Don’t Disconnect, Just Unplug…

Unplugged does not mean disconnect. No way! In fact, it actually means reconnect with our lives … our friends, our families, our feelings. With business, ideas, the world.

So, when I say unplug, it’s not a screed against technology. Far from it. It’s technology that allows me to unplug and connect in meaningful new ways.

Esteemed MIT professor Sherry Turkle, who has been writing for years on the impact of technology, especially its human costs, wrote in the New York Times this week that the more we connect through devices, the less we truly converse. Our “I share, therefore I am,” connectivity is changing not merely what we do, but more importantly and detrimentally who we are.

Devices, apps, social platforms do not define us. They are mere amplifiers in and of themselves, not creators.

Child development experts are similarly concerned. One specialist thinks that too many babies are being shortchanged by their moms, who are often so engaged with their smartphones, they are cheating their babies out of face-to-face interactions. A tragedy because: “They learn language, they learn about their own emotions, they learn how to regulate them.”

And clearly the moms and dads checking their phones incessantly are also the parents handing their kids iPads and iPhones every time they intuit they are about to get “restless.” Must be evolutionary. Back when I was raising my kids, the going concern was keeping kids away from the perceived dangers of TV viewing.

At Google, the wellspring of so much of today’s innovation and technology, their research shows that people are happier when they are not always connected with work. So, how do they disconnect? By not reflexively, obsessively checking their email. This is Google talking, folks. Pay attention

And what does it say when the elite of Silicon Valley have opted to send their children to the Waldorf school there (75% of the students have parents in high tech) — a school that is entirely computer-free, unwired, unplugged in the belief that computers hamper learning and creativity.

In fact, my Oscar-winning movie scenario is one in which all the computers in the world are killed by a single deadly Google-spread virus. And the survivors who inherit the earth are all children of Google execs, all Waldorf grads.

So we unplug.

Not because we are opposed to technology. We know it makes our lives better

Not because we think it is destroying humanity. We understand that it can do massive good works.

Not because we are scared of it. We all get that technology is our friend.

In fact, the real digital revolution is humanist at its core. It’s not about gamification, valuation, monetization. It’s about using technology to solve real problems. Societal problems. Human problems.

The real digital revolution recognizes that you can’t have 15,000 real friends and have anything resembling meaningful interactions. Hence the rise of apps to accommodate the shrinking size of social networks. Look at Facebook’s purchase of WhatsApp.

The real digital revolution values dumb phones as much as smart ones (imagine actively promoting something other than the latest and greatest) because in some parts of the world, the dumb phones are an affordable, do-able way to help bring water or supplies or knowledge to places in need.

The real digital revolution recognizes that being unplugged adds to your ability to be plugged in. Because our technology solutions will only be as good as the people who make them.

And if we make our human interactions merely transactional, if we keep our thumbs active and our emotions still, if we lose the ability to connect as people, down the road I’d wager the technology will suffer, too.

Digital is everything, but not everything is digital.

I’m ready to wager that unplugging will make us smarter about how we use technology. And technology smarter about us.

Photo: Getty Images