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Analog Versus Digital Life According to Mack Hicks—Author of “The Digital Pandemic”

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In an earlier post I talked about a book by psychologist Mack Hicks entitled The Digital Pandemic: Reestablishing Face-to-Face Contact in the Digital Age. I enjoyed Hicks’ book for two overarching reasons: 1) Hicks presents information concerning the analog–digital divide in a coherent and illuminating fashion, and, 2) Hicks has a lot to say on how EF or executive function will fare in the digital age (not good). If these topics are of interest to you then I highly recommend Hicks’ book.

On page 85, Hicks presents the reader with a table that succinctly summarizes the key characteristics that largely define the analog–digital divide. I so enjoyed this summary table that I contacted both Dr. Hicks and his publisher (New Horizon Press). I asked for and received permission from both to recreate this table for my blog readers. Here’s the permission notice:

Reprinted from The Digital Pandemic: Reestablishing Face-to-Face Contact in the Electronic Age by Mack R. Hicks, Ph.D. Copyright © 2010. Reprinted with permission of New Horizon Press. Permission given by the author and Dr. Dunphy—Publisher.

In this blog post I simply wish to present Dr. Hicks’ summary table for your consideration. Again, if this table piques your interest, grab a copy of The Digital Pandemic. To set the stage a bit, Hicks presents his table as a way of showing how screen and machine media use (left side of the table) will affect such analog things as face-to-face relationships and traditional forms of education (right side of the table). As the debate over how to improve schools and education rages on, I think it best to keep this type of summary table in mind. Enjoy – Rick

Basic Electronic Entertainment & Communications Face-To-Face And Best Practices Learning
Visual and Motor [mid-brain areas] Frontal Lobes and Executive Function [upper-brain areas]
Sequential, Short Term Memory Working Memory, Logic, Insight, Emotion and Body Language [key elements of attachment relationships]
Faster and Faster Variable Tempo
Immediate Rewards Often–Delayed Rewards [key element of EF]
Limited True Self Disclosure and Anonymity Self–Disclosure and Openness [key elements of intimacy]
Captivating Graphics and Sound Effects; Stimus Bound & Stimulus Driven Attention [e.g., mid-brain attention] Working Memory [a bridge to long term memory]
Simple Memory Working Memory [a bridge to long term memory]
Multitasking and Continuous Partial Attention Prioritizing [key element of EF]

Notes: 1) My editorial additions are in brackets, and, 2) the information Hicks presents tracks the information Nicholas Carr presents in his book The Shallows—What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains (a book I have blogged about extensively).

To further whet your appetite, here’s a quote by Hicks (on page 85) as he describes a few of the elements summarized above:

Speed and immediate rewards are necessary to elicit stimulus–driven responses [e.g., mid-brain, object–dominated responses]. In electronic entertainment, earning rewards comes quickly, precisely and logically. In human interaction, even in the classroom, interactions are at variable rates. Person-to-perosn learning sets a mixed tempo [which is also true of secure attachment relationships]. People speak quickly, then slow down or stop altogether. Face-to-face social learning is epitomized by the old army saying: “Hurry up and wait!”

Rewards are usually delayed in the face-to-face condition. This delay actually helps learning because one can’t rely on quick outside reinforcement and must develop an inner motivation to persist. It also aids in the development of frustration tolerance and the postponement of self-regulation [key EF elements].

One last note. The above agrees with the information that Eli Pariser presents in his book The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You. According to Pariser’s research, the Internet uses cybernetic feedback algorithms designed to know your mind better than you do. These algorithms attempt to “deliver you to you” in perfect narcissistic ways. Work by attachment researcher Peter Fonagy (and his colleagues) suggests that perfectly contingent relationships (such as those mediated by the Internet) prevent one from knowing one’s own mind, to become “psychologically minded” as it were. Because in the digital world one does not have to wait to know one’s self, one’s self is never known. What authors like Carr, Hicks, and Pariser are trying to tell us is that the cybernetic algorithms of the Internet are making it increasingly hard for one to “know thy self,” for the self to, in essence, emerge. Increasingly the Internet is forcing us to live life out of the object-dominated mid-brain (a condition I have blogged about before in the context of presenting work by EF expert Elkhonon Goldberg).

OK, so what? What exactly do we give up if we live a digital life? We give up those things that the upper brain affords: reflection, perspective-taking, insight, empathy, planning, mental modeling, time travel, futurity, delaying gratification, cooperation, and the list goes on. It may be a bit extreme but what we give up is being fully human. Equally extreme, that may be the point as we continue to move toward a posthuman condition.

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