narcissism, ease, and google

everywhere i turn today i am hearing about google’s new privacy policies. the buzz, as i understand it, is about the fact that each google product/platform will no longer carry it’s own set of privacy agreements but that assent to one or two privacy policies will carry forward to other google platforms. this basically means that many of us will give passive assent to google to catalogue, aggregate, and integrate our many clicks and views across google products. in doing so they will be able to understand our preferences and interests with much greater depth and accuracy.

why is this a boon for google?

because they can assure their clients (the businesses who advertise or otherwise pay to place content with them) that their products and services will be put before us with much greater specificity.

have you noticed how, over time, the ads that pop up when you do a google search are increasingly ones that somehow relate to your interests? has it occurred to you that the videos that appear when you access youtube seem to be ones you would be inclined to watch? as google now integrates your plus ones, views on youtube, forwarded articles, and topics of search, it will be able to populate the content and ads of future searches with things it knows (quite literally) you will be interested in.

this is not necessarily a bad thing. to me, however, it is impossible to see it as a benign thing.

we, in the west, live in a culture of narcissism. it’s easy to fall into the trap of thinking our way is the only way. it’s also easy to stay locked inside our own interests and thoughts, rarely branching out to stretch or grow. our internet use reflects where we fall on the continuum of health in the realm of how we relate to our own development within the context of a global community.

some people use the unending scope of the internet to seek out diverse information, create heterogenous communities of contact, and experience new-to-them thoughts/ideas/places/things. not everyone, however, does this. of special attention here are teens. cultural and anthropological research shows that adolescents are, by far, the most avid populators of the internet. these digital natives are now thought to spend 8.5-9 hours a day (on average) plugged in. they are also moving through a developmental continuum that predisposes them to feel like they are (or should be) the center of the universe, that everyone in the world does (or should) think like them, and that the consequences of their actions reach about as far as their noses. their brains are busily wiring circuitry for responsibility, self control, and emotional regulation. they haven’t mastered those things yet. their frontal lobes are in process as are their concepts of self and other, relationship, and moral and cognitive agency. they need exposure to diverse stimuli cognitively and experientially. they need to be stretched outside of their self created bubbles of comfort. they need to learn to become active with information. they need the important teachers and caretakers in their lives to function as their frontal lobes and developmental guides, providing them with exposure to variety and the optimal tension and integration that can come from being stretched.

when those important teachers and caretakers are crowded out by increasing amounts of time on an internet that caters directly to their needs, interests, and preferences it seems to me that narcissism, rather than health, is bread.

educators, parents, and others bemoan the decrease in empathy, critical thinking skills, and resilience that they observe in generation y. how can this not be contributed to by a bulk of time being spent with a “bff” (computer/smart phone) who knows all about you, presents you with what you will love, and does so 24 hours a day? there is no need for waiting, no potential conflict to work through, little engagement of the mind required, and it’s all available at any time. this does nothing to encourage the development of skills that will lead to life satisfaction. skills such as the ability to delay gratification, the fine art of negotiation and compromise, the difficult task of considering (respectfully, over time, in meaningful ways) what truly matters to another and valuing that in them. it doesn’t challenge assumptions or encourage deep processing.

but this is not just an issue for adolescents. it is an issue for the narcissistic tendency in all of us.

technology that anticipates our needs and readily serves us up our preferences is here to stay. it’s fun and it’s useful. it is also, however, impactful in ways that we may not think or want to consider. 

so...as our digital experiences become easier for us, as our time online offers increasingly specific forms of material catering to our preferences without our even seeking it out...may we all work to balance this with intentional efforts to broaden our experiences. may we get outside of our preferences. may we diversify our clicks and our real life encounters with people, thoughts, and ideas. may we all challenge our own individual tendency toward narcissism, remembering that there is much to be gained by being outside of our comfort zones.

pins of steel

while preparing to help host an opening night reception for a professional performance company on whose executive board i serve, my phone rang. some of the costumes had just been delivered to the theater unfinished. it was two and a half hours before opening night curtain and our bungee attached aerialist’s costume needed to be pieced together with safety pins. the pins they had scrounged at the theater were flimsy, leading them to open when the fabric stretched. given that an open pin would likely prick our performer, we needed pins with more heft. we needed substance over style. function over form. we needed me to find pins made of steel.

come to find out, most modern day safety pins are made of nickel or even lower density metals. cheaper to produce, these mass marketed safety pins are the far-from-sturdy cousin of steel and brass ones and bend when forced through even moderately thick fabric. upon exertion they open, exposing the point of the pin to the skin of the wearer. frustratingly, it’s impossible to tell these lower quality fasteners from their higher quality counterparts when they are tucked away in their packaging. in fact, they look freakishly the same and seem like such a good deal.

knowing i was in a hurry (not only did i need to find the pins but i needed to get them across town to the theater where i would pin the costume together before curtain) i raced into a store close to my home. once in the correct aisle i counted no fewer than 20 different types of safety pins. none of them, however, mentioned steel. there were pins made of nickel, nickel plated aluminum, rust resistant plastic coated nickel, and so on. i raced off to store number two. here i encountered 15 varieties of non steel pins. finally, at store number three i found them. mission accomplished.

as i dashed to the theater i thought about all the times i’ve used safety pins of late. it occurred to me that the times i have looked for a pin were similar to this moment. i couldn’t identify a time when i needed such a fastener when i wasn’t in some kind of rush or precarious situation. there was the day when my wrap dress kept unwrapping as i opened the door to the waiting room each hour. there was the frantic search before my son’s job interview when his button went missing. there was the moment when, as i was being told one of my lectures was being streamed online, i realized that whenever i moved my right arm my blouse came unbuttoned (and if you’ve ever seen me speak you know that there is never a moment when i’m not moving both of my arms). none of these situations found me relaxed with time to spare. safety pins, it seems, are objects we look for when we need certain, immediate help. in these situations strength is always a plus and sometimes a necessity. if the artistic director hadn’t told me that “any old safety pin” wouldn’t work, that we needed steel in order to handle stretch, i would have picked up the first pin that i found. a couple of hours later i would have learned, the hard way and in front of an audience, that they couldn’t deal with the pressure of lycra and movement.

it seems to me that relying on safety pins on the grounds of appearance only is a bit like relying on our cyber networks with little care for our real life ones. cheaply produced, weak pins bend at the slightest exertion and pop open at the time security is needed most. you can buy ten times the quantity of these inexpensive pins for the price of ten high quality fasteners. and yet, can they be relied upon when the fabric is stretchy and the demand is great? maybe not.

new research coming out of utah valley university has found that as students spend increasing amounts of time on facebook they begin to report that their friends have better, happier lives than their own. they also agree less with the statement “life is fair” and, if their facebook friend list includes high numbers of people they don’t actually know in real life, they appear to be even more certain that other people consistently have better lives.

it seems that many of us know that we are made of weaker metals and assume that everyone else is made of steel. when our primary contact with others is through social networks where we only see that which others intentionally present we don’t get the opportunity to experience the reality that we all bend. every one of us. under some circumstance or situation or temptation or pressure. every one of us bends. is less than sturdy. is less than the best. is human. 

even steel bends...if the pressure is great enough.

day after day i hear people lament how unacceptable they are and how seemingly uber acceptable their neighbors, friends, and associates are. i listen to deep wounds created by feeling ugly, stupid, or under-gifted. everyone, it seems, knows ten people who are more beautiful than they are, fifteen who are smarter, and multitudes who have more physical or relational resources than they do.

perhaps it’s time to broaden our perspectives. to consider that the wise comments, funny status updates, notes about accomplishments/parties/accolades, and photos that are posted on facebook are only glimpses into the lives of others. they tell us part of our friends’ stories but not all of them. just like looking at pins in their packaging tells us they are pins, not what they’re made of. expecting a nickel pin to do the work of steel is unrealistic. extrapolating about its strength by it’s shiny exterior is similarly so. 

my hope is that we might use our social networks as places of jumping off for the building up of real and genuine connectedness. that we might explore our circles of friends in ways that allow us to know, genuinely, who is sturdy and who is not, who needs help and who can offer it. that we would set our expectations appropriately. that we might be able to become deeply strong fasteners when others need them and that we will not assume that our own strength pales in comparison to that of others. that we would be willing to seek out genuine authentic relatedness, depth, and quality even when quantity and appearance are so readily available as substitutions.

even-ing out

i’ve spent more time on my personal facebook account in the last few days than i have in, maybe, ever. i thought it would be interesting to see how people dealt with the transition from one year to the next in the performance art like space of social media. what i gleaned from this bit of personal research were all the things that i’ve heard social networkers say. i found that i spent far more time in each facebook session than i had budgeted (there’s recent research that suggests users spend an average of 23.5 hours per month on the site), that i became bored long before i actually stopped interacting with the site, and that i became oddly discontent in growing measures as the days surrounding my “research” progressed. it felt to me that every tour of my friends’ posts left me feeling increasingly out of touch, emotionally uncomfortable, irrelevant, and, at times, amped up. when i posted a response, comment, or status i found myself distracted by what people might think of it and who might respond. in many ways it began to feel as though the center of my experience, as well as my feelings about myself, were residing outside of me, on my computer, rather than within my core.

it’s all so tricky. not everyone interacts with social networks in the same way. some are light hearted and honestly use such platforms to keep connected in light and quippy ways, posting status updates as they move through time with little thought of how they’ll be received. some, however, spend hours scouring photo albums in search of evidence of parties to which they weren’t invited, honors others have gathered, and diets their friends have succeeded at. these folks agonize, edit, post, then obsessively check for responses that will either boost them up or leave them flat. regardless of style of use, however, i sense that everyone, really, wants two things: to be seen and/or known and to gather responses from their audience.

even back in the stone ages of my undergraduate years, psychological research was conclusive about the effects an audience has on a person’s behavior. when there are many witnesses at the scene of a crime, each individual present is less likely to respond with help. everyone assumes that someone else has already done something. further, research subjects behave differently when they know they are being watched than they do when they believe they are not.

might this be similar in the land of public social relatedness?

if i’m engaging in a pursuit, a thought, an experience, a relationship, a conversation, etc, how does it change my engagement to ask those outside of it to see me in it? perhaps it enhances my experience or grows my sense of connection to share it via a status update. conversely, however, it might make me vulnerable. if others don’t acknowledge it, might i discredit it, seeing myself as silly, inferior, or rejected? any of these responses takes us out of the process of being in the present moment to typing about the present moment. in my opinion this must change the moment itself by removing us from the experience of the present moment (being) placing us instead in the role of observing the present moment “out loud” and to an audience (doing).

when we watch others observing their present moments publicly via status updates and/or personal narrative tweets we frequently respond either with a comparison to our own lives or with a largely emotional reaction. “i haven’t run 10 miles today.” “my daughter wasn’t invited to that gathering.” “i look 15 years older and 20 pounds heavier than my former classmates.” “no one ever comments on my posts.” “i have done nothing of import to report on.” “my kid didn’t get straight a’s or score a home run or win the student government election.” “i’m so disappointed in my lack of...well...everything.” sometimes it’s even worse and we notice check ins and facebook posts made during a time a friend turned us down because they needed to “work late/study/or take care of their mom.” in reviewing our friends’ narratives about their present moments we find support for our fears that we are not enough and we find models of who we should be to be seen more effectively.

the experience of seeing and being seen shapes us. patterns begin to form over time and we begin to significantly manipulate the picture our audience has of us as we selectively post about our lives. our “doing” (writing) about our “being” (living) takes on a form that we feel will allow us to be seen and responded to as though being seen and responded to is being known and being connected.

but is it?

when we are seen and responded to for our funny, smart, provocative posts we begin to believe that those qualities are the ones that are desireable (connectable) and we become less and less likely to post experiences that aren’t funny, smart, or provocative.  we tell ourselves (either consciously or unconsciously) that our genuine, authentic, sometimes mundane and other times insanely interesting selves don’t garner friends. rather our best presented, most interesting, highly publicized selves gain followers. followers watch. followers notice. followers see. and yet followers rarely move past passive seeing into genuine, responsible connecting. 

let’s face it, status updates on social networks don’t typically lend themselves to the kinds of topics people really “need,” and often desire, to be known in. who posts, “i really feel lonely these days. anyone have time for an in depth chat?” “i feel scared about my dr’s appointment this week. anyone free to provide some words of encouragement.” “i’ve messaged 10 people on match.com and have heard back from none of them. am i really this undesirable?” if we did post such status’ who would respond and how would they do so?

i was talking with someone recently about internet dating. he spoke (as does nearly everyone i know who has used such sites) of the constant feeling of rejection and turmoil he experienced in using the site. he has a unique, creative, celebrated career that spans both coasts, is young and physically attractive, knows how to dress, garnered accolades at a prestigious east coast university, and has a quick and dry sense of humor. he has all the things that our culture dictates as desirable and yet, he felt seen in these unique social networks, only for what he lacked. he felt sized up and evaluated. seen but not known. then rejected.

when he told me about removing his profile from these sites he spoke of things “even-ing out” for him. he used a hand gesture when he said this that looked like that of a music conductor directing the orchestra to hold a long, low note.

even-ing out. 

after my week of hyper facebook use i need this. i crave it. i long for the even-ing out of living in my moments rather than observing them for the perfect event/thought/experience to broadcast to my audience. i desire to be fully present to my own responses to my comings and goings and to find them compelling enough to not always desire to have others weigh in on them. i want to respond to others because they matter not because i want to.

i need my center to be in me, not on my wall.