "Living without a phone for a day" is definitely a reasonable thing; I don't think there's anything Luddite about a desire to be able to do that. Quitting social networks is something I'd advise just about any reasonable person to do, as they generally aren't "good tech" in your definition. And don't we all fantasize about not having to answer email on a regular basis?
The only thing a little suspect is "tech-free private schools," though I'm not sure what qualifies as "tech-free." If it just means that kids don't need to bring a laptop or iPad to class (as is becoming increasingly common in some schools), I think that's perfectly reasonable. One could go overboard with it, but my experience with technology in education (and I've taught at various levels from college to high school for many years) is that it's good for very dedicated specific tasks, like, say, facilitating a physics lab or chem lab experiment. But lots of teachers just use it because it's trendy, and I see way too much of tech used as a kind of babysitter in a learning environment, or as a "fun" way to do something on a screen instead of paper or a whiteboard (often of questionable pedagogical value).
So, no, I'd say this isn't about Luddites -- it's about responsible and reasonable reactions to an overabundance of useless screentime in our modern culture.
I did read the full article, and I do have some questions. For instance, this statement comes up in TFA:
Admittedly, I can understand that rich and powerful people can perhaps dictate better whether they have to be on-call with their cell all the time for work, or need to be accessing email constantly. But a lot of the other stuff is well within the control of poor and middle class people. Why do they need to waste time on social media? Why do they need to spend hours surfing YouTube or whatever else? Who exactly is forcing them to use services because they are poor and can't "afford to opt out of having their data and their attention sold as product"?
Most of this is individual choice. Some of it is also knowledge about simple (usually free) privacy protections if you want to try to protect your data. I get that middle-class people can't dictate if they need to use tech for work, but you can choose where you put your personal attention. If you don't want to give up your data and have people tracking you, drop social media, install some privacy stuff in your browsers and computers, avoid "internet of things" BS (I thought that was more of a rich person thing anyway?), and pay in cash when possible. How is most of that harder for a middle-class person than a rich person?
There is, admittedly, one thing in TFA that was more disturbing and more difficult for a poor person to deal with:
That sounds horrible. Having real physical interaction in a classroom and real back-and-forth contact with a teacher is still useful for education. If this is becoming more widespread, that does seem to be a problem.
But the rest of it? I'm confused by TFA. I agree perhaps rich people are more likely to have concerns about this stuff nowadays, but (aside from required work tasks), is it really so impossible for middle-class and poor people to use less tech?
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Gaaark on Tuesday March 26 2019, @04:42PM (3 children)
Kids need to 'experience' things LIVE: they need to fall down and hurt themselves, as in fall off the monkey bars and maybe break an arm. They then learn there are limitations to what they can do and can't do, etc.
they learn about gravity, physics.
I am not on Facebook and don't miss anything about it (i was on briefly to keep up with what my daughter was doing, but found FB is SHITE and useless crap and now don't miss it AT ALL).
I am not on twitter... don't care.
Not on FriendFace or anything else..... AND DON'T MISS IT.
I think we need to get back to kids playing, getting hurt, and learning about real life.
Right now, where i live anyways, kids basically stand around or play ball with very lightweight balls so no one gets hurt: HOLY SHIT, BATMAN!
Kids are hyper and ADD because they're not allowed to release energy during recess (Hell. we didn't STOP running and hurting ourselves when we were kids).
And in the class room, kids need to have the ability to be taught and when they KNOW, learn by themselves: ie, teachers who can help, or when they don't need help, students can further their own education.
If kids need it, the teacher helps.
If kids don't need it, they learn on their own: i used to love these SRA(?) (don't know what it stands for) boxes we had in the class. When i was done with what the teacher was teaching, i could learn on my own.
Bleh.... classes being replaced with software: i bet in the 'BETTER FUNDED RICH KID SCHOOLS' they aren't being taught with software: if 'lower education' was funded as well as 'rich kid' education, you wouldn't need software.
But tax the rich... you gotta be kidding.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday March 26 2019, @07:49PM
Like pick and sort a huge variety of crops, assemble products designed in various US cities, such as Cupertino, pick items in warehouses for shipment to eager consumers, all the while surrounded by many others doing similar items. When they grow up, they'll even be able to assist in bottling recreational beverages [youtube.com].
Some of these places also forbid having technology, like cell phones with you! They say it's for security, but we all know it's most likely for the individuals' mental and social health. So it's not just for the rich and privileged.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday March 26 2019, @08:25PM
That's a lovely bunch of wishes, put those in one hand....
Core curriculum, standardized tests, etc. all BEG to be unified into a single server of all educational material and put on repeat-play for the 180 days of the year that the schools are legally obligated to keep your kids off the streets for 6 hours per day. Education for the betterment of the students? I'll go with the 80/20 rule above on that: 80% of the time it's anything but - there are probably 1/5 people in the educational system who both really care, and really do something about it, the rest are there for the paycheck - even if 4/5 of the 4/5 have their "heart in the right place" they almost never do anything to make a real difference in any student's life, much less all of the ones they have responsibility for.
🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @09:17PM
Oh, the SRA cards. My teacher always wanted me to do those, and I kept refusing. Mostly because she was pushing me to it.
I always thought it stood for Supplemental Reading Assignment, but it apparently is https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science_Research_Associates [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 4, Insightful) by lentilla on Tuesday March 26 2019, @05:26PM
Entirely possible but I'm not sure that is the major issue at play. I believe it is more likely that most people haven't stopped to consider how technology may be a mixed blessing.
By and large, people usually do what they do and they don't stop to consider why they are doing something. It takes a certain kind of personality to stop and say "hang on, but why?" Technology has inertia, and like the boiling frog, we just follow in yesterday's ruts unless something changes to make the passage suddenly intolerable.
By and large, most people don't seem to form their own opinions on most actions - their choices appear to be governed mainly by osmosis and rote learning. People can get very easily stumped when you ask them "why did you do that?" because they never actually considered why. (Perhaps not so much people on this site, who appear to fall in the action-by-deliberate-choice end of the spectrum.)
Don't discount network effects. If I and all my rich buddies spend the day - offline - on the golf course, then nobody misses out. If all my friends are heavily invested in social media, then I will miss out if I eschew that method of communication.
A feeling of control is as present here in the technology arena as pervades all area of human life. If I feel in control, if I have the expectation that I am the master of my own destiny - then it is merely reflexive to exercise choice over how far I allow technology into my own life. When I simply muddle through life, allowing the prevailing current to choose my destiny, then it probably won't even occur to me that I could simply choose my own path.
So yes, rich and poor, smart or average, we all have considerable leeway to decide if we are to use technology or to become enslaved by it. I believe the issue is that people (for the most part) simply haven't stopped to consider the downsides, and it hasn't occurred to them that they have a choice, and that it might be of value to exercise this choice.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by etherscythe on Tuesday March 26 2019, @05:46PM
I think it actually is. Much of tech is a race to the bottom, in terms of retail commodities, and even "durable goods" these days. Build a product as cheaply as you can, program it as cheaply as you can, and try to supplement the revenue with advertising and other value-"added" bundles is the name of the dominant strategy. We've now reached the next level: how often do you need to use an app to access a service these days? Some businesses don't even have phone numbers listed anymore; app support is even cheaper than a call center. Poor people are in a race to the bottom too; they will take the cheaper tech option than spend gas driving to the bank because it keeps them competitive in the jobs market, resulting in a continuing downward pressure on wages when all of their peers are doing the same and suddenly they can't afford to do it any other way.
"Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Tuesday March 26 2019, @06:46PM
Forget email, when have rich people ever answered their snail email? That's what the hot secretary is for.
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday March 26 2019, @08:10PM
Plus, you know ... diction with an adult in a professional-style (i.e., arms-length, non-personal relationship) setting?
(Score: 2) by Farkus888 on Tuesday March 26 2019, @08:45PM
I would never send my kids to a tech free school, that is the phrase that drove my luddites comment. I think the blocks and time away from screens is critical, but the kids can't do robotics, electronics or programming projects in a tech free environment. With those kind of resources being thrown at the school I would demand all of the above be part of the curriculum. I also think watching video of the lecture then doing "homework" with the teacher is a more effective strategy, so some tech is again required.
(Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Wednesday March 27 2019, @11:40AM
I don't think anyone is saying it's weird for kids to play with blocks. Pretty much everyone would argue it's entirely normal and beneficial.
The problem you have is that a set of building blocks (a) costs money and (b) takes up space that is less and less people can spare. Living spaces for the non-rich are getting smaller and smaller. Working young people in London are spending way over 50% of their take-home pay to rent single rooms or even a sofabed in someone's lounge. It's fucking crazy, and it's only getting worse. And what's more it's spreading out of the major cities.
For that reason many young people are putting off parenthood. For those that don't and are attempting to raise a kid in a £1800pm* 800sqft** one-bedroom flat then there simply isn't anywhere to store a crate of blocks. Add to that a wooden train set, a shelf of kids books, a colouring set, some cuddly toys... never mind a bed and some clothes and the other absolute essentials... where do you put it all? As for a garden for them to run around in, learn to ride a bike etc... Hah!
A tablet is cheap, takes up very little space, and can (to a limited extent) substitute for toys and books and going outdoors, so it becomes a "choice" forced upon anyone who wasn't born into significant wealth.
* Average rent for a one bed flat in Camden, London. For reference, the average wage there is about £1800pm after tax. Camden's not even the most extreme borough.
** Average floor space of one bed flat in Camden.
We aren't there yet but TFA is pointing out that we are heading towards a world where owning a 1500-piece Lego set is a status symbol not because of the cost of buying it, but because of the cost of having somewhere to put it.
references:
https://www.payscale.com/research/UK/Location=Camden-England%3A-London/Salary [payscale.com]
https://data.london.gov.uk/average-floor-area-by-borough/ [london.gov.uk]
https://www.foxtons.co.uk/living-in/camden/rentals/ [foxtons.co.uk]
(Score: 2) by urza9814 on Wednesday March 27 2019, @03:05PM
Some of this ISN'T a choice, it's the lowest common denominator. I've known wealthy families where one person works and their spouse stays home full time and essentially manages the social life. I've known poor families where two parents are working 3-4 jobs between then. If you're rich and you leave Facebook, you keep up with your friends and family by talking on the phone or typing out personal emails or whatever else -- because you have the time to do that. If you're poor and you quit facebook, you lose friends because nobody has that kind of time to spend just for you to be a special snowflake. And organizations don't have the money to send out individual mailings to every member, so if you're not on their Facebook page, you don't get invited to events. Even email lists are getting difficult -- nobody knows how to use Listserv anymore, and those aren't free anyway. Free email services have limits on how many people you can send a mail to. So they use MailChimp if they can afford it; Facebook if they can't. And I know people who were required as a condition of employment to turn over their private facebook password so HR could look through it -- and that sure as shit isn't happening for jobs paying six figure salaries.
Avoiding credit cards is an expense too -- this assumes you don't need the 2% cash back, and it assumes that you can actually afford to wait until you get paid to buy your groceries. That's quickly becoming a luxury too. And often there's fees for withdrawing cash. And with banks increasingly closing branches and moving services online, many people have no way to get cash back into their bank account once they withdraw it, so if you misjudge how much you need to withdraw for groceries you can't put that money back so you can pay your electric bill with it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday March 26 2019, @08:48PM
But if you're rich, you take real classes, not Khan academy.