Todays's Media Is a Responsible One

MOBILE phone use and instant access to the internet from almost anywhere could be stifling creativity, according to Australian born cultural anthropologist, Genevieve Bell.
“I wonder if it means we don’t have enough time to imagine things”, Ms Bell told news.com.au.
“I think there’s something really powerful about one’s own imagination.
“We do a lot of consuming but where’s the moment where you develop your own point of view?
“Where’s the moment where you synthesize what you’ve been thinking about, where’s the moment where you react to it, where you create something that echoes it or that challenges it”.
“That’s a much harder thing to do.”
Ms Bell, who works for Intel in the US and who is presenting at the TEDx in Sydney this weekend said the purposes of humans and technologies often conflict and overlap.
“There’s an inherent tension between all these mobile devices that work better when they’re constantly connected and human beings who work better when they’re intermittently disconnected”, Ms Bell told news.com.au.
In many ways Ms Bell says the internet is actual geared in a way that actually discourages people from innovating.
“Much of the current internet - particularly in Australia and the States, the internet itself physically is geared for download”, says Ms Bell.

“The through-point in the pipe - the fact that it’s a three to one, to five to one to seven to one 1 ratio of download to upload means the entire physical structuring of the internet is geared for you to constantly consume things.
“And I think because it’s so easy to get all this other stuff, it’s so easy to read other people’s opinions, it’s so easy to just go looking for one more source, go find one more thing and I love that right, I’m as guilty as the next person chasing that idea down that rabbit hole for quite some time.
“I think there’s something important about how we preserve at least the possibility of having our own thinking.
“Of being able to develop our own point of view of being able to have that moment of not just watching everything but kind of trying to think ‘what do we think about it’? What’s my opinion? What’s my point of view? Where’s the moment where I sit still and digest all of that rather than just go looking for the next thing?”
The cultural anthropologist who has spent years living with people all over the world to study their technology consumption habits says that this over connectivity, this need to be constantly connected to the outside world could actually be effecting our health.
“ I bet there’s a relationship to that - that our subconscious now does much more processing”, says Ms Bell.
“Some of that happens when you’re sleeping, that’s quite clear - one’s subconscious is off putting all the bits together again while you’re asleep but I suspect that we do some of that when we’re conscious too.”
A US sleep survey released in March found a link between late night computer and cell-phone use, and poor sleep.
95 per cent of people surveyed said they use their cell phone, or computer within an hour of going to bed and as a result were experiencing poor sleep.
The study found the worst offenders were 13-18 year olds who were receiving about an hour and 45 minutes less than the recommended amount, registering an average of 7 hours and 26 minutes of sleep a night.
Unsurprisingly, the study found that older generations of people, baby boomers as well as Generation Xers are much less likely to experience interrupted sleep than Generation Y and Z.
Only 11 per cent of baby boomers and 9 per cent of generation Xers surveyed reported feeling “sleepy” compared to 22 percent and 16 per cent of generation Y and Z respectively.
The National Sleep Foundation says that using mobile phones and internet before bed is unhealthy because technological devices stimulate the brain and increases alertness.
It also found that the artificial light from computer and cell phone screens suppress the release of the sleep promoting hormone melatonin which supports the body’s ability to sleep.
Michael Gradisar, an Australian sleep specialist from Flinders University who participated in the study said he found a significant difference in how passive forms of technology like TV and music effect sleep compared to technology that is actively received.
“The hypothesis is that the latter devices are more alerting and disrupt the sleep-onset process”, says Dr Gradisar.
“If you feel that these activities are alerting or causing you anxiety, try doing something more ‘passive' to help you wind down before bed."
Genevieve Bell says that as we continue to think about the impacts of mobile phone use and constant access to the internet, different conceptual models will be introduced that let people disconnect from technology.
“There’s clearly a whole lot of models starting to emerge about what that looks like”, says Ms Bell.
“ I think there’s kind of the ‘steam punk’ variety. There’s an Etsy, sort of ‘DIY makers fair’ type of- ‘ well we’re going to make our own internet’ universe.
“Whether it’s the elite going to places on vacation to places where the internet doesn’t work, whether it’s people not getting the internet at all as a mechanism of not connecting - I think there’s sort of multiple models of what that would look like..
“The fact that all of those conversations are going on and all of those different potential ways of thinking about our relationship to technology are happening suggests there’s something we’re working through there.”
Ms Bell says it is important to emphasize that part of the reason we are still negotiating our way around this new found instant connectivity is that in the scheme of things, mobile phone use is still in its infancy. 

“It’s no surprise we’re still trying to work it out”, says Ms Bell. “I’m old enough because I’m f****ing old, I’m old enough to remember when television was still not really stable in Australia.
“We didn’t know - did you turn it off when people came over when the cricket was on?
“Is that rude? Is it rude to keep it on? Did you turn it off if the program you were watching finished?
“There was all this kind of stuff even in the 70s even into the 80s - we were still having conversations about how did television actually work in Australian society, in fact we still do.
“And that was already at that point a 30-year-old technology. So it’s no surprise we’re still sorting this stuff out with these ones (mobiles) which are less than 10 years old.
“They’re like baby technologies. There’s something about I think we all have an obligation but particularly technology researchers and journos have an obligation to keep point out to people this stuff is new.