Everywhere, We are Looking at Screens, Not Each Other

I look at my students as class is about to begin, and I see a sea of phones being rapidly finger-punched to hurl yet more zeros and ones into the ether. Why? What is it that makes this so inviting if not addictive?

Well, it's two things: the need for connection with others, and the intermittent reward that texts and emails and the like provide. Humans are driven to connect, like all mammals. We don't do well with isolation. We first get lonely, then irritable, then depressed. I am convinced many psychopathologies are at their core forms of emotional isolation. This goes back actually to attachment theory (another blog to be written here).

The phone or other electronic connection device appears at first to be ideal to satisfy our social needs: it is a quick way for us to converse and be assured that someone is actually thinking about us. The problem, of course, is that this is a pseudo-social connection. There is no gazing into someones eyes, at their face or body, no proximity to gauge, no tone of voice to measure, no touch to appreciate. The very heart of communication is missing from electronics. We can't really assess what our real connection is to that person. Even a phone conversation, a dying art, is not very personal. It appears to us as if this is real connection, however, because we do get a bit of dopamine, and a few other neurochemicals, when we perceive that a social interaction and connection has been made (there is lots of potential research to be done here).

Psychology informs us that when a reward (the text, the Face Book post, etc.) is perceived, and when that reward appears at intervals that are unpredictable (texts arrive without warning), we get unusually attached to it. This comes from the Behavioral Perspective and is well-researched. Further, we potentiate the cycle of rewards with our own behavior, such as when we send a text or make a post in response.

I fear all this is eroding social skills and making us all socially insensitive if not callous.

I have never sent a text and never will, but I am a Face Book poster, and for that I feel weak and wanting.


 

Why Religion Exists

I have fretted over writing this blog for some time. I want to first be clear that I think most people need religion in their lives.

Humans are unique in the animal world in their ability to ponder the past as much as they want and for no particular reason that is clearly adaptive. Some have suggested that reminiscence is a way for us to correct mistakes and be reminded of what to avoid.

We can also worry about the future and generate numerous possible fates. This brain function can serve clearly beneficial goals, but often becomes a burden, especially for those with high levels of free-floating anxiety.

We need safety, like all animals. We need social connection, like all mammals and many other animals. What better solution than to invent a god? A Church? A belief system? We can conveniently be assured in our minds that we are never alone, that we will never actually die, as we  cluster and cloister with others in a tight, mutually supportive social system. It's a perfect solution, in fact. We are no more or less alone than any other animal, but we are aware of our isolation and create a great deal of anxiety becasue of this; we generate all sorts of mecahnisms to quell it.

Of course, as man first evolved, all of nature was a mystery, and in the face of the unexplained, we almost always decide that there must be some supernatural, all-knowing something calling the shots. Although this is intellectually lazy, it is emotionally natural. At every turn in our history, we have seen firmly held supernatural beliefs about our world shattered after science or simple discovery provides more concrete explanations for the phenomena in question. What is strange is that even now many cling to mystical explanations despite us having used scientific inquiry to explain most things in clear and naturalistic terms. Why? Because to give up the supernatural increases ones initial anxiety, shakes the foundation, causes change which is inherently stressful, and calls into question the entire spiritual history one has treasured and used to justify almost everything done and all that is desired.

The other issue here is the unsupported notion that morality and good behavior emanates from god. Religious people often say that without a belief in god, people would have no moral compass and would therefore travel in hellish directions. I hasten to add that most murderers and thieves believe in god, and that Buddhists are nonviolent, reverential people. I also would point out that there is nothing socially useful a religion does that cannot, and is not, done by secular entities. Another blog is coming to mind here.

It is no wonder to me why religion exists, and why it would be improbable that many would give it up. Can't we just have better social clubs that do good things for people? I suspect not. Not as long as there exists intellectual laziness, a lack of curiosity, poor educational systems, and governments composed of such people.