The Digitally Divided Self: Relinquishing our Awareness to the Internet

ISBN 9788897233008
274 Pages – Format: 6″ x 9″ – $17.90 (discounted on Amazon)

It is nearly half a century since Marshall McLuhan pointed out that the medium is the message. In the interim, digital technologies have found an irresistible hook on our minds. With the soul’s quest for the infinite usurped by the ego’s desire for unlimited power, the Internet and social media have stepped in to fill our deepest needs for communication, knowledge and creativity – even intimacy and sexuality. Without being grounded in those human qualities which are established through experience and inner exploration, we are vulnerable to being seduced into outsourcing our minds and our fragile identities.

Intersecting media studies, psychology and spirituality, The Digitally Divided Self exposes the nature of the malleable mind and explores the religious and philosophical influences which leave it obsessed with the incessant flow of information.

I am deeply touched and extremely grateful to the people who took the time to read, support and endorse The Digitally Divided Self. Being my first English book, and basically self-published, I didn’t expect to receive many reviews, much less from such leading thinkers and writers – nor such positive responses.

It was also a surprise to find common interests around eastern spirituality with so many people into technology and media. This makes me hopeful for an evolution of the information society – from chasing external stimulation to inner explorations and silence.

Detailed table of contents, introduction and chapter 1.

Order on Amazon.

Praise for Digitally Divided Self

 “Quartiroli’s The Digitally Divided Self is a must read for anyone seeking to understand the ever-increasing hegemony of the digital world in the individual psyche. Drawing on diverse fields and traditions, the author analyzes numerous mechanisms by which IT separates us from ourselves. Readers stand to benefit from such an understanding that is a prerequisite for mounting a defense of one’s individuality.” —Len Bracken, author of several novels and the biography Guy Debord—Revolutionary

 ­“With great insight, Ivo Quartiroli captures the subtle as well as the gross impact that media use has on our individual and collective psyches. The challenge before all of us is how to adapt to the new technology in a healthy way that allows us to retain our essential humanity. He offers us a solution born of his experience and confirmed by neuroscience. This is a must read.” —Hilarie Cash, PhD, co-founder of reSTART: Internet Addiction Recovery Program

 “It is difficult to offer a spiritually based critique of today’s network culture without sounding like a nostalgic Luddite crank. Immersed in the tech, but also in various meditative traditions, Ivo Quartiroli is the perfect person to offer integral wisdom-tech with clarity and bite.” —Erik Davis, author of Techgnosis and Nomad Codes: Adventures in Modern Esoterica.

  “Aware of the profound and rapid psychological and social metamorphosis we are going through as we ‘go digital’ without paying attention, Ivo Quartiroli is telling us very precisely what we are gaining and what we are losing of the qualities and privileges that, glued as we are to one screen or another, we take for granted in our emotional, cognitive and spiritual life. This book is a wake-up call. Steve Jobs and Bill Gates should read it.” —Derrick de Kerckhove, Professor, Facoltà di sociologia, Università Federico II, Naples, former Director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology.

 “The Digitally Divided Self alerts us about the insidious dangers of our growing dependence on Information Technology. Ivo Quartiroli warns us that Internet can easily develop into an addiction that undercuts our connections with nature, with other people, and with our deeper inner reality. The spiritual nourishment coming from genuine relationships is then replaced by the empty calories of fake relationships, with the resulting deterioration of our personal and social lives. Using an incisive style, Ivo Quartiroli can be provocative, iconoclastic, at times exaggerated, but never boring. Behind each observation there are pearls of wisdom that are guaranteed to make you think.” —Federico Faggin, designer of the microprocessor.

 “Global culture is not only the latest step in the human evolutionary journey. It is also, as Ivo Quartiroli shows in The Digitally Divided Self, a critical opportunity to apply non-Western techniques of awareness to ensure healthy survival in the 21st century.” —Michael Heim, author of The Metaphysics of Virtual Reality, Virtual Realism, and Electric Language.

 “Question the merits of technology in the past and you’d be called a Luddite. But now technologists are leading the way toward a new, more balanced view of our gadget-driven lives. Drawing from his fascinating expertise in computer science and spirituality, Ivo Quartiroli presents a compelling critique of the corrosive impact of the Net on our humanity. It’s a warning we must heed.” —Maggie Jackson, author of Distracted: The Erosion of Attention and the Coming Dark Age.

“A profoundly premonitory vision of the future of the 21st century, The Digitally Divided Self unlocks the great codes of technological society, namely that the very same digital forces that effectively control the shape and direction of the human destiny are also the founding powers of a new revolution of the human spirit.” —Arthur Kroker, author of The Will to Technology and Canada Research Chair in Technology, Culture and Theory.

 “People today, especially young people, live more on the Internet than in the real world. This has subtle and not-so-subtle effects on their thinking and personality. It is high time to review these effects, to see whether they are a smooth highway to a bright interconnected future, or possibly a deviation that could endanger health and wellbeing for the individual as well as for society. Ivo Quartiroli undertakes to produce this review and does so with deep understanding and dedicated humanism. His book should be read by everyone, whether he or she is addicted to the Internet or has second thoughts about it.” —Ervin Laszlo, President, the Club of Budapest, and Chancellor, the Giordano Bruno Globalshift University.

 “The Mind-Body Split is a pervasive condition/affliction in the developed world, wholly un-recognized; yet fundamental to the great worldwide problems of health, environment, and economic inequity. Ivo Quartiroli’s Digitally Divided Self masterfully examines the effects of the insulated digital experience on the mind and the body self: exacerbating illusions and the Mind-Body Split; and contrasts it to the processes of self-discovery, growth, and healing: true inter-connectedness with nature, each other, and our selves. If the digital age is to solve our real problems, rather than create them, it will be with the knowledge contained in The Digitally Divided Self. Well done!” —Frederic Lowen, son of Alexander Lowen, Executive Director, The Alexander Lowen Foundation

 “Ivo Quartiroli here addresses one of the most pressing questions forced upon us by our latest technologies. In disturbing the deepest relations between the user’s faculties and the surrounding world, our electric media, all of them without exception, create profound disorientation and subsequent discord, personal and cultural. Few subjects today demand greater scrutiny.” — Dr. Eric McLuhan, Author and Lecturer

 “The internet is an extension of our central nervous system. When you operate a computer, you are extending yourself, through its interface, potentially all over the world, instantaneously. Extending yourself in such a disembodied, discarnate fashion only further entrenches your separateness, your ego self. In contrast, the introspective freeing from the physical through meditation also has the effect of creating a discarnate, disembodied state. That state is one that is progressively less identified with the ego self. This is the dichotomy that Ivo Quartiroli explores in The Digitally Divided Self. This book is well worth investigating.” —Michael McLuhan

 “We should all be asking the questions Ivo Quartiroli asks in this bold and provocative book. Whatever you think right now about technology, The Digitally Divided Self will challenge you to think again.” —William Powers, author of the New York Times bestseller Hamlet’s BlackBerry

 “It isn’t easy to find an informed and critical look at the impact of digital media practices on human lives and minds. Ivo Quartiroli offers an informed critique based in both an understanding of technology and of human consciousness.” —Howard Rheingold, author of The Virtual Community and Smart Mobs.

 “Ivo Quartiroli is mining the rich liminal territory between humans and their networks. With the integrity of a scientist and the passion of artist, he forces us to reconsider where we end and technology begins. Or when.” —Douglas Rushkoff, Media Theorist and author of Cyberia, Media Virus, Life, Inc. and Program or Be Programmed.

 “You might find what he writes to be challenging, irritating, even blasphemous and sacrilegious. If so, he has proven his point. The Internet, Ivo suggests, might just be the new opium of the masses. Agree with him or not, no other book to date brings together the multitude of issues related to how the seductions of technology impinge upon and affect the development of the self and soul.” —Michael Wesch, Associate Professor of Digital Ethnography, Kansas State University

  “The Digitally Divided Self is a refreshing look at technology that goes beyond the standard, well-worn critiques. Ivo Quartiroli charts new territory with a series of profound reflections on the intersections of computer science, psychology and spirituality.” —Micah White, Senior Editor at Adbusters magazine.

Detailed table of contents, introduction and chapter 1.

Order on Amazon.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: From Awareness of technology to technologies of Awareness .. 1
Chapter 2:“It’s only a tool” .. 17
Chapter 3: The Roots of It .. 39
Chapter 4: The Digitization of Reality .. 53
Chapter 5: Intimacy and Sexuality.. 73
Chapter 6: Commoditizing and Monetizing.. 89
Chapter 7: Politics, Participation and Control .. 97
Chapter 8: Come together: the Rise of Social networks.. 115
Chapter 9: Digital Kids ..125
Chapter 10: Literacy and the Analytical Mind.. 133
Chapter 11: Lost in the Current .. 143
Chapter 12: The Digitally Divided Self.. 165
Chapter 13: The Process of Knowledge .. 189
Chapter 14: Upgrading to Heaven .. 205
Chapter 15: Biting the Snake.. 223
Appendix: The People of Contemporary It and what Drives them.. 233

Introduction

Like many people nowadays, much of my personal and professional life is related to technology: I use the Internet for keeping the connection with my work projects and friends wherever I am in the world. I published the first book in Italy about the Internet. I run a blog and a Web magazine, do my investments online, shop on the Net, do interviews by email and Skype, and have even indulged in cybersex. Right now I’m in Asia developing this book – which is full of references to Web articles, blogs and material found only on the Internet – with online support: an editor and writing coach in California, copy editor in India, book designer in Italy, and a printing and distribution service with multiple locations in USA. My life is immersed in the digital loop.

I have been involved in IT since I was a student. As I learned meditation and explored spiritual paths, I developed an inner observer and discovered states beyond the mind. Thus, I found myself going back and forth between processing consciousness and information. Slowly my focus has shifted from what we can do with technology to what technology does to us. As a first-hand explorer, I’ve observed the subtle changes of our massive use of the Net.

Just as a spiritual researcher can go beyond the mind only after having observed and mastered it, it is necessary to enter the digital world to step beyond it. We can’t become aware of its effects without being engaged in it. Since digital technology is unavoidable now, we need to master it without becoming lost in it, using its tools with our full awareness.

In this time, the intensification of mental inputs is a phenomenon that must be kept in balance. Our contemporary culture does not acknowledge anything beyond the mind, but in other traditions the mental world is just one of the aspects of our wholeness. In the West a sort of Cartesian “pure thinking” has been given priority. Although the mind is the best-known organ of thought, it is not the only cognitive modality. Nervous systems have been discovered both in the heart and in the belly, and the global awareness that can be accessed by spiritual practitioners is pervasive and non-localized. Yet these modalities cannot be represented digitally, so they are relegated to the sidelines.

Our technological society militates against uninterrupted conscious attention. Several authors have documented the effects of IT on attention, literacy and intellectual skills. It also intrudes on the silent time needed to be aware of inner transformations. We don’t realize we have become servomechanisms of IT – precisely because IT has weakened the inner skills of self-understanding. Shrinking of the rich range of human qualities to privilege only those which can be represented and operated digitally arises from the nature of the ego-mind and our particular Western history which has engendered – then valued – mental representations of reality. My focus here is to understand why the mind can be lured by the magic of the tools, while forgetting the person who is using them.

We believe we are empowered individually and politically as we post articles on our blogs and participate in social networks. In actuality, we feed the machine with our “user-generated content” which becomes candy for advertisers who then design ads based on what we say on Twitter, Facebook, and even our emails.

Jumping from information to self-understanding is necessary if we are to regain real freedom, a freedom from conditioning of our mind and the manipulation by information – whether self-created or from external sources. We mistake the transmission of gigabytes of data for freedom.

In our advanced technological society there is a reticence to acknowledge the inner, spiritual or metaphysical dimensions of life. What cannot be calculated – which is, thereby, “not objective” – is considered unworthy of investigation. Even more strongly denied is the relationship between technology and the impact on our psyche. Technophiles declare that it’s only a tool, as if our psyche could remain untouched by continuous interaction with digital media, and as if we could control its impact on us. We can indeed be in control of digital media – but only after we become fluent in those cognitive modalities which can’t be reached by such media.

To be unaffected by digital media, we need a Buddha-like awareness with sustained attention, mindfulness and introspection. Yet these very qualities which are needed to break out of the automated mind are especially difficult to access when we are drowning in information – information that is predominantly ephemeral and transient, and which lacks a broader narrative. Awareness is what gives meaning and depth to information, but for awareness to expand we need to empty our mind. A story will illustrate this. A university professor approached a master to learn about Zen. Tea was served, but when the cup was full, the master did not stop pouring. The cup, like the professor’s mind with its concepts and positions, was full. It must first be emptied to understand Zen. So, too, for the digital world.

The world over, people using the Internet click on the same icons, use the same shortcuts in email and chats, connect with people through the same Facebook modalities. This is the globalization of minds. In the process of the digitization of reality, regardless of content, we use predominantly the same limited mental channels and interact with the same tools. We bring the same attitudes, gestures and procedures to working, dating, shopping, communicating with friends, sexual arousal, and scientific research. And most of these activities are impoverished by this phenomenon. Everything is seen as an information system, from the digitization of territory (like Google Earth and augmented realities software) to our biology.

Judeo-Christian culture places nature and the world of matter at man’s disposal. Acting on them is a way to garner good deeds and regain the lost perfection of Eden. In this culture that has considered miracles as proof of the existence of God, we have developed technologies that resemble the miraculous and the divine. We are compelled to welcome the advent of new technological tools with the rhetoric of peace, progress, prosperity and mutual understanding.

The telegraph, telephone, radio, TV and other media have been regarded as tools for democracy, world peace, understanding and freedom of expression. The Internet is just the latest in a succession of promising messiahs. Yet we don’t have more democracy in the world. In fact, big media and big powers are even stronger, while freedom of expression has ceded to control by corporations and governmental agencies. The Internet, like TV, will be entertaining, dumbing people in their own separate homes where they will be unable to question the system. The Internet might already be the new soma for a society experiencing economic and environmental degradation. But with the huge economic interests connected to it, criticizing its effect is akin to cursing God.

Many technological developments appeal to people because they answer psychological and even spiritual needs – like the quests for understanding and connection with others. Already digital technology has taken charge of truth and love – the drives which are distinctly human. Those primordial needs have been addressed, on the mental level, with information. Reflected only at that level, our soul is left empty with craving for the real qualities, and our mind is left restless, craving more information and chasing after satisfaction in vain.

The need to extend our possibilities through technology derives from the need to recover parts of ourself that were lost during the development of our soul – the states of sharp perception, fulfillment, and peace. Information technology (IT) also satisfies our ancient drives for power and control, even giving us several options with a simple click or touch of a finger.

The endless multiplication of information can keep the ego-mind busy – and thus at the center of the show. IT is the most powerful mental “pusher” ever created, feeding the duality of the ego-mind (which is symbolically mirrored by binary technology). More than TV whose attractions are framed between the beginning and ending time of a show, the Internet, video games, and smartphones have no structural pauses or endings. Hooked on a “real-time” stream of information, they take us farther away from both the real and the appropriate time frames.

The computer charms us by reflecting our mind on the Net. Like Narcissus, we mistake the reflected image and enter a closed loop, charmed by our reflection. The Internet, since the beginning, has been considered a technology which could crumble central governments and organizations. Perhaps that forecast was an external projection of what can happen inside us: disturbance of the integration of our psyches.

Meditation helps us recognize that we construct reality and that the mind leads us astray. Meditation is a path back to reality, to truth, to knowing and mastering our minds – instead of mastering the computer as a way to outsource our mind’s skills. It is a way to expand our awareness and join the other global “Net” – of awareness that permeates everything.

Though I am Italian, I am publishing this book for the English market because it is a post-digital book which can be better appreciated in countries where digital culture has spread throughout society. In Italy, one politically powerful tycoon owns most of the media, and uses it to demonize the Net. In that setting, being critical of the Net invokes the accusation of aligning with power to castrate freedom of expression, which is the polar opposite of my intention.

I welcome every medium which expands our chances of expressing ourselves, but I am aware that true self-expression can happen only when there’s a true self, which can hardly be shaped by screen media.

I am grateful to my spiritual teachers who opened new dimensions for my soul in my journey toward awareness, especially the intensity of Osho and the brilliant clarity of A. H. Almaas. I thank my copy editor Dhiren Bahl (www.WordsWay-Copyediting.com) for his painstaking corrections of my English text and my editor David Carr (www.MovingWords.us) for his clarifications and stylistic improvements. I’m grateful to my friends, too many to list here, for the numerous talks bringing together heart and mind in sharing our passion for truth.

Detailed table of contents, introduction and chapter 1.

Order on Amazon.

The tendency of spreading sex has been adopted by many magazines of large circulation and by other media such as TV and Internet news sites. Magazines with large circulation have a well-defined and advertised section of “tips, tricks and secrets” concerning sex. It reminds me of the time when I was publishing computer science books where the tricks of using the software were revealed.

Apart from the fact that communication about sex has become technicized, giving space for tricks and the advice of “experts,” perhaps for exorcising the intense and inner engaging nature of sexuality, it remains a fact that sexual messages are present in a pervasive way in every media. It seems that the world is like a global “Sex and the City” set, made of free and varied sexual meetings. If this can be true in some areas of the world, the planetary diffusion of sexual messages culturally does not find much similarity worldwide. The reality is that at least two-thirds of the world lives in a rather restrictive, traditional, and sometimes even very repressive culture regarding sex.

The massive process of worldwide urbanization caused the appearance of a growing number of singles not only in the West but even in every emerging country, especially in Asia and the Middle East. In Shanghai, Delhi, Seoul, Bangkok, Dubai, Manila or Jakarta, the growing class of office employees is formed mainly of women, connected to the Internet.

They often live alone or with female roommates, are members of Internet social networks and dating sites, like Western women. During breaks at work they chat and a growing percentage connects to the Net from home also. This seems to be the lifestyle of many women in the West, but there is a fundamental difference: they live in a traditional society as far as sexual roles are concerned. Even though some countries, like Thailand, are well-known for their hot night life, the majority of people follow very traditional behavior and lifestyles.

As a contrast to their upbringing, a culture without filters can sneak through their computer screen (which has almost nothing to do with tradition) of virtual meetings, erotic chats and porno sites, sometimes extreme ones. The ease of getting in contact with anyone through dating sites is a great difference between ordinary reality and what one lives online on the screen. The gap between traditional culture and the online becomes more and more wide because the culture of a whole country evolves more slowly compared to the speed of technological and online transformation. A great dichotomy is being created between the way one should be and appear in a certain manner according to the requirements of traditional culture and what the Net offers.

Thus, peculiar figures are being created on the Net, whom I label cybervirgins: women who have never had real sexual relationships with a man but are sexually active online. We are not speaking about young girls, but college students, employed women, mature women and, it is rather surprising for a Western man to discover that women who are in their 30s or even 40s, in certain cultures, are still virgins if they’ve never had a husband.

The culture of which they are part limits the probability of a single woman meeting men, especially if she is not very young anymore. Added to this, there’s a social formality ruling contacts with the opposite sex and a series of traditional rules of behavior. To all the above we have to add the inner limits due to the superego: superego in terms of self-judgment about their behavior and the fear of being judged by society. Very often this female figure lives alone, far from the original family and feels lonely.

The solution seems to be right at hand. The Internet opens infinite possibilities of meeting, in contrast with the boring life of home and work (much more work in the emerging economies). Self-judgment is partially overcome by the protection given by the screen and by the fact that nobody will come to know anything. The medium helps her to know men, even intimately, of whom she has little experience. Afterward a world of seductions, desires, admissions, eroticism, curiosities, lust, pornography, cybersex through words or the webcam can be opened.

In the 1970s Nancy Friday published hundreds of interviews regarding the fantasies and sexual activities of women, revealing vivid, complex, imaginative, sometimes extreme sexual lives, debunking the cultural myth of those times that women “don’t think about sex that much.” Now the same fantasies can be shared online anonymously, but for a cybervirgin the sensuality and world of lust take place only through the Internet.

Cybervirgins are aware that there is a strong difference with real relationships, even if they have not had any. But after a prolonged experience online there are subtle mental mechanisms which at a certain moment get the upper hand. The nature of the medium itself, even in those who have had their cybersex experiences after many real ones, brings a peculiar attachment to the medium, much more for a cybervirgin. For example, she can define as a boyfriend a man with whom she had only online contacts, and who in turn probably defines himself the same way with other women. In some cases she can become dependent upon porn or cybersex, or masturbate compulsively with variegated sexual fantasies. At other times the extreme nature of some Internet porn creates an inhibitory instead of liberating effect, postponing the meeting with real sex even more.

But most of all the cybervirgin would become attached to the attention given to her in dating sites, to feeling seen, heard, desired and seduced. An email or a message in a dating site becomes the emotion of a love letter, a chat becomes a romantic evening. The process of seduction from the man’s side, which in order to be efficient must be necessarily gentle and respectful of the stages (otherwise just with a single click he can be deleted from her contacts), gratifies and hooks her. Therefore, it becomes possible to share intimately without any shame and to open oneself in manners which can hardly happen in reality. A man on the other hand can have the chance to perfect the art of seduction by learning not to be always impatient and to use words in a way that touch the mind, the emotions and the body.

Basically she is always searching for “the great love” but after a certain time the searching process in itself substitutes the end, which is also less risky for the heart than real meetings. Those few real meetings that she had (if she had any) were mostly unsatisfactory. Remaining in the virtual world she can continue to feed the dream of finding her prince. Because of cultural and religious reasons women have been told to give attention to the “high layers” more than to the body and its feelings. This has fed a world of dreams which sometimes expands in a lack of touch with reality.

There are also the “cybervirgins again”: women separated since years during which they have not had any sexual contact with a man, being busy with children, with their work, and being limited by their traditional societies which do not encourage new meetings. At a certain moment they find themselves with almost independent children as early as 40 years old and with the maturity which makes them more sensual and open. They are strong women who managed to carry on with their family as single mothers, passionate and willing to feel desired again, who find an escape from family and work pressure through the Internet.

The phenomenon of cybervirgins involves young girls as well. Any teenager can access sexual material through the Internet much before getting explicit guidance from the pivotal adults in her life, like parents or teachers. We teach sport to young people, we teach them technologies, culture, arts, but very seldom, even in the most progressive nations, is sexuality faced in an honest and open manner. We guide them step by step enrolling them in the most disparate courses but when it comes to dealing with sexuality, the strongest energy that a human being can meet (apart from meeting the Divine), society leaves them to themselves, abandons them with hypocrisy and cowardice so as not to face themes inconvenient to adults themselves.

Therefore, the first sexual curiosities are satisfied more often through the Internet and as more often than not these continue for some time before having real experiences. I wrote about the female universe because in the dating sites I visited and the people I chat with were mostly females. The masculine world has different modalities of entering the online world, nevertheless complementary in the direction of withdrawing from the reality.

The Internet is nothing new in having the initial approach to sex being mediated by images. This happened in the past as well. When I was a boy there were sex comic strip stories and magazines with sex photos. But it was different, quantitatively (what we could see was very mild compared with what is available today) and, above all, qualitatively (there was no interaction with a real person who probably will never be met).

Furthermore, in most parts of the world pornography did not exist or it could be accessed only in a limited way until a few years ago. The impact of porn is particularly strong in countries which got transformed in a few years from complete obscurity to having a direct entry in the intimacy of their homes. With the Internet an anthropological change is happening which has not yet been fully analyzed. Questionnaires of sociology and psychology do not matter in such a world: it is only possible to know it through having experienced it in first person or by word of mouth between friends. Now, Western and Eastern countries are joined by the same technologies, the same individualism and the same alienation.

In order to understand the impact of this phenomenon on the psyche and on relationships we do not need either judgments of the Internet as a medium, or of the involved people, but an attitude of research without prejudice.

The fundamental questions on this matter are: what happens when sex, an emotional and sensorial experience, in addition to being mental, gets mediated by a screen for a long time predominantly on the mental and visual planes? If this approach to sexuality is the first and the only one for a long time, what type of imprint does it leave on the psyche? What type of relationships with the opposite sex will be shaped in the future? Do Internet cyber-meetings smoothen the way for more open and deep meetings in reality, or do they make us increase the distance more and more from the real which is not familiar and which would involve unknown inner channels?

Our nervous system has the mechanism of a reward system that, when activated, can trigger the processes of compulsions and addictions. In the Internet, people can get addicted to online gambling, to online gaming, to porn, to cybersex, to online auctions, to chat, even to news and to surfing. Neuroscientists have also documented how the learning and the pleasure centers of the brain are the same.

My hypothesis is that addictions that have to do with the mind activity, such as computer addiction, are there in order to keep the mind busy and therefore surviving. A silent mind would mean no-mind; silence and stillness are the worse enemy for the ego, that breeds thoughts continuously and feeds on them.

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Il nostro sistema nervoso possiede un meccanismo di gratificazione che, una volta attivato, può provocare processi compulsivi e di dipendenza. Su Internet, le persone possono diventare dipendenti dal gioco d’azzardo o i videogame online, la pornografia, il cybersex, le aste online, le chat, persino le news e il navigare in sé. I neuroscienziati hanno documentato anche come i centri cerebrali dell’apprendimento e del piacere siano gli stessi.

La mia ipotesi che è le dipendenze connesse all’attività mentale, come la dipendenza da computer, seguono un meccanismo simile per tenere la mente occupata, e quindi farla sopravvivere. Una mente silenziosa significherebbe una non-mente; il silenzio e l’immobilità sono i peggiori nemici dell’ego, che genera e si nutre continuamente di pensieri.

[/it][en]

Our nervous system has the mechanism of a reward system that, when activated, can trigger the processes of compulsions and addictions. Dopamine is one of the neurotransmitters found in the nervous system, influences mood and feelings and has an important role in the motivation and reward systems. A reward system is a modality of the brain structures which regulate behavior by inducing pleasurable effects

The two most powerful drugs, heroine and cocaine, stimulate dopamine activity in the nervous system. In specific, heroin increases the neuronal firing rate of dopamine cells and cocaine inhibits the reuptake of dopamine. In both cases there is a mood enhancing quality that craves to repeat the experience, even though the feeling experience of those drugs is different. Repeated use can deplete dopamine in the nervous system and normal rewards lose their motivational appeal thus giving space to the addiction mechanism. These physiological changes are probably necessary in order to produce a real addiction.

The reward system is also activated by natural rewards, such as food, water, sex. They are intrinsically pleasurable in order to motivate people to survive and preserve the species. Sometimes those natural reward systems can become addictive too, but the simple activation of brain reward system is not an addiction in itself. An addictive behaviour is defined as the inability of normal rewards to direct behaviour. For instance, food, sex, work, family, health can be neglected due to addiction. While some substances, such as heroin and cocaine are very addictive and control people’s behaviour in an extreme way, others have a lesser influence.

With the huge development of technology and more and more people arriving to the net, spending more and more time online and having faster and faster connections, there is a growing number of people that are caught in this net.

People can get addicted to online gambling, to online gaming, to porn, to cybersex, to online auctions, to chat, even to news and to surfing. Neuroscientists have also documented how the learning and the pleasure centers of the brain are the same. Having a new idea, even if not addictive in itself, causes a release of euphoria-producing neurochemicals, such as dopamine and endorphins. Edgar Morin writes about the “cognitive obsessions”:

What stimulates research is at the same time what pollutes it and deceives it when the anxious pressing question, bringer of existential anguish and torments, automatically and necessarily brings about a helpful (and wished for) answer. The answer that “makes us feel well” and even gives us a psychic pleasure close to physical pleasure; at this point, as a laboratory rat that, by pressing the right pedal down, compulsively turns itself on by exciting its centre of pleasure to the point of forgetting to eat, so, as human beings, we look for the repetition of our psychic satisfaction by relentlessly calling back the idea that literally drugs us, and so our cognitive obsessions constitute us, fulfil us, feed us and endure in probably each one of us. Edgar Morin. La Méthode. III. La connoissance de la connoissance/1.

Jerry Mander documented the problems related to television viewing in a time when that was almost the only screen people were staring at.The hyperactivity of TV imagery, while pacifying the brain, simultaneously speeds up the nervous system.

TV makes us both dumb and speedy. In the end, television viewing just prepares us for the appropriate mental state for video games and computer fixation. [...] Scientists who study brain-wave activity found that the longer one watches television, the more likely the brain will slip into “alpha” level: a slow, steady brain-wave pattern in which the mind is in its most receptive mode. It is a noncognitive mode: i.e., information can be placed into the mind directly, without viewer participation. When watching television, people are receiving images into their brains without thinking about them. [...] So television viewing, if it can be compared to a drug experience, seems to have many of the characteristics of Valium and other tranquilizers. But that is only half of the story. Actually, if television is a drug, it is not really Valium; it is speed. [...] In their famous study of the effects of television, researchers at Australian National University predicted that as television became more popular in Australia, there would be a corresponding increase in hyperactivity among children. [...] Here’s how it works: while sitting quietly in front of the TV, the child sees people punching each other on the screen. There is the impulse to react – the fight-or-flight instinct is activated – but since it would be absurd to react to a television fight, the child suppress the emotion. [...] When the TV set is turned off, this stored-up energy bursts forth in the disorganized, frantic behavior that we associate with hyperactivity. Often, the only calming act is to turn the TV on again, which starts the cycle anew. [....] So television for youngsters, in addition to being a drug, can be understood as early training for “harder” drugs. Jerry Mander. In the absence of the sacred. Sierra Club. San Francisco. 1991

Staring at a screen, either a computer or TV screen, has initially a soothing effect, thoughts seems to slow down. It’s an illusion of reaching peace of mind, of reaching a state where we become still and peaceful, as in a meditative state.

The computer experience is much more powerful and complex than TV viewing because it mixes the passive state of staring at a screen with the frenzied activity of chasing after information, making contacts or being stimulated by sexual images or money related activities as online gambling, auctions or stock investing.

The seduction of Internet feeds a compulsive behaviour where we crave the appeal of a new email, of news, of contact with others through chat or forums. Social seeking behaviour and reward seeking behaviour intermingle. Social seeking has never been considered a compulsive or addictive behaviour but the current technology includes social life as just one more window present on the screen.

Even if they are not badly addicted, many people, myself included, experience difficulties in stopping online activity and can find themselves forgetting about eating, drinking, urinating, engaging with the people around them, or they postpone other activities in order to stay longer online. When other reward systems aren’t so appealing anymore, this is in itself a symptom of addiction.

Human physiology didn’t really change much since ancient times, physical development still works according to old patterns and hasn’t caught up with the huge cultural development that our minds have undergone over the centuries. At a bioenergetic level, when we sit at the computer we get powerful stimulations while our body is mostly still. My idea is that, since those stimulations can’t be balanced and released through the body, the energy gets stuck into the mind where it circles in loops looking for rewards, as a pale substitute for the real reward that an integrated connection with the body and deep mind stillness can give.

In this way porn and cybersex are an attempt to release tension and get back into body awareness. But even this kind of release has a short lasting effect since the experience is mostly driven by the same reward system mechanism.

Internet addition is quite difficult to get rid of it. First is not easily recognized since Internet and computer addiction can be masked by work and the need to be productive. Addicted people can justify their presence at the computer to themselves and to others with the need to “do” something.

If somebody is addicted to illegal substances like heroin or cocaine it is good to avoid every contact with the substance. It is also an important step in recovery for many addiction to avoid the setting, the places and objects associated with the addiction as well as other addicted people. But in the case of Internet addiction it is extremely difficult to avoid any contact with this medium since work, finance, travel planning, shopping, are all conducted online.

I notice that when I am far from Internet I can easily stay without it, then on the first contact after such a break, I say to myself “ok, I’ll just do this and that” then there is a compulsive feeling to do the other too, and check this and update that, and see if that site has anything new and… and… well, it just looks like the first glass of wine for an alcoholist that triggers all the others in an unstoppable chain.

The reward systems in our physiology haven’t been created for addictions, they have been created mainly for survival. Food and water and sex will give us a positive reward for ensuring the survival of our species.

My hypothesis is that addictions that have to do with the mind activity, such as computer addiction, follow a similar mechanism in order to keep the mind busy and therefore surviving. A silent mind would mean no-mind; silence and stillness are the worse enemy for the ego, that breeds thoughts continuously and feeds on them. This never-ending activity is a defence system of the mind in order not to lose its role as the main ego supporter. One of the many tricks the mind plays to safeguard its own survival.

The mind seems inclined to information overload and not easily satisfied as we would be on the body level after a big meal. The mind can create an almost infinite space to accommodate new information and new thoughts.

Those who practices meditation know how our mind seduces us and always tries to pull us in a net of thoughts and images to give our attention to. Meditation techniques that work on concentration and observation such as Vipassana have been developed as a way to observe our thoughts and emotions in a detached way in order to strengthen the witnessing and observing parts of the mind and weaken the distractive power of alluring thoughts.

When it comes to food intake, we became aware just in the past few decades of the deadly consequences of saturated fats, sugary foods and excessive consumption of red meats, which in the previous decades were greedily consumed as a celebration of abundance and improved economic status. With regard to information intake, we are now exposing ourselves to excesses, the ramifications of which will only be visible to us in the coming years. We waited with reforming our eating habits until there were tragic consequences for our bodies, hopefully we won’t delay adapting our computer behaviour until there are tragic consequences for the human mind.

In both industries there are enormous economic interests involved, therefore the growth of awareness of the possible dangers were very slow concerning food and are accordingly slow concerning technology. We will need “information dietetics”.

See also:

Neural reflexes and reflections on meditation

Disembodying at broadband speed

Heavenly Technology

The Tibetan watch: how a spiritual teacher learned about technology in the West

Virtual worlds and Maya 2.0

Bytes and bites of the net

Programming and self de-programming

Metabolizing information

Mental territories

Is Internet empowering us?

Wireless communication and reality mining as a reflection of pervasive consciousness

Multitasking to nothing

Biotech as an information system

Virtual worlds, mirror worlds, Second Life: backing up the messed planet

Mechanisms, mysticism and Amazon Mechanical Turk

Zen archery and computers

Lifelogging

The heart of the binary code

Downloading our life on Internet

Google, privacy and the need to be seen

Personal consumer
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Il nostro sistema nervoso possiede un meccanismo di gratificazione che, una volta attivato, può provocare processi compulsivi e di dipendenza. La dopamina è uno dei neurotrasmettitori del sistema nervoso che influenzano gli stati d’animo e le emozioni, ed è determinante nei sistemi di motivazione e gratificazione. Un sistema di gratificazione è un particolare processo cerebrale che regola il comportamento umano attraverso le sensazioni piacevoli.

Le due droghe più potenti, eroina e cocaina, stimolano l’attività della dopamina nel sistema nervoso; nello specifico, l’eroina aumenta la sintesi di dopamina, mentre la cocaina ne inibisce il riassorbimento. In entrambi i casi, si verifica un miglioramento dell’umore, che provoca il desiderio di ripetere l’esperienza, anche se le sensazioni provocate da queste droghe sono diverse. L’uso ripetuto può diminuire la quantità di dopamina nel sistema nervoso facendo sì che il meccanismo di gratificazione normale non sia più sufficiente, dando così origine al meccanismo di assuefazione. Queste alterazioni psicologiche sono probabilmente indispensabili per poter parlare di una vera e propria dipendenza.

Il sistema di gratificazione viene attivato anche dai piaceri naturali come il cibo, l’acqua, il sesso. Questi ultimi sono piacevoli in sé, per motivare le persone a sopravvivere e a preservare la specie. Talvolta anche questi sistemi naturali di ricompensa possono provocare dipendenza, ma la semplice attivazione del sistema di gratificazione nel cervello non è una dipendenza in sé. Per definizione, un comportamento dipendente si ha quando le gratificazioni normali non hanno più presa e il comportamento della persona viene alterato profondamente. Per esempio, il cibo, il sesso, il lavoro, la famiglia e la salute possono essere trascurati a causa di una dipendenza. Alcune sostanze, come l’eroina e la cocaina, generano una grande dipendenza e controllano il comportamento delle persone in modi estremi; altre esercitano un influsso minore.

A causa del grande sviluppo delle tecnologie e del numero crescente di persone che si connettono alla Rete per sempre più tempo e con connessioni sempre più veloci, aumenta il numero di coloro che in questa Rete restano intrappolati.

Su Internet, le persone possono diventare dipendenti dal gioco d’azzardo o i videogame online, la pornografia, il cybersex, le aste online, le chat, persino le news e il navigare in sé. I neuroscienziati hanno documentato anche come i centri cerebrali dell’apprendimento e del piacere siano gli stessi. Avere un’idea nuova, anche se non provoca dipendenza, genera una rilascio di sostanze euforizzanti, come la dopamina e le endorfine. Edgar Morin scrive sulle “ossessioni cognitive”:

Ciò che anima la ricerca è allo stesso tempo ciò che la parassita e l’inganna, quando la domanda ansiogena, portatrice delle angosce e dei tormenti esistenziali, scatena automaticamente e necessariamente la risposta soccorrevole (desiderata) che “fa bene” e anzi procura un godimento psichico prossimo al godimento fisico; a questo punto, come il topo di laboratorio che, premendo l’apposito pedale, si auto-eccita in modo coatto eccitando il proprio centro del piacere, sino al punto talvolta di dimenticare di nutrirsi, così l’essere umano cerca la ripetizione della sua soddisfazione psichica nel richiamo incessante dell’idea che letteralmente lo droga, e così si costituiscono, si soddisfano, si alimentano e si perpetuano, in ciascuno di noi probabilmente, le ossessioni cognitive. Edgar Morin. La conoscenza della conoscenza. Feltrinelli. Milano. 1989.

Jerry Mander ha documentato le problematiche connesse al guardare la televisione in un’epoca in cui essa era praticamente l’unico schermo disponibile.

L’iperattività delle immagini televisive, mentre da un lato acquieta il cervello, dall’altro accelera il sistema nervoso. La TV ci rende allo stesso tempo veloci e assopiti. In ultima analisi, guardare la TV ci prepara a quello stato mentale tipico dei videogame e della fissazione al computer. […] Gli scienziati che studiano l’attività delle onde cerebrali hanno scoperto che più si guarda la TV, più il cervello scivola in modalità “alfa”: una modalità di onde cerebrali lenta e fissa, in cui la mente è al massimo della ricettività. È una modalità non-cognitiva: ovvero, le informazioni possono essere immesse nella mente direttamente, senza partecipazione da parte dello spettatore. Quando la gente guarda la TV, riceve immagini nel proprio cervello senza riflettere su esse. […] Quindi, per fare un parallelo con le droghe, il guardare la TV sembra avere molte cose in comune con il Valium e altri tranquillanti. Ma questo è solo un lato della medaglia. In realtà, se la televisione è una droga, non è il Valium, è un’anfetamina. […] Nel loro famoso studio sugli effetti della televisione, i ricercatori dell’Australian National University hanno previsto che, parallelamente alla diffusione della TV in Australia, sarebbe aumentata l’iperattività dei bambini. […] Così funziona il processo: mentre sta seduto a guardare la TV, il bambino vede sullo schermo gente che si picchia. Sorge l’impulso di reagire – si attiva l’istinto lotta-o-fuggi – ma poiché sarebbe assurdo reagire a un litigio televisivo, il bambino reprime l’emozione. […] Quando la TV viene spenta, l’energia accumulata esplode in quel comportamento caotico e convulso che associamo all’iperattività. Spesso, l’unica azione calmante consiste nel riaccendere la TV, cominciando un nuovo ciclo. […] Quindi, per i più giovani, la televisione, oltre a costituire una droga, può essere vista come una preparazione precoce alle droge “più pesanti”.» . Jerry Mander. In the absence of the sacred. Sierra Club. San Francisco. 1991

Fissare uno schermo, che sia della TV o del computer, ha inizialmente un effetto calmante: i pensieri sembrano rallentare. Questa sensazione di pace mentale, di uno stato in cui siamo tranquilli e silenziosi – come in meditazione – è un’illusione.

L’esperienza del computer è molto più potente e complessa della TV, perché unisce la passività del guardare uno schermo alla frenesia del rincorrere informazioni, stabilire contatti, farsi stimolare da notizie, immagini sessuali o impegnarsi in attività finanziarie come le aste, gli investimenti in borsa o il gioco d’azzardo.

Internet alimenta un comportamento compulsivo che ci porta a rincorrere il piacere di ricevere un’email, trovare notizie, stringere rapporti attraverso chat o forum. La ricerca di socialità e di gratificazioni si mischiano. La ricerca di socialità non è mai stata considerata un comportamento compulsivo o dipendente, ma per la tecnologia moderna essa è semplicemente un’altra finestra sul monitor.

Anche se la nostra dipendenza non è grave, molte persone – me incluso – incontrano difficoltà a interrompere le attività online, e può succedere che ci si dimentichi di mangiare, bere, urinare, dare retta a chi ci sta accanto, oppure che si rinviino altre attività per poter stare più a lungo online. Quando l’interesse verso gli altri sistemi di gratificazione diminuisce, questo in sé è un sintomo di dipendenza.

La fisiologia umana non è cambiata molto dai tempi antichi: lo sviluppo fisico procede ancora secondo vecchi schemi e non si è adattato alla notevole evoluzione culturale attraversata dalla nostra mente nei secoli. A un livello bioenergetico, quando ci sediamo al computer riceviamo stimoli intensi, ma il nostro corpo è pressoché immobile. La mia idea è che, poiché questi stimoli non possono essere equilibrati e scaricati attraverso il corpo, l’energia resta bloccata nella mente, dove gira in tondo cercando gratificazioni, ovvero pallidi sostituti dell’autentica gratificazione rappresentata da una connessione integrata col corpo e da una mente profondamente silenziosa.

Da questo punto di vista, la pornografia e il cybersex sono un tentativo di sciogliere la tensione mentale e tornare alla consapevolezza corporea. Ma anche questo tipo di liberazione ha un effetto di breve durata, perché l’esperienza è per lo più guidata dal medesimo meccanismo di ricerca delle gratificazioni.

È particolarmente difficile liberarsi dalla dipendenza da Internet. Innanzitutto, essa non viene riconosciuta con facilità, perché la dipendenza da Internet e dal computer può nascondersi dietro il lavoro e l’esigenza di essere produttivi. Le persone dipendenti possono giustificare la loro presenza al computer, a se stesse e agli altri, con il bisogno di “fare” qualcosa.

Se qualcuno è dipendente da sostanze illegali come l’eroina o la cocaina, è bene evitare ogni contatto con tali sostanze. Un passo importante verso la guarigione, in molte dipendenze, è anche evitare i luoghi, il contesto e gli oggetti associati alla dipendenza, oltre che le persone dipendenti. Ma nel caso di una dipendenza da Internet, è estremamente difficile evitare ogni contatto con questo medium, perché il lavoro, gli affari, l’organizzazione dei viaggi, lo shopping, vengono tutti effettuati online.

Mi accorgo che quando sono lontano da Internet posso starne facilmente senza. Poi, dopo il primo contatto con esso, mi dico: «OK, farò solo questo e quello», ma poi sorge un bisogno compulsivo di fare qualcos’altro, controllare qui e aggiornare là, vedere se in quel sito ci sono novità e… Beh, sembra proprio il primo bicchiere di vino di un alcolizzato, che si trascina dietro tutti gli altri bicchieri in una catena inarrestabile.

I nostri sistemi di gratificazione fisiologici non sono stati creati affinché diventassimo dipendenti, ma affinché sopravvivessimo. Cibo, acqua e sesso ci forniscono gratificazioni positive per assicurare la sopravvivenza della nostra specie.

La mia ipotesi che è le dipendenze connesse all’attività mentale, come la dipendenza da computer, seguono un meccanismo simile per tenere la mente occupata, e quindi farla sopravvivere. Una mente silenziosa significherebbe una non-mente; il silenzio e l’immobilità sono i peggiori nemici dell’ego, che genera e si nutre continuamente di pensieri. Questa incessante attività è un sistema di difesa della mente per non perdere la sua funzione di principale sostegno dell’ego, ovvero uno dei suoi molti trucchi per sopravvivere. La mente sembra incline a un sovraccarico di informazioni, né si appaga facilmente, come invece avviene a livello del corpo dopo un pasto abbondante. La mente è in grado di fare continuamente spazio a sempre nuovi pensieri e informazioni.

Coloro che praticano la meditazione sanno come la mente ci seduce cercando sempre di attirarci in una rete di pensieri e immagini a cui dare retta. Le tecniche di meditazione che lavorano sulla concentrazione e l’osservazione, come la Vipassana, sono state sviluppate per osservare i nostri pensieri ed emozioni in modo distaccato, e rafforzare quindi la parte di osservazione e di “testimone” della mente, indebolendo la forza dispersiva dei pensieri seducenti.

Riguardo l’assunzione di cibo, solo nei decenni passati siamo diventati consapevoli degli effetti devastanti dei grassi saturi, gli zuccheri e le carni rosse, i quali negli anni precedenti erano stati abbondantemente consumati e celebrati come simboli dell’abbondanza e del benessere economico. Riguardo l’assunzione di informazioni, stiamo vivendo ora gli eccessi, e le conseguenze saranno visibili solo nei prossimi anni. Per cambiare abitudini alimentari, abbiamo aspettato le tragiche conseguenze sui nostri corpi: ora speriamo di non dover aspettare conseguenze tragiche sulla mente umana per cambiare il nostro rapporto con il computer e le informazioni.

In entrambe le industrie ci sono enormi interessi economici in gioco, quindi la consapevolezza dei possibili pericoli connessi al cibo è cresciuta lentamente, e sta crescendo lentamente per quelli connessi alla tecnologia. Avremo bisogno di una dietetica informativa.

Vedi anche:

Riflessi neurali e riflessioni sulla meditazione

Rendendoci incorporei a velocità di banda larga

Tecnologie divine

L’orologio tibetano: come un insegnante spirituale venne a conoscenza della tecnologia in Occidente

Mondi virtuali e Maya 2.0

La morsa e i morsi della rete

Programmazione e de-programmazione di sè

Metabolizzare le informazioni

Territori mentali

Internet aumenta davvero il nostro potere?

La comunicazione senza fili e il reality mining come riflesso della consapevolezza globale

Il multitasking: strafare per niente

Le biotecnologie come sistema informativo

Mondi virtuali, mondi specchio, Second Life: fare il backup di un pianeta nel caos

Meccanismi, misticismi e Mechanical Turk di Amazon

Il tiro con l’arco Zen e i computer

Lifelogging

Il cuore del codice binario

Download della vita su Internet

Google, la privacy e il mettersi in mostra

Personal consumatore

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