CNDG Blog

Having put it off for a little while I finally watched the entire Frontline documentary last night.

I won’t say that my worst fears and trepidations were realized - that wouldn’t in any way be fair.  I will say that the biases of the producers were evident, and that there was some misdirection of attention that seemed inappropriate, along with a considerable amount of food for thought.

That said it is almost impossible to summarize the one and a half hour discussion.  It ought to be watched, but with a weather eye and open mind.  Most encouraging, however, was how well Second Life itself was portrayed, and the positive light in which a long segment with Philip Rosedale explained his vision for Second Life and its eventual impact on communications.

There was considerable conversation about whether or not multi-tasking actually reduces the ability to focus, and more than likely it does, as the needed adaptations to multi-tasking are not a part of our environment yet, either internal or external.  But for me the implications on the positive side were clear – schools whose attendance, performance and quality of instruction improved because of the introduction of web technology, the ability to regain a sense of “small community intimacy” because of online communities, the very thing that the same voices have been lamenting the loss of since the industrial revolution and urbanization of our society.

My reservations about the bias, and my take on the show, can be best expressed by my reaction to the opening sequence.  One of the producers describes her family – husband, school aged son, sitting at the dining room table waiting for dinner, the husband working on his laptop, the son “doing homework” on his, two pre-school youngsters together – together – playing a game on an iPhone.  In my opinion – a major point was lost in this presentation of “how did this happen to us”? as was expressed in the film.

How did what happen?  That the entire family was around the table together, each doing something but still together?  That no member of the family was “siloed” in his or her own space, isolated and resisting interacting socially?  That the son was doing homework – not watching cartoons or playing a game?  That the husband was doing work and reading on the internet rather than by printing with toxic ink on environmentally unsound reams of paper?

What was wrong with that picture was that, in fact, there was everything right about that picture.  A point lost, I am afraid, in the rush to lament the “way in which this all happened without our realizing it.”

Philip Rosedale, founder and creator of Second Life, summed it up well in his segment.  It is the new communication, intimate, sound, environmentally friendly.  In each other’s virtual presences conversations take place, friendships are formed, and work teams, social groups, intimacies appear.  I thought we all wanted that.

The American Public Broadcasting System and Frontline:

“Digital Nation, Life on the Virtual Frontier” – A Documentary

PBS has announced it will air, on Tuesday, February 2, 2010, an hour and a half documentary on Frontline, at 9pm, on living with the new digital technology, and the good, bad, questionable, and indifferent aspects of the effect on our lives of this new technology of engagement, learning, communication, and, of course, disengagement.

The show hasn’t aired yet, so it is rather unfair of me to write about it now, and what I say will by its nature be incomplete.  But I have decided to do so, and then to watch it, and compare what I write after to what I write before.

So here are my thoughts drawn from my understanding of what the show will discuss, and some insights given by articles in advance about how these things will be presented.  These thoughts are mine and come from my own experiences of this new world of living, and not really dependent upon the content of the Frontline show.

All new technologies can cause and have caused disengagement from the expected and ordinary then-accepted norms of social intercourse.  Books did, when they became the common property of literate people.  The images of a Victorian maiden, demurely reading while others spoke, reading at the table, children sitting in window boxes or under trees reading rather than running together, could raise questions about whether or not books destroy our social structure.  But those children are also not painting graffiti on buildings, and they are learning an essential skill and discipline for future educational endeavors, and are charming, to say the least.

Immersion in virtual realities may make people less likely to seek out others in their communities, but it may also make it possible for those already living siloed lives to emerge into social commerce, either as a modeling or where other communication is barred to them.  People disabled, discriminated against, or isolated may find not only solace, but life-giving balm in such intercourse.

Soldiers fighting digital wars may be more removed from the horrors of what they are doing, but they may also not return from life and community saving missions with post-traumatic stress syndrome that destroys their own lives and that of their families.  They may, in fact, return from war when they may not have done so before, and so do not die while defending what they have sworn to defend.  For those of us whom they may be defending, and for their own families, this might be seen as a good use of this new digital technology.

No matter how hard to we look to find the ways in which the new technology of living digitally can cause a disconnect, and no matter how many of these disconnects from what we expect from others we may find, each of these disconnects is paired with a reconnect, a new-connect, a fresh-connect that is enlivening, life saving, rewarding, empowering.

Everything new, from the Mobile Society of cars and rapid transit, to television which now provides globe-changing news on a virtually instant basis, to Social Networking which gave the first news from Haiti recently, to the immersion in Second Life which has enabled so many to find the meaning they want in their lives when around them it was denied them, all of these new technologies change the old expectations and bring us new ones.  The old, the traditional, are not valuable in themselves, just because they are old.  They have value if they make us more human, and enable us to live in more of ourselves, in a loving way.

Remember, please, that I haven’t seen the documentary yet.  It airs tomorrow.  But I don’t want to look at it with an empty mind, nor an unbiased one.  No, I am biased.  I am biased in favor of finding the positive in the new, even if it means looking at what will change, and accepting what will be lost.  I refuse to look at that as sad, but rather I insist on seeing such new adventures as something we are creating that is young, immature, and which needs to develop into a new adventure that leads us to ourselves and each other.

As I approach tomorrow’s “revelations” on PBS, I remind myself, strenuously, that no matter how unbiased the journalist tries to be, there is bias in every story.  We have a tendency to accept authority, and we fall often into the trap of “If it is on TV, it must be true”.  But then, TV was once a new technology destroying the fabric of families, society, and social structure.

I try to remember, that no matter how many points are made, there are other points not made, due to limitations of time, bias, and vision.  What we are presented may be important, detailed, and well thought out, but is it “true”?  Is there a Truth to be had here, or only an evolution that is yet to be seen, from which we will create a new “good”, a new world?  That search for the “true” also needs to be questioned, and questioned even on PBS.

To read what I read that got me started on this theme, see the article here:

http://msn-cnet.com.com/8301-19518_3-10444847-238.html?part=msn-cnet&subj=ns&tag=feed