Outsourcing Our Brains: So Busy Recording, We Forget to Live

11/06/2009

A good friend of mine called me in a snit earlier this week. She was going to a big-deal event on Capitol Hill for work—some Senate thing—and a colleague had casually asked her to take photos.

She was all whipped up. “I mean the nerve!” she fumed. “I’ve earned this. I had a dress altered. I don’t want to be stuck behind a damn camera. Not gonna do it. I want to snarf heavy hors d'oeuvres and get snockered. I want to schmooze!”

I tried talking her down, but it didn't work because I totally identified. Not on the schmoozing part. (I couldn't schmooze my way out of a wet paper bag.) I sympathized that logging the event would crimp her fun. Because that's exactly what happened to me at my twins' fourth birthday party last weekend.

It wasn't enough for me to be party planner and people herder; I also appointed myself photographer. So while everyone else was dancing with giant parrots, feeding bison, and stroking camels (the party was at a local petting zoo), I was scrambling around the "safari" wagon like I was after the money shot for National Geographic.

I kept it up the entire time.

Click. Click. Click. Distribute bottles and pellets for barnyard-feeding. Click click click. Order pizza. Click. Click. Click. Everyone on the pony rides. Click. Click. Click. All aboard the wagon. Click. Click. Click. Catch ostrich grabbing cup and chugging pellets. Click. Click. Click. Serve pizza. Click. Click. Click. Cake and candles. Click. Click. Drop dead from exhaustion.

Afterward, I realized I hadn't spent one free moment with either birthday boy. When I wasn't playing traffic cop, I was full-on recording.

In a way, I'd totally missed their freakin' birthday!

So now I'm wondering what else I've missed.  As a blogger, I am always writing, tweeting, Facebooking my observations. That means I'm not living in the current moment. I’m capturing the one that just passed.

And I'm not alone. Millions of other moms—and dads—are out there snapping, blogging, and video-logging their kids' milestones and antics. Now, as I blathered in a previous post, there's a positive side to all this. If you don't capture those first steps and words, it all gets buried in the mush of your poor, information-overloaded brain.

When you record it, you not only have a record to return to later, you also help cement your memory of it—as found by memory researchers. But there’s a price: Not only does your reality become more about the recording, but your reality may be altered by the recording.

Imagine if a bride had to videotape her own wedding. Walking down the aisle and cutting the cake would be more than a little awkward. And it would no longer be her day. It would be her guests' day. But I bet it's been done.

Just think of all the people Facebooking and tweeting their babies' births. I was one of thousands who followed Pregnant Jane (@HisBoysCanSwim) as she tweeted the birth of her son, Monkey, from the very first contraction to the big delivery. It was like my favorite show, "Birth Day," except on Twitter.

And our obsession with digital recording is only going to escalate as the technologies get smarter. As noted in a recent CNN article, Microsoft will soon be releasing a wearable digital camera, SenseCam, that auto-snaps your every action, 24/7. Think of the implications! Will we all become walking citizen journalists recording everything that we and others do? Swear, and it's on the record. Burp, and it's on the record. Everything you do and say can and will be used against you on the Web.

On the other hand, if you do want to record something, it'll be even easier. And we're all so addicted to documenting everything that I can't see us foregoing the recording equipment.

Consider my friend. She called me all gushing and aglow after her Capitol Hill event. But she had one complaint: "Nobody brought a camera," she wailed. "Not even one person. So now we've got no record of it at all."

But boy did she enjoy herself.

Umm, Actually, We DO Have All Day

07/16/2009

I had just thrown some leftovers into the office microwave and was waiting, impatiently drumming my fingers on the counter, when the front-page headline from The Onion caught my eye: “Everything Taking Too Long.”

“Dang straight!” I thought, relating to the accompanying photo—a guy clutching his head, eyes riveted to the chicken nuggets (or yams, hard to tell) taking forever to nuke in his microwave. Strange that the article was left next to the office nuker. Coincidence?

According to the article, a recent poll reveals that “54 percent of respondents are not getting any younger over here. Nearly 10 percent don't understand what the big holdup is. And 23 percent are not only ready, but have been ready for the past half hour, so let's go already.”

That really cracked me up. So did one man’s indignation that the subway train was running behind schedule, and another’s outraged refusal to wait at an emergency room. And that goober rolling his eyes at the microwave? Too funny. Then I realized, “Oh wait. That was me, three minutes ago.”

It got me to thinking: Pretty much all the examples of impatience in the article could be me. Take the train running behind schedule. Here in Washington, D.C., the metro route I ride, the Red Line, has been plagued by delays following an accident two weeks ago. You wouldn’t believe the amount of complaining this has caused. “The Red Line needs an exorcism,” I grouched on Facebook. A flurry of comments followed, with the theme: “Seriously, how long is this going to go ON?”

It’s kind of a disease—this massive rush we’re all in—and when I actually stop a moment and consider it, I’m not sure what the big hurry is. I reflect on an average work day:  It seems to take forever to get my three-year-old twins fed, dressed, and pottied. One of them, usually Punk, invariably has some sort of crisis right when I’m ready to step out the door. I turn around and he’s peed on the floor, saying “Uh OH!” Or he’s poured milk in his hair, stepped on a roll of crackers, or inexplicably tripped, fallen over backwards and hit his head on something or other.

“Punk,” I constantly find myself saying, “Come on! We don’t have all day.”

After that, I gun the car to daycare and back, then park and sprint to the metro, checking my BlackBerry to see how bad my meeting schedule is. I can feel my blood pressure mounting, and then I get stuck behind the clump of tourists. “Oh man, oh man—I will never get around these people!” I mutter like a grumpy old man.

The workday is more of the same: I open up email and instant messenger (IM) to a barrage of requests for things people needed yesterday. Ping! A meeting reminder pops up. Ring! A vendor wants to know where the check is. Ding! A colleague on IM needs an immediate answer to a question. Pop, pop, pop! My blood pressure cranks up a few more notches. Behind schedule by lunch, I tear down to the cafeteria, grab whatever’s being served to the shortest line, and race back to my desk to scarf it.

Now, finally, the irony is dawning on me. These technologies we’ve invented to free up more time are actually enslaving us; they’re making us jumpier than ever.  The train that speeds us to work is never on time. That search engine that should instantly “Bing” us results takes too long to load. And when the IM pings or the BlackBerry buzzes, we can’t respond fast enough.

A growing number of people have had enough of this technology-fueled rush. Proponents of the countervailing “Slow Movement,” like Carl Honoré, maintain that, in our increasing haste, we fail to experience life minute by minute. The more you become a “rushaholic,” they say, the more you try to cram into one day,  and the less well you do any of it; quality gets sacrificed for quantity. And, yes, the more a person multitasks, the harder it is for the brain to effectively do anything, studies by neuroscientists like Marcel Just of Carnegie Mellon University have repeatedly shown.

The mad rush can also bad for our health and relationships, possibly spurring anxiety, depression, and alienation from loved-ones, according to psychologists Michelle Weil and Larry Rosen, authors of the book TechnoStress. But don’t despair, they say. Here’s the good news: We control our lives and technology; we are only rushed to the degree that we let ourselves be rushed. We have the power to unplug, to turn off the beeps and buzzes of the e-mail and BlackBerry, to stay out of IM, to simply slow down.

Heck, looking at things this way, I’ve got no problem waiting for the train or microwave. Without feeling rushed, I can use the time to read, meditate, or just….sit.

So I’m going to try this slow thing. And I think I’m going to like it. Now, instead of riding the Red Line to work, I’m walking. It takes longer but I’m OK with that—very OK with that. Because after experiencing the exercise, the breeze in my face, and the trees and flowers along the way, I arrive at work relaxed, and ready for a slow, steady start to my day.

The Opposite of Internet Addiction: Web Sanity

05/13/2009

Last evening was typical: I’m clacking responses to e-mails, my husband is shooting Orcs, Evil Men, and monsters in his Lord of the Rings computer game, and T-Rex and Punk are sitting on the sofa next to me, trying to find Nemo on their hand-held Leapsters.

The scene brings to mind a recent Parenting.com article on ’net- addicted new moms. The article describes a disturbing increase in mothers of young children seeking stress relief and adult interaction online. Some of these moms (this next part came across as a stage whisper) even stop bathing and skip doing laundry to spend more time online.

Could this be me—actually, could it be my whole family? Maybe I should watch for signs: My kids might scale back their playground time due to Leapster withdrawal. My husband might officially give up trying to grow grass in the alley clay out back and devote himself to conquering Middle-earth.

Next thing I know, Punk plunks himself down next to me. “Momm-eeeeeee!” he comments, scanning my iGoogle screen. “Want THAT one!” He jabs his grubby index finger on a blinking Pac-Man icon.

I click on the game, and he's instantly enthralled. “Momm-eeeee, faster, faster!” he screeches. “They gonna GET yooooo!” He jiggles enthusiastically whenever I get killed by the little ghost things—can't get enough of the “squish” noise. T-Rex soon joins in, saying "Again! Again!" after each game.

That's when it occurs to me that the three of us are ….interacting! That's not a bad thing. And there are other pluses:

1. Nothing is getting broken. Compare and contrast with that morning, for example. By 9 a.m., the following had occurred: Punk had whacked T-Rex in the head with a Chinese yo-yo, snapping it in half in the process. T-Rex had gone marauding in the kitchen while I was changing Punk’s soaked underwear a second time. He zeroed in the sugar bowl, upsetting its contents on the floor and shattering its top. Soon after, while I was prepping breakfast, they discovered a scotch-tape dispenser and proceeded to tape up the sofa. Then, T-Rex knocked all the DVDs off a shelf and somehow managed to encase his head in one of the DVD covers. It was all the way over his eyes. I would never have thought such a thing possible, but we have a photo as evidence.

2. The future generation is getting educated about the key to the universe—computers. And their techno-indoctrination already appears to be paying off: The other day, in a hurry to print out directions to a doctor’s appointment, I clawed open the printer door with much difficulty (a mini basketball bounced out of it—and T-Rex said, “Oh! That’s mine”).  I clicked the print button and was ready to grab the printed product, when T-Rex slammed the printer door shut. “Teeeee-Reeexxx!” I wailed, steeling myself for another round of the clawing routine. He just shot me an odd look and hit a button on the side of the printer. The printer door slid open, just like that.

Still, this cyber addiction thing has been bugging me. I know we ought to get off the sofa more and exercise, so I’ve resolved to take the kids on at least two field trips each weekend. I was especially gung ho about our recent outing to National Train Day at nearby Union Station. Punk is bonkers about trains, and the ads promised interactive exhibits and a tour of the Georgia 10, the train Obama rode to his inauguration.

Well it seemed like a good idea at the time. And sure, our first stop at the local playground went smoothly enough. But as we walked to the train station, T-Rex dawdled and Punk sprinted ahead.  In seconds, he disappeared from sight, sending me into relay-race paroxysms to corral him again. There was no relief at the station. The place was packed, bristling with deluxe strollers, frazzled parents, and spastic, sweaty kids.

I knew my squirming toddlers weren't  going to wait in the mile-long line for goodie bags, so we went to check out Amtrak’s ARTE the Environmental Engineer—a giant, furry green…something completely unidentifiable. We were told he was a leaf. In any case, the kids didn’t like him; in fact, he sent Punk running in the opposite direction. Bruising my shins on strollers and dragging T-Rex, I nabbed Punk in the general vicinity of the Obama train. Unfortunately, you had to walk through several crowded trains to get anywhere near it, and the twins were done cooperating. T-Rex repeatedly plopped down and lay in the train aisles, kicking and tripping people up. Meanwhile, Punk ducked into cabins and hid out in bunkbeds.

When we finally made it to the Obama train (which, by the way, you weren’t allowed to enter), both were in full-on tantrum mode. I knew what had to be done: We picked up a cinnamon pretzel and headed back to the sanctity of home. Or maybe I should say the sanctity of our computers. Because as soon as we got there, we climbed on the sofa, flipped on our machines, and calm was restored to the universe, sanity to mom. The laundry, I figured, could wait.