How to Escape: Adding Jaron Lanier’s Reasons to Delete Social Media

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https://medium.com/@laurenco/how-to-escape-adding-jaron-laniers-reasons-to-delete-social-media-a9519eed054d

I decided to read Jaron Lanier’s book, “Ten Arguments for Deleting Social Media Right Now.” In this Lanier does exactly as the title suggests, each chapter is a compelling reason for deleting all social media. In his book, he uses a very different tone while giving his arguments. Lanier’s is much more insistent and stern compared to Odell. Since Odell’s book is an act of activism I think that adding some pieces of Lanier’s arguments to further why resisting the attention economy and more specifically social media is a good idea. Lanier relates cats and dogs in terms of using social media. He talks about how most people are like obedient dogs, blindly following technology and social media. While cats are completely unpredictable and, “have done the seemingly impossible: They’ve integrated themselves into the modern high-tech world without giving themselves up” (Lanier 2). Odell’s argument could be helped if she incorporates this idea of being unpredictable instead of a friendly obedient dog. Lanier uses the perspective of the former president and vice president of Facebook in his writing. I think that using this perspective would help Odell’s writing because it completely validates his point that even people in the industry know the harm of their product. I think that both of these books have very similar purposes and it seems that a lot of Odell’s arguments could be directly correlated with Lanier’s, so some additions from, “Ten Arguments for Deleting Social Media Right Now,” would aid in Odell’s activism. 

One quote from my essay is, “It would help Odell’s writing if she pivoted from more of a friendly dog stance to an unpredictable cat like Lanier. Odell nicely teaches us how we can view productivity in a different way while Lanier gives constructive criticism on how to be different and not give ourselves up to technology. Odell’s overall argument would be helped by Lanier’s reasoning to be a cat.” Using Lanier’s cat example about deleting social media could be a start to increasing productivity in a different way like Odell is preaching.

“Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now.”

Odell refers to the author, Jaron Lanier, as a writer in technology and a cultural critic. When discussing him Odell refers to the attention economy’s dependence on fear and anxiety of the public. As well as Lanier’s critique of bland social media stars that people blindly follow when they are most popular. This was very interesting to me because these ideas are very different but at the same time they both directly connect back to social media and our addiction to it. I picked up on how Odell referenced Lanier twice so I decided to look him up to see what he has written. The book I chose is interesting to me because I have thought about deleting some of my social media accounts many times, but instead, I keep them and have consistently been making more when a new app becomes popular. I have fallen into the trap of social media corporations and I wanted to learn more about this topic and how I can take a step back from it. “Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now,” is important to Odell’s book because it relates directly to resisting the attention economy and is actually a step by step guide on how to. Jaron Lanier is a computer scientist, composer, artist, and author. He has no social media accounts and writes about the social impact of technology, internet politics, consciousness of information, and more. He has written books such as, “Who Owns the Future” and “You Are Not a Gadget.” The latter of the two was a New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Boston Globe, and international bestseller. The New York Times called it, “Lucid, powerful and persuasive….Necessary reading for anyone interested in how the Web and the software we use every day are reshaping culture and the marketplace.” What interests me is that it is actually 10 specific reasons why to delete social media and not something that gets distracted from the main point. I also like the comparisons he makes. In the first chapter, he compares cats and dogs and relates them back to social media and how we should be more like cats. I do want to know more about what he does with computer science.

Writing 11: Different Perspectives

An idea that really stuck out to me is the different perceptions people take on different objects and ideas. These perspectives are derived from our culture, desires, identities, fears, etc. This idea can be can be boiled down to the words “that-it-is” and “what-it-is.” The “that-it-is” is it’s physical actuality while the “what-it-is” completely depends on what people construe it to be. In my essay I tried to convey that even the simplest things can mean a multitude of things to different people. Odell’s book, How to do Nothing, which in actuality is just words on a page, is actually a form of activism. My essay focuses on examples of “that-it-is” and “what-it-is” in Odell’s book and in the different attitudes people are taking during this pandemic. I find myself being addicted to my phone and everyone has been completely relying on technology during these times. Odell is able to simplify the object of a phone and describes it as a “black box” proving there is no reason for our lives to be centered around it.

A quote that I really like that I used from Odell’s book is, “We need to be able to do both: to contemplate and participate, to leave and always come back, where we are needed […] To stand apart is to take the view of the outsider without leaving, always oriented toward what it is you would have left. It means not fleeing your enemy”(Odell 61). In my essay I am trying to show that everything has a different meaning to different to people. To some people, technology and media is detrimental and problematic and they stay away from it. To others it is the perfect solution to everything and a perfect connection to the rest of the world. Odell is able to think differently from these sides, technology is not our enemy but we definitely need to use it in different way.

View at Medium.com

View at Medium.com

https://medium.com/@laurenco/different-perspectives-ca97e39f8ae4

Digital Unplug

A digital detox is thought of as a “life hack” to be refueled and active when you return back to your normal life. If someone were to do this persistently it would be unrealistic for that person because it, “doesn’t just neglect our responsibility to the world that we live in, it is largely unfeasible, and for a good reason” (30). Although Odell is trying to steer us away from the attention economy she is practical in the sense that a person cannot wholly unplug and leave their responsibilities. She is neither anti nor pro-technology she wants people to learn that there is a life outside of it and so much can be learned when you step away from a screen. She described this when she talks about Levi Felix’s “Camp Grounded” that was made for people to take a step back and digitally detox, but he also knew how insensible it was. He thought that people, “could at least learn a healthier relationship to it” (31). Odell could have listed every reason why a person should stop using technology completely, but she is knowledgeable about what life is like now and it would be unrealistic for her to tell everyone to move far away and never use technology ever again. In reality, there are only a few parts of this country that a person could go to without being surrounded by digital media. Instead, what Odell is really preaching is the act of doing nothing for a period of time, to relax and realize that technology isn’t everything and that we don’t need to keep up with our addiction to it. 

I have never purposely staged a digital detox, but the closest I have been is with my annual family vacation to a lake New Hampshire. This has been my family’s spot for 50 years and when each kid in the family is old enough, they are brought to Marywood. With each generation that is brought, you can clearly see the technological divide. My cousins and I come from very media and technology-centered areas, so when we drive down the dirt road and lose service for the next 5 days we often don’t know what to do with ourselves.  Odell explains that in her accidental detox she noticed that, “[her] phone appeared as an object; it was no longer a portal to a thousand other places, a machine charged with dread and potentiality, or even a communication device. It was just a black metal rectangle” (31). This made me think about the difference between “that-it-is,” something that just exists, and “what-it-is,” its meaning for existence due to culture. In actuality, a phone is just a black box but we think of it as infinite things. It is a connector to the world in more ways than just making phone calls. With the touch of a button, we can find out news from all over the world or post pictures to thousands of people to see from the comfort of their own home. When I am at home my phone is this connector to the outside world and I am constantly on it, but when I am in New Hampshire it starts becoming the “that-it-is” version. Instead of Snapchatting all of my friends before I go to bed, my black box sits uselessly waiting for the next day when I can get 5 minutes of service. The grandkids, including myself, my sisters, and cousins often dwell on the fact that people from our home towns would be on a fancy vacation while we are in the middle of the woods at a random lake. Odell adds that “Stupid fools are those who are never satisfied with what they possess, but only lament what they cannot have” (35).  Instead of any complaints, we should be grateful for the privilege we have at home and take that time to unwind and relax from our lives that always seem to be so busy.  Throughout our week there we start to distance ourselves from our phones without even noticing just because we are so busy all day. It becomes a week to soak in nature and appreciate the little things, as corny as it sounds. We get to talk to our grandparents about their life stories, try new water sports, laugh together at dinner every night, and so much more. But as Odell said, “I knew I eventually needed to return home, where the world waited and the real work remained to be done” (31).

Disconnecting from Media

Lauren Cooper

The title of Jenny Odell’s book, “How to do Nothing,” insinuates she is teaching the reader how to be lazy.  This book is truly a guide to switch the reader’s attention to think deeper, “in such times as these, having recourse to periods of and spaces for ‘doing nothing’ is of utmost importance, because without them we have no way to think, reflect, heal, and sustain ourselves– individually or collectively” (Odell 22). When Odell talks about “doing nothing” she is referring to the constant state of connectedness through the ever-changing production. The phrase seems contradictory, but the act of doing nothing is directing our attention away from the constant information overload that people are so easily hooked on through phones, computers, iPads, Apple watches, and the list goes on. A person can be distracted within a matter of seconds due to the easy access to the media. Once a person can resist the attention economy, “it leads to awareness, not only of how lucky I am to be alive but to ongoing patterns of cultural and ecological devastation around me […] In other words, simple awareness is the seed of responsibility” (xxii). The book can be categorized as an “activist” and “self-help book” because Odell is trying to start a social change by teaching one person at a time through changing their style of life. People are trapped in a bubble, but once they are able to poke through it they could find much of what their looking for is already there. 

Odell is seemingly trying to have the reader stop and smell the roses and she even alludes to this when she talks about the Rose Garden. She always refers to the Rose Garden because it is a complete disconnection from the fast pace city she lives in. The idea of disconnection is sometimes referred to as “removal” which for some people it “fundamentally changed their attitude to the world they returned too […] the pause in time is often the only thing that can precipitate change on a certain scale” (Odell 9/10).  By removing yourself from the world you are used to, you could be able to understand the world as a whole, not just the small fraction that you see every day. You will get to see the world in a different light racially, environmentally, and economically. Odell continually brings up the Rose Garden because it embodies her project clearly. It was almost turned into condos which symbolizes how the rest of the world has been modernized. The local residents represent what Odell is trying to do. She is trying to show people that is is an option to push away technology and live in the present.  

Odell often refers to different artists. One art piece that she explains is one by Eleanor Coppola which was a map with marked locations of windows that are landmarks. Odell likes this because it is not the typical art that someone would see in a gallery it “recognizes art that exists where it already is” (Odell 6). One experience that she shared was bird-watching which seems like an act of doing nothing, but during this, she made connections to wild animals and learned a lot in the process. She not only picked up on different bird songs unintentionally, but she started to realize that while actually paying attention “something you thought was one thing is actually two things, and each of those two things is actually ten things” (Odell 9). Every example she pulls from different books, pieces of art, and her own experiences reflect her desire to push people out of the technological world to the natural world. 

The world we live in it seems that the only goal is to make enhancements in technology and find success with money. Odell writes about the importance of stepping away from this because nothing can replace human contact and being in nature.