Trading spaces

I was listening to a podcast with Barbara Tversky a few weeks ago where she was talking about her new book Mind in Motion: How Action Shapes Thought and explaining components of how the brain thinks. It was one of those talks I found myself nodding along to as much of what was discussed fell into alignment with my own experiences and the way I have observed my own thoughts form. Since a very young age, I have been acutely aware that my brain thinks in space.

What I mean by this is that in order for me to be able to grasp the concept of something I have to be able to visualize it and in order to do that, I have to be able to not only comprehend, but create building blocks and use my imagination to fit the pieces together in order to understand. What many don't recognize is how creativity is a fundamental piece for our understanding and, it is a skillset that needs to be practiced to improve.

Lately I have been paying attention to how my daughter translates space as for a long time she has been aware of the directions we take when driving. Today as we drove she mentioned things like her grandparent's home was behind us, we would be taking the next left, the city isn't that far away and several other location and direction points. she is building a map of her surroundings.

What is going to be interesting to see in the future is if there will be spatial difference between her and those of her age who had their nose buried into a screen. Yes, there are spatial skills available there too, but they are engineered and passively fed, one doesn't have to move in relation to what is seen, heard or felt, just consume. A child doesn't even have to turn their head to take in the entire view.

I feel that this is going to impact (I believe it already can be observed) on the ability to read intention from facial expressions and gestures as the screens overemphasis movement, show close ups and take away a lot of the face-to-face nuance live interaction provides. I liken it to living life on a stage of actors that have been schooled to make their actions large so that those at the rear of the theater can read the body language.

What I predict happens when a person is raised nearly purely on digital media is that the the nuances of human interaction become lost in more ways than the physical, as emotional reaction will also be disconnected from the physical actions. While one might be able to say, "they won't need it to survive", I do not think the human systems are evolving anywhere near quickly enough to discount the needs of interaction, cooperation and especially intimacy - traits that have developed through our species for millions of years and allow us to gather and solve (and create) problems much larger than ourselves alone could approach.

Saw some bogus random acts of kindness as well. Content producers playing on the viewer's heartstrings for a potential payday and a few more subscribers to dupe again later is despicable.
_ @nonameslefttouse

The thing is that many people online are easily duped and many never seem to be able to recognize the disjointed reaction, the out of sync behaviors. You might not be, but the shares of what goes "viral" tells a different story. No one questions the perfect lighting and angle in the "random act", or the intention behind the actions itself. There is no follow up, no feedback loop, just a clip fed and consumed and as @nonameslefttouse mentioned, once one has been watched, the algorithms get to work and more suggestions are made.

So you liked to be fooled? Here are more suggestions designed to trick your emotions and make you less attuned to reality and more open to engineered manipulation.

Those poorly worded emails from Nigerian princes are cleverly designed that way, they are filters. While I dismiss them as scam, another person responds to the hook. When these are sent to hundreds of millions of email addresses, this funnel needs to be very good at sorting out just who is gullible or greedy enough to target. If you are fooled by those emails, you are the one they want - they don't want to waste their time with people with commonsense.

But commonsense is no longer common and becoming even more rare for to build it, one needs to have the experience in what is common and all the connections that are discoverable through living a life. Through that screen, the only discoveries that can be made are the links that are designed, the crumbtrail fed. Watching a clever murder mystery doesn't make one an investigator, no matter how one feels at the end of he film.

The spaces we inhabit have a fundamental affect on the way we think, and the way we move through the world influences the way we understand the world. Falling over in the playground teaches lessons as the pain leads on to discovery and improvement - no digital version can provide the same, it is always limited, always a 3rd party experience.

I wonder what happens to our peripheral vision after focusing on the point 12 inches in front of our face from childhood, I wonder what happens to the love relationships when the average no longer has the ability to read facial expressions clearly or discover intention in the tone of voice, body language and timing of actions. I wonder what comes of a life where on-demand content means never having to wait, never needing to be patient.

I wonder what happens to us when we trade real space for engineered worlds.

 
We think in space. We create in space. We live in space.

We consume in place.

Taraz
[ a Steem original ]