JOHANNESBURG — The good, the bad and the innovative, is how best to describe Stephen Mulholland’s piece on the digital age. Because while progress has opened doors previously unthinkable the less talked about negative effects don’t make the front page news. Mulholland draws on a personal encounter, to alert those, especially the young and vulnerable, to the dangers of the digital age. – Stuart Lowman
By Stephen Mulholland*
There can no denying that the digital age with its smart instruments, incredible capacity, phenomenal speed and affordable prices has permanently, and massively, altered lifestyles around the world.
Productivity has been boosted as never before in history. Yesterday’s miracles such as the wheel, the combustion engine, electric power, the conquest of the air pioneered by the Wright brothers and followed by the conquest of the stratosphere led by the Russians and developed by the Americans, Alexander Bell’s telephone and many others have all been massively enhanced by the advent of the digital age.
Human error is being removed from sophisticated surgical procedures such as, for example, the treatment of cancer of the prostate, now performed remotely with computer driven surgical tools.
However, technological progress brings with it its own negatives. Fuel-powered travel on land, sea and in the air has brought with it not only valuable advantages such as convenient international travel and movement of goods but also downsides of pollution, loss of life and abuse of natural resources.
Of course, all progress has it faults and, among the digital age’s most egregious are invasions of privacy and the damage, some of it irreparable, done to children.
Facebook, for example, is my nemesis. It invades my space and no one seems able to rid me of its attentions. This monster, once it has you in its grip, in my case, by accident, lurks in the background passing your name and email address to hundreds, even thousands, of people who wish to be “friends.” Listen, Facebook, I am 82 and have all the friends I need. Piss off out of my life.
At Heathrow Airport here in London recently, a young man, talking animatedly on his cell phone, walked straight towards me, completely unaware of the impending collision awaiting him. He was staring at his screen paying zero attention to those around him. When he bumped into me he was so startled he dropped his phone. As he dived to the floor to rescue it I called out: “Watch where you’re going, idiot.” He ignored me, rescued his precious phone and hurried off.
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But it is not only young adults who are drowning in the digital overload. The Daily Telegraph and other news organisations in the UK report almost daily on the ravages which the digital age is wreaking on those as young as two (yes, 2 years of age). In her new book, “Raising Children in a Digital Age,” Dr Bex Lewis refers to a study by the UK’s Department of Culture, which reports that one in four children in this country under the age of two and more than a third of 3-to-5 year olds own a tablet.
Ofcom, the UK ‘s government’s broadcasting regulator, has determined that 39% of 8-to-11 year olds have their own smartphones and 94% of them are online for an average of more than 13 hours a week. It gets worse. One 17-year-old in one 24-hour period spent 3.3 hours on Snapchat, 2.5 hours on Instagram, two hours on Face, 2.4 hours on WhatsApp and 1.8 hours on Safari. This is a total of 12 hours.
Unless we change our ways, police this activity more closely, warn our children and, by way of example, forbid the use of digital gadgets, particularly including phones, at the dinner table, we will reap a whirlwind of whole families addicted to the immediate, electronic delivery of endless garbage into their minds. One of Ofcom’s advisors, Damon de Ionno, says that young people questioned replied: “I use (my phone) all the time because it is always there”; “I would feel pretty lost without my phone.” “It’s pretty much mindless;” “It is a waste of time” and “I am not really engaging with anyone or anything.”
It is fascinating to learn that the World Health Organisation has now included “gaming disorder” or addiction to endless playing of games on computers and the like as a mental health condition in the latest version of its International Classification of Diseases or ICD.
But there is hope. Dr Souma Swaminathan, of the World Health Organisation says: “The disorder (compulsive gaming {on line}) is defined as a particular pattern of persistent or recurrent gaming behaviour which significantly impairs peoples’ ability to function normally…those in the grip of a gaming disorder prioritise playing over other interests in their lives and regular daily activities – sometimes not even eating or going to the bathroom.”
She adds: “…this is a very real problem with established risks.”
Thus it seems that we should all be alert to these dangers of the digital age, particularly as they affect the young and vulnerable.
- Stephen Mulholland is a retired editor and publishing CEO. In 1966 he founded the Sunday Times Business Times. He was editor of the Financial Mail and Business Day and SA correspondent of The Wall Street Journal. He was CEO of Times Media Limited and the Fairfax group in Australia.
