We Are Not Gadgets ... Yet

“If you want to know what’s really going on in a society or ideology, follow the money. If money is flowing to advertising instead of musicians, journalists, and artists, then a society is more concerned with manipulation than truth or beauty. If content is worthless, then people will start to become empty-headed and contentless.”

If that paragraph resonates with you or intrigues you in any way, then Jaron Lanier’s You Are Not A Gadget is the book for you.

Simply put, this is an intelligent critique of the direction the digital age has taken since the early, heady days when the internet was in its infancy and users were enthusiastically, democratically and idealistically embracing its potential in the (perhaps naïve) hope that it would transform our world for the better, through engaging, stimulating and intelligent interaction between peoples around the world, unimpeded by geography or circumstance.

Lanier posits that human interaction is not so much evolving as it is devolving under the Web 2.0 tidal wave of trendy technologies and software design, and that what is actually happening is the devaluation of what it means to be human.

Now that’s a reductive paraphrase concocted by yours truly, but there is nothing at all reductive or simplistic about this intelligent, thoughtful book. And you cannot accuse Lanier of being a Luddite either; his criticisms and insights come from the front line of the technocracy itself, because, if you recall, Lanier is the father of virtual reality, a Silicon Valley tech-wizard and visionary long before half of today’s Facebook users were even born. His critique comes from inside the temple, so to speak.

And the world beyond the temple gates would do well to listen up.

This is not just a cautionary tale, as the author himself indicates by calling this a “manifesto.” Actually, we are long past the point of caution. So much of the web’s current design is so firmly entrenched in the collective psyche that it’s just accepted as a given. (Case in point, the blogging template that I’m using to post this.)

This book is a wakeup call to people who love the internet; it asks us to see the situation clearly and to reflect upon the direction technological advancement has taken with healthy skepticism and all the intelligence we can muster. Because if we don’t, the type of society we will be creating (already well on our way to creating) will result in a new “dark age” (his words, not mine), a world in which quirky individualism, authentic creativity and even our understanding of “friendship” will be utterly distorted and devalued by the technical structures in which we have gleefully (and unwittingly) “locked” ourselves.

And if you want to contextualize your reading, the reviews Lanier’s book received are as fascinating as the book itself, revealing more about the reviewers than the book. There’s no shortage of pronouncements, from the facile critique found in the Globe and Mail to a blog post that raises “the review” to a high-level discussion, so thorough is the analysis from this independent researcher/ business consultant. True to our opinionated Wiki-world, everyone can weigh in—and everyone does.

But you should read the book in order to weigh in! As Lanier points out, sincere and individual expression is just one more casualty on the information highway, where drive-by anonymity and a mash-up mindset rule. The mob dynamic is alive and well on the net. You get condemnation by hearsay.

At the risk of becoming one more cyber-utopian, I welcome the fact that this book snapped me back to reality. Actually, I’ve been having some misgivings of my own lately, even as I enthusiastically tweet links to petitions that my twitter buddies might like to sign too. But I am not and never have been a fan of Facebook, and while I maintain a Facebook page, I really question why I bother.

As Lanier says, “…there is a new brittleness to the types of connections people make online.”

There is something insidiously insincere about the routine use of Facebook. Can anyone really have 6,976 friends, especially if 6,929 of them are beings you’ve never actually met or sustained a one-on-one conversation with?

Now if someone questions why I don’t like Facebook, I’ll just hand them Lanier’s book and not feel like an old fogey fuddy-duddy, which I know I am not. So thanks, Jaron. I feel somewhat vindicated on that score. I happen to love the internet. I wouldn’t know how to live without it. Literally.

You see, my cyber-utopianism has its roots in a very felicitous personal eureka moment. What seems like eons ago, when I first logged on the net from the privacy of my own home, I knew immediately that it could forever change how I worked and earned a living. I still get excited about that. It really has changed my life for the better. I have been able to connect with wonderful clients all over the world, and yes, some new friendships have come out of these connections. I don’t drive to work anymore, so I don’t wastefully burn up fossil fuel by sitting in morning traffic jams. And I really do enjoy being a member of the Free Agent Nation. But it doesn’t mean I have to put blinkers on and be blind to the more ominous implications of a digital-crazed world.

There is a both a beauty in this online world and a danger. What is incumbent upon us, as the creators of the technology, is to ensure that we maintain our individuality all the while respecting the individuality of others. We must always make sure that we bring our human intelligence, our kindness and our moral compass to bear on every decision we make and on every interaction and connection we engage in. We must never stop questioning and we must never be afraid to put the brakes on something before we have fully assessed its potential, for there is always the possibility that in the race to embrace our brave new worlds we could be doing more harm than good.

Human intelligence, that combination of logic and emotional insight, is still what must drive this world. We humans design the net. Not the other way around.

And don’t rely on this bleep from the blogosphere. Just experience Lanier’s book for yourselves.