Harnessing the Wired World
When I was a school principal, I regularly reflected out loud with colleagues and parents of our students about the massive shift to the digital world; a shift which seemed to change so much about our relationships, our approach to work-related projects and, in general, the ways in which we spent our time. Our reflections usually consisted of concerns and questions about students appearing to spend too much time in that world of devices and social media; we “older folks” also discussed our own feelings of ignorance and inadequacy since we knew so little about this new world. Now of course, pretty much 100% of our school and work worlds during the pandemic are in these domains. For students and educators in schools and for employees at all levels who rely on technology to accomplish their everyday work, digital systems and processes are fully integrated into our day; it is a seemingly unavoidable, yet vital integration. That being said, it remains enormously important for us to be able to assess and understand our involvement in this “wired world” and perhaps ponder ways to escape from it when we can.
In his book, A Sense of the Mysterious, (Vintage Books, 2006) physicist and author Alan Lightman includes an essay called: “Unwillingly Trapped by the Wired World.” Lightman’s piece and a New York Times (2010) article called "Growing up Digital. Wired for Distraction," by Matt Richtel caught my attention and prompted some of my initial deeper thinking about our connection to the wired world. While both of these pieces struck me as helpful to the high school students and their parents with whom I was working at the time, and, as I think more broadly about the world of work in my current leadership consulting role with SmarterWisdom, I see the need for us all to harness our use--and overuse--of technology. Ensuring that we have time for the reflection and learning that helps us access our inner wisdom is even more crucial at this moment. As we all cope with the myriad demands and changing landscape of our lives during Covid, finding a way out of our involuntary entrapment, and thus ensuring our continued potential to dream and imagine, is vital to leading a fulfilled life.
In Lightman’s essay he describes “wasting time” as a useful vehicle for this dreaming and imagining. He says that wasting time for him—something that he was very good at as a boy growing up in the ‘50s and ‘60s—was not really that. He goes on to say that when he was wasting time, he was actually accessing his inner self, his spirit, the part of him that has deep thoughts, and struggling with the meaning of life. For him, enjoying unscheduled time meant that he found moments to reflect and ponder about important issues—from his relationships with friends to what he was going to do with the rest of his life. Without this valuable time, he believed he was turning into a crazy man, filling every moment of his waking day with projects, governed by his use of some kind of technology—email, texting, watching television or simply talking on the phone. In the New York Times piece, Richtel describes the difficulties of high school student Vishnal Singh and his struggle to complete an assigned summer reading book, amid his penchant for YouTube, Facebook, and making digital videos. On YouTube, “you can get a whole story in six minutes,” Vishnal explains in the article. “A book takes so long. I prefer the immediate gratification.”
Both writers are talking about choices, or perhaps habits, that can easily begin to take over our lives and exclude the opportunity for an important kind of freedom. For Lightman, it is obvious that he wants to return to a simpler time that he could devote to his personal growth. Vishnal is much younger than Lightman, and a product of our current time; he is less aware of the need for this kind of personal space. Right now, we all feel busier, perhaps even trapped in a seemingly never-ending opportunity to work at all hours of the day, and, thus less able to find time to reflect on our lives. Devoting time to reflect, however, remains important to our healthy development as humans. Lightman is a very successful writer and teacher; someone who seems very able to decide on his own actions. Lightman’s question to himself, and to his readers, is an important one: how might we tame technology to use it as the tool, or the means, for a better life, rather than somehow allow it to become the end in itself? Whether you are a high school student, a middle-aged writer or a 35-year-old software developer, wouldn’t your life, your health, your approach to your relationships and success in your work improve if you were able to devote some time to some thinking and reflection?
What kind of environment can we create that will best support our wellbeing as we look to the future? Clearly it is no longer, nor has it ever been, an either/or situation. It is not about removing technology from our lives but truly harnessing it as a necessary tool. How do we create the unstructured time that Lightman describes in a manner that aligns with our new modes of existence? During the summer and early fall months, The New York Times began to promote, through student guidance, a series of writing prompts for young people to explore that would allow them to reflect on the year 2020. Topics such as: Is the pandemic bringing family closer together? How will work and school change? What weaknesses and strengths about your world are being exposed? (See “A Year of Challenge and Change: Writing Prompts to help you reflect on 2020”, by Katherine Schuler, NYT, September 2020.) Is this kind of structured reflection the way to go, the way to take all of us to that deeper level of critical and creative thinking that will sustain us as individuals and communities beyond this particular pandemic? Are these questions that we can all be thinking of as we go about our busy days? In order to harness our frequently frantic lives, and ensure good physical and emotional health for us all, perhaps we can find those moments of calm and reflection that nurture our wellbeing—it might be on the walk to work, the subway ride, during a longer shower or for 10 minutes each morning as we rise. Wherever you find it, and I hope that you do, know that it is not just for the present moment, but also for your future wellbeing.