What do we stand to lose from spending our lives looking into a mobile screen which holds all the information we could ever desire to know, and then some we never wanted to. Much of this information is added by people who have gathered their information from questionable sources, at best. Most of it is not fact checked. Sadly, whether something is factual or not is becoming less important. If enough people believe your fiction, it starts becoming reality. Look at the United States.
Over the weekend, I watched the new ABC documentary, The Matter of Facts, hosted by Hamish Macdonald. It is a deep dive into how digital media is changing the way we think. Social media, misinformation, and AI are impacting our brain’s ability to think critically and to question deeply. This is affecting the development of our brains, especially in younger people, and also our democratic processes.
Everything you are presented on this little screen is curated for you by an algorithm, a machine. It has no ability to think about how what you are shown will affect you emotionally. It has no ability to feel or to think, full stop. The longer you hover over something, the more of that particular thing you will see in your feed.
Frankly, as a post-menopausal woman, I am sick of seeing advertising about weight loss, wrinkles, cortisol belly, miraculous supplements, crepey neck skin gel, and other crap designed to make me feel shit about the aging process. I know I’m getting older. I don’t need it rammed down my throat forty times a day. It undermines my confidence and there’s no acknowledgment of the positives that come with age.
Disturbingly, last weekend, I discovered Stu, my husband, gets all kinds of content designed for 50+ men with menopausal wives. One of these platforms, Relatio, opens, “Just because she avoids intimacy doesn’t mean she’s having an affair.” There are many iterations of apps and programs for sale, for men who are sick of waiting or sick of being understanding. “More chores, more understanding, more patience won’t fix it.” There is so much advice on what menopausal women need, given by other ‘frustrated’ husbands.
Most menopausal women don’t know what they want or need. Are these sites and apps even written by men? Or are they written by women hoping to teach men how to respond to symptoms of menopause. Either way, there is an infinite amount of information out there, and we don’t know, or can’t trace where it originated. But, it’s changing the way we think and the way we relate.
Although this is scary, there are some ways to combat this tsunami of misinformation and random, unsolicited, machine-created advice. My favourite rebellious action is reading. The quote above is from Maryanne Wolf, a teacher, neuroscientist, and advocate for children and literacy, and currently Director of UCLA Centre for Dyslexia, Diverse Learners and Social Justice. She says that reading is an act of rebellion. This is empowering, and I don’t need anyone to convince me that reading is an excellent way to spend my time. Reading in a digital culture, and developing deep reading skills, is essential to critical analysis and original thought. How do we learn this?
Deep reading happens when you read and understand what you’re reading, through what you know about the world. The information is then processed through perspective taking, imagery, analogy, critical analysis, and then insight and reflection are added, to generate a new thought. So the reader is taking where the writer left off, and expanding the thought even further. This synthesising, and then creating of new information, means the reader is not just understanding the text, but moving beyond the text to their own understanding.
The moral of my rant today is go read more books. Don’t let the evil powers of the world drag you down into the abyss of algorithmic despair. Think outside the box, or the screen, in this case. Read widely, and read somethings you don’t agree with or understand. It will expand your neural pathways and lead you to a better understanding of yourself, your world, and everyone around you.
Kylie Eklund-Denman 