Fighting for One's Soul in the Digital Age
The Savonarola Option
When you're fighting for your soul, you don't negotiate, equivocate, or masturbate. You bangster and burn everything coming at you.
A few numbers:
144: The number of times an American is digitally distracted daily. (NB: it doesn't include that extrovert co-worker who circles the office like a turkey vulture).
6.67: How many minutes, on average, pass between digital distractions (16 hours of waking time x 60 / 144).
20: How many minutes it takes to get back on task after an interruption (some say, with practice, you can reach "flow state" in ten minutes, but most of us require up to 25 minutes).
(1,920): How many focused minutes you have every day if you're an average American (total unfocused time (144 X 20) - total minutes in the waking day (960 minutes)).
47: The normal attention span these days (in seconds).
It's time to go Savonarola on this shit. Grab every distraction device and throw it in the bonfire. Every digital distraction is just gilded left-hemispheric vanity, a micro-temptation to prey and grasp, a bicep curl for the left hemisphere.
That's why those digital devices are killing our souls. The stronger the rogue left hemisphere becomes, the more it suffocates the right hemisphere. This makes it a spiritual battle because the right hemisphere is our transcendental router.
But hey, if psycho-metaphysico propositions ain't your bag, look at it from a logico-scientifico perspective:
We need sustained attention to form memories. Brain scans show that the hippocampus and other areas of our brain required for memory formation are far more active during times of sustained attention.
Memory is necessary for pretty much everything that separates us from the animals. To solve problems, make connections, regulate emotions, form relationships. Memory is, in other words, necessary to nourish the rational soul, which is, as Aquinas pointed out, the thing that separates us from the animals.
The syllogism: Memory nourishes the soul. Digital distractions cripple memory. Therefore, digital distractions cripple the soul.
So, if you don't want your soul sucked out of your body like a UFO abducting you from that cornfield at 2:00 AM, you need to take radical steps.
Cal Newport's deep work? I'm a fan, but does it really work? Can you take a shot of beer every 6.5 minutes for a few hours, then decide, "Okay, I'm not taking any more shots for the next 90 minutes so I can get some work done"? It's better than nothing, and I can't dispute the (impressive, in a warped way) abilities of functional drunks who somehow surf through life's everyday tasks, but overall, you might as well replace those shots of beer with coffee then decide to sleep peacefully for those 90 minutes.
Kevin Majeres' "Golden Hour" prescription? That's getting closer. Divide the day into focus sprints. Sixty minutes . . . 45 minutes . . . 90 minutes. You decide (my sweet spot seems to 75 minutes). After each sprint, take a break: five minutes . . . 15 minutes . . . 30 minutes. You decide (my sweet spot: 15 minutes). During those sprints, your phone should be in the toilet, preferably defecated upon. If you then want to look at it during your break, go ahead, but I've been doing those sprints for two years now, and I normally want to use those breaks for recreational reading or walking outside.
Savonarola's bonfire of the vanities approach? I think that's the only option, ultimately. Take that phone out of the toilet, wipe it off, then throw it in the metaphorical fire.
So how do you maintain relationships with friends and family after you've bonfired your phone?
I have no idea.
I already lose out on a lot of communication with my children because my phone has been in that metaphorical bonfire for over two years. They don't even bother to text me with anything time-sensitive, and increasingly, anything at all. It's a bummer that this brother can't deny, but hey, when I do get the occasional text from them, I get sprung, so there's that: each text message is welcomed instead of feeling like another drop in a drowning deluge.
IMHO, our Silicon overloads need to create a phone setting that allows trusted friends and loved ones to reach us if something is urgent. I have an analog app that does this. It's called "The Wife." She notifies me by dinging my phone or calling my secretary and saying, "Please get him. I don't care if he's in one of his work sprints or whatever the f____ he calls it. Get him." It's a good workaround, though I estimate that the subscription cost is about $50,000 a year.
For those without that option? You're just gonna have to figure it out for yourselves, but it can be done. Like anything, the first step is the hardest, but at least it's obvious: Build a bonfire.
Liel Leibovitz