Cyberblanket

“Security is a thumb and a blanket”

-         Linus

A few days ago, I wrote about my encounter with the thought that I had slipped into a rut that threatened to lead me straight to boredom. Well, a friend responded to that post by email, and her comments were really thought provoking. I asked her whether I could pursue it here, and she said OK. So …

My friend suggests that computers encourage a sort of passive, reactive relationship to the world instead of an active one—hardly her presentation in life. Given this perspective, she didn't like that she was spending so much time on her computer. So she decided to undertake a “project” to see what it would be like to spend a lot of time away from her computer. She found the experience freeing … and her story about it set me to thinking.

As I was thinking about this in the context of my incipient boredom and my sense of being in a rut, an image of Linus and his security blanket came to mind. Make me Linus, and you know where that says about my computer.

For me, at least, spending hours cuddled up with my computer started with the fact that virtually everything I do happens at the computer. My part-time work involves editing documents online. One of my volunteer gigs is managing the website for the Boulder Valley Safe Schools Coalition, online. Most of my communications with friends and family are by email, online. I read the news every day, online. I hunt for information, find movies, get tickets for events, check on restaurant hours, etc., all online. And of course, I do this blog online.

And now, I fear I have become so accustomed to hanging out with my computer that I feel at loose ends if I step away from it. Like, I forgot how to be in the world for more than a very short time without my hands on a keyboard and my eyes on a screen. So, when I find myself with a bit of uncommitted time, I sit at the computer and try to find things to do there.  Check the news, scan the msn homepage for new stories, play a game or two, surf aimlessly.

In short, I end up trying to think of things to do on the computer instead of actually doing things in the world. I do this even though I have other things that would be much more engaging, less passive—things that I say I want to do. That’s a path started for a reason and shaped into a rut by convenience, habit, and flat-out inertia.

I have two thoughts about this (other than recognizing the compelling draw that this machine seems to have):

• First, back in the day, people had similar worries about the telephone and then about TV. It will make people lazy, they’ll never bother to go out to visit neighbors, they’ll wreck their eyes staring at the screen and their bodies sitting on the couch eating junk food.

I guess some of those things have happened. It’s true that we phone when we could go over. And the epidemics of obesity and ill health can be laid partly at the feet of TV. But civilization didn’t end, people didn’t stop growing legs (which my father predicted), and TV didn’t turn out to be the end of the line as far as passive entertainment goes. So, are computers really so bad? Can we tell yet? Is our worry about over involvement with our computers just the contemporary version of our grandparents’ and parents’ fears about phones and TV? If so, does that mean our fear is misplaced?

• My second thought is about this concept in psychology called functional autonomy. It refers to the fact that something that initially served some purpose (or function) can eventually become important in its own right (or functionally autonomous.) This concept has been used to describe things like smoking (Folks start for peer approval, but smoking soon becomes its own motivation, and smokers smoke even if their peers hate it. Smoking has become functionally autonomous) or mastering a skill (You begin a craft to earn a living, but soon, the mastery takes on importance in its own right, even if you earn nothing for it. The skill has become functionally autonomous).

Hanging out at the computer seems like this. You start because it serves a purpose. Pretty soon, just hanging out at the computer becomes an end in itself. You do it even when it serves no purpose other than to fill / pass / waste time. This suggests that sitting at the computer has become self-sustaining, although it’s purposeless. Sort of like Linus’ security blanket, holding back all the fearful goblins. Like what? Boredom? The need to actually decide how to spend time? Not a happy thought, in my book.

I have no answers to these things, but I’m very curious about what other folks have to say about it all. I'm guessing some of you have ideas about the risk of letting computers and other techno-gizmos eat up our time and our enthusiasm for other things. Or maybe about how grand they are in the scheme of things. Maybe there are some other Linus clones out there. It would be fun to have a conversation about this, so please join in!

Below a place to add your comments—just click on the drop-down arrow by the box marked "comment as." If you want, you can sign in as "Anonymous," which is the last choice in the drop-down menu, or as Ellen DeGeneres or Aristotle or The Flying Wallendas—whatever! (If you’re reading this by email, go to the blog online at retirementinthemix.blogspot.com to add your comments. Or send me an email and let me know if I can pass it on). Comments from 100 incarnations of “Anonymous” would be sort of fun. Of course, I wouldn’t mind hearing what Ellen DeGeneres thinks of this issue, if she’s willing to share.

Meanwhile, I think I’ll name my computer “Linus” to remind me, in a mildly humiliating way, of the risk of undue attachment to this machine and its magic.