The Domesticated Brain (31 page)

Still, for many people, the Internet is something to be feared. As with any new technologies, from the printing press to the radio, there is always anxiety that change is not good because outcomes are unpredictable.
Technopanic
is a term that captures the fears about the way the Internet is changing the way humans behave.
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The British neuroscientist Susan Greenfield warns that the Internet is wreaking ir-revocable damage on our children’s developing brains because they are not using the communication skills that were honed over evolution.
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Philip Zimbardo, the psychologist famous for his Stanford Prison study, tells us that the widespread availability of online pornography is leading to the ‘demise of guys’, who are now unable to inhibit their sexual compulsions and failing to learn how to interact appropriately with women.
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In the UK in 2013, the Coalition government looked
into regulating Internet searches for sexual content despite the lack of any clear evidence that it is a problem.
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We read of extreme cases of online addiction to virtual communities or gaming where individuals play for days on end, sometimes leading to the deaths of themselves and even their own children that they have neglected.
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All of these sensationalist headlines seem to be hysterical technopanic based on scant evidence or simply anecdotal reports. There has not been enough time to conduct the proper analysis to fully test the claims in this fast-changing world of information technology. However, one only has to consider world poverty or climate change to realize that Internet addiction is one of the least of our worries. But all of us, especially those who remember the pre-Internet days, cannot fail to be astounded by the blistering pace of change and the uncertain future it will create. It is easy to appreciate why those fearful of change consider the Internet as a force for evil.

As a parent of two teenage girls, I am less concerned by the threats that the Internet seems to pose for the future of our children. I do not believe that the Internet will doom them to compassionless relationships. Rather, as I watch them use the Internet for social networking, it is clear that they are enjoying much greater freedom and an exposure to a greater diversity of ideas than was previously possible. No wonder that oppressive regimes try to suppress and control the Internet to prevent their own citizens getting the ‘wrong’ ideas.

For all its benefits, however, it would be foolhardy not to consider how the Internet will change the way we interact
and the potential problems this may entail. Humans bring a legacy of our evolutionary past to this brave new world where social interactions in the future are likely to be very different. Our species was not adapted to this digital environment, and how we behave will probably change as a result of this complex interaction between our biology, psychology and technology in ways that we are still trying to unravel.

To begin, rather than seeking approval from a few select friends in person, it is clear that we will increasingly be influenced by the group. For example, SNS can generate appreciation and validation from large numbers on the Internet. This is especially true of Twitter, which is effectively open texting to the world. Twitter provides the opportunity to monitor, and be monitored by, anyone almost completely anonymously. Even though these interactions are virtual, studies show that acceptance and rejection can be just as emotionally charged on the Internet as such encounters in real life.
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So what are we doing on these SNS? The short answer is talking about ourselves. During normal conversation, we spend about 30–40 per cent of the time talking about ourselves, which according to brain-imaging studies makes us feel good.
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The brain regions associated with rewards and pleasures are activated when describing our experiences. On the Internet we take this self-obsession to the extreme. Over 80 per cent of the posts on SNS are about the poster. Already, we seem to be hooked. A study of over 1,000 Swedish Facebook subscribers found that the average user logs on to the site six times per day, spending an average seventy-five minutes – women more than men.
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One in four report that
they feel uneasy when they cannot access SNS. We love to talk about ourselves, which is why SNS are such an enticing opportunity. Here we seem oblivious to the social barriers or restraints about how much you can go on and on about yourself.

When SNS first appeared they offered the opportunity to enable people to connect and keep in touch – something that was increasingly compromised in a society where people were living busy lives that often forced them to move on to new pastures. SNS offer a chance for those who are isolated to make new friends or keep in contact with others that have moved on. However, true friends are few and making acquaintances on SNS hardly offers the same experience. Moreover, there are drawbacks to exposing yourself to a vast audience with whom there is no direct face-to-face interaction and the strength of friendship is weak.

Ironically, one major danger of too many friends may be damage to self-esteem. Contrary to expectations, SNS do not help those with low self-esteem by giving them a platform to express themselves without the pressure of social anxiety that real encounters can generate. Rather, they amplify their problems. The trouble with individuals with low self-esteem is that they talk more openly about the negative aspects of their lives and personality, which are not appealing topics of conversation for those on the Internet. The irony is that they may feel more secure in revealing things about themselves on SNS, but the rest of us do not want to hear how bad their lives are, which leads us to push them away.
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We are so self-obsessed that we tend to only pay attention to the information that relates to us. When you accumulate
large numbers of friends on SNS, this is a tangible measure of popularity. When someone of high status, such as a celebrity, follows you on Twitter, then you can bask in their reflected glory as someone worthy of their attention.
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The whole SNS phenomenon may have originally been intended to share experiences and opinions, but has become a mechanism for narcissism.

‘Selfies’ are the latest craze – posting pictures of ourselves so that others can look at us. Even at the memorial ceremony for Nelson Mandela, heads of state were taking selfies. A 2013 poll by Samsung, one of the manufacturers of the ubiquitous camera phones, revealed that selfies accounted for 30 per cent of pictures taken by eighteen-to twenty-four-year-olds.
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On Facebook, the largest of the SNS, its users click ‘Like’ 2.7 billion times and share 300 million photographs per day.
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This can lead to an inflated sense of self-esteem, boosted by all the ‘Like’s, positive comments or recommendations that others bestow upon us. This concern for what others think can also lead to extremism caused by polarization. If we only listen to those who agree with us, then the tendency will be to become more certain of our opinions, intolerant to criticism or, worse still, to become more radical in order to be seen to be more forthright.
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Some individuals use SNS to bully and harass. Already there has been a spate of teenage suicides attributed to cyberbullying, though it is not clear whether this reflects a significant increase in this troubled age group.
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We can also become indignant and intolerant of others more easily on the Internet than in a real-life encounter. Somehow, like the road rage that we have all witnessed or experienced when
drivers are isolated in their cars, people behave differently when they are not in a face-to-face situation. The Internet is a place to vent anger or take revenge on others from the comfort of our own home. Nobody likes to be criticized, but criticism can be particularly painful on the Internet because it is such a public arena. What were once local and personal grievances that could be settled by a measured response or gesture can escalate into dramas broadcast to the world to reveal the sense of injustice the injured party feels.

For many, it seems that we have gone too far with the Internet, but the revolution in social behaviour has only really just begun. Increasingly, everything we do and everywhere we go is being shared with others. Every piece of software, every purchase, every choice we make is no longer an individual secret but a valuable piece of data worth sharing. Vint Cerf, one of the fathers of the Internet and a digital visionary, predicts that soon our clothing will be capable of relaying information up to the net.
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Already most of us possess smartphones that keep wanting to share information about where we are, what we are doing and what we like. We no longer have to pay for many services and applications; we simply have to let others know that we are using them across the SNS. This is because businesses know that social information is the key to success. The individual choices that we think are ours are being used to inform the group, which in turn is being used to influence our choices in a vast online social experiment of conformation bias.

We really do not have a choice. It is becoming impossible to be anonymous. Just about all of us in the West are dependent on the goods and services of others that we have
to purchase. In the past this could be done in anonymous transactions, but eventually hard cash will disappear and so will our capacity to remain elusive. Transactions will all become digital and, with that, your identity will be used to catalogue your activity.

As we increasingly go online, algorithms that keep track of our search activity will seek to anticipate what we want and will tailor the choices made available to us by only sending us the information that best fits our search requirements. Marketing companies want to personalize their offerings to each of us. The problem is that this tailoring creates ‘filter bubbles’, where information deemed less relevant is shielded from us.
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In the drive to produce increasingly personalized functionality on websites by monitoring our activity, there is currently a big data gold rush where companies such as Google and Facebook are collecting personal information that can be sold on to marketing companies. With these vast databases, the collective opinion of the groups to which we belong will not only begin to shape the decisions we make but limit the options we are offered in an attempt to optimize the choices we have to make.

It is all meant to make life more convenient but it will also make it more conventional. Where once Western independence and Eastern interdependence existed as geographically separated cultural social norms, the global reach of the Internet and the way our choices are being shaped and curtailed by the behaviour of the group threatens our capacity to maintain unique identity and privacy.

It is happening right now. Soon we may have no choice at all. The virtual world is spilling over into the real world.
The technology already exists with Google glasses, where the wearer can upload live sights and sounds to the Internet for others to watch (though Google claims this will be regulated). Soon the technology will be so small as to be invisible, so that you will not be aware that you are being watched. People will never be sure that they are truly alone or having a private conversation. This was the prediction in George Orwell’s
1984
and became the inspiration for the hit reality TV show
Big Brother
in the last decade
.
Contestants willingly participated in
Big Brother
for the prospect of fame and celebrity status, but were really selected by producers because they were the most colourful and often dysfunctional individuals – a modern version of the Victorian freak shows described in
Chapter 3
. Still, applicants to those shows made the choice to be watched, and we as the audience made the choice to watch. Today, the Internet threatens to put all of us under surveillance whether we like it or not.

When modern humans first left Africa some 60–70,000 years ago, they had the necessary social expertise to live together, and to seek out new territories as the vast Northern ice sheets began to recede. They communicated and cooperated with brains that were able to pass knowledge on to each new generation. They developed feelings, behaviours and thoughts that were evolved to keep them connected. At the end of the last Ice Age 20,000 years ago, humans began to settle down and change from a nomadic lifestyle to one where they learned to cultivate crops and rear animals.

Throughout our evolution, domestication has provided strength in numbers for the individual, but that same domestication that enabled us to live so well together now
threatens to eradicate the individual. We have become so dependent on others that few of us could be self-sufficient and there is little sign that this co-dependency has reached its peak. Co-dependency provides an easier life and this increasingly relies on information technology. However, we seem to be largely unaware that this innovation is being used to both monitor and shape the way we live.

Our domesticated brain allowed us to become animals that thrive by living together in groups, but with our technological advances, the size of that group has almost become unlimited by geography or time zones. One wonders whether an ever-expanding group will eventually subsume us. Maybe there will always be tensions to resist the pull of the crowd. One can imagine a future of continual cultural conflict as we try to maintain our group identities in the face of increasing integration. That said, losing our group identities and the prejudices that separate us may be the necessary solution that enables humans to coordinate, cooperate and cohabit on a planet of limited resources. When we start thinking and acting as a group on a global scale, we will be better suited to cope with many of the problems our species faces – population growth, food shortages, deforestation, pandemics and maybe even climate change.