Eat, Kiss,
& Smile Better!
Terry Anne Sams, DMD
910.687.4423
200 Westgate Drive
West End
W 9:00A - 6:00P
T 9:00A - 4:00P
F 9:00A - 4:00P
S 9:00A - 2:00P
Katherine Smith, a local from Pinebluff, is
an Alaskan greenhorn and accidental poet.
She’s currently working in Chugach National
Forest, living to make life that is art.
THROUGH THE MUSCADINE continued
THROUGH THE MUSCADINE continued
CALL TODAY!
FAMILY OWNED
281-4567
AMERICAN
THROUGH THE MUSCADINE con't. next column THROUGH THE MUSCADINE con't. next column
www.SandhillsWeekendDental.com
30+ YEARS
DELIVERING
COMFORT
& ROCK SOLID
DEPENDABILITY
24
HOUR
EMERGENCY SERVICE
You Are Your Attention
by Katherine Smith
Twelve years ago, the smartphone didn’t
exist. Now, nearly 90 percent of all Americans
own one, and half tell Pew researchers that they
could not live without it.
We spend a minimum of two and a half
hours every day on our phones, average dozens
of studies, with heavier users, often teenagers,
averaging over four hours.
Before protesting that you don’t have that
amount of time to waste, download a screentracking
app such as Moment or Screen Time.
You probably use your device about twice
as often as you think you do, according to
University of Lincoln research.
These disparate numbers indicate that there
is an unconsciousness in how much we rely
on our devices, a
consequence of
the current phone/
body fusion. We
track our steps,
calories, heart
rate and sleep
with them. The
European Journal
of Neuroscience
found that you
respond to your
phone through the
same involuntary
attention system
that responds to
the sound of your
own name. A quarter of millennials would
rather lose one of their five senses than their
smartphone, according to a 2018 Tappable
study.
The view that this addiction is the fault of
absent self control or uninvolved parents is
misguided at best. Facebook, instagram, and
Twitter were created to be addictive. It’s how
Facebook, a company that charges nothing for
its services but your precious time was valued in
2017 at $500 billion, a third more than the most
valuable American oil company, Exxon Mobile.
Social media and app companies need your
time spent posting, liking, commenting and
private messaging so they can build a profile of
your digital interests to sell to advertisers in the
economy of attention.
The required habitual use is created by
varying the rewards you receive to create “a
craving,” and exploiting negative emotions
that can act as “triggers,” writes tech industry
consultant Nir Eyal in his book Hooked: How to
Build Habit-Forming Products.
Even while proselytizing the techniques
of compulsion, Eyal admits that he’s installed
a router timer in his home to cut off internet
access at a set time every day.
Justin Rosenstein, the Facebook engineer
who created the “like” button, hired an assistant
to block him from downloading any apps,
describing his creation of “likes” as “bright dings
of pseudo-pleasure” that can be as hollow as
they are seductive.
“All of our minds can be hijacked,” Tristan
Harris, a former Google employee, says. “Our
choices are not as free as we think they are.”
To understand this guided compulsion’s
consequences, we look to “iGen,” the generation
born between 1995-2012; the ones who grew
up around smartphones and don’t remember a
time before the internet.
One of the world’s top generational
demographers Jean M. Twenge coined the title.
While today’s teens are physically safer than
ever before, she says, being more comfortable in
their bedrooms than at a party or in a car, they
are also more psychological vulnerable. Rates of
teen depression and suicide have skyrocketed
since 2011, and college counselors report
that most of their growing visitors suffer from
anxiety related disorders. And the more time
teens spend looking at screens, the more likely
they are to report symptoms of depression and
loneliness, found Monitoring the Future survey.
Paradoxically, less, not more, “connection”
is essential to curb what could be a devastating
mental health crisis. “We enter solitude, in
which also, we lose loneliness,” Wendell Berry
said. The subjective state of solitude is when
your mind is free from the input of other minds,
and thereby summons insight and emotional
balance. But our culture is suffering from
solitude deprivation, especially when alone
with our hand-held devices.
In order to return to our senses, we need a
“Digital Declutter,” outlined by Georgetown
University computer science professor Cal
Newport in his book “Digital Minimalism.”
The declutter begins when you remove all
optional digital technology from your life for
30 days, during which you aggressively explore
and rediscover activities and behaviors that are
satisfying and meaningful. You write out your
specific seasonal goals and the behavioral rules
needed to get there, and schedule them into
your calendar weekly. At the end of 30 days, your
suspended technology is reintroduced only if it
is the very best way to support your values.
The nearly-forgotten Sabbath was once
a shelter from the white noise of the world.
Without an enforced refuge of stillness and
silence from the frenetic pace of our digital
lives, it is almost impossible to attune our
spiritual senses to the voice of God. Remember
the Sabbath, and keep it holy. There is no pulse
without spaces of rest. ☐
A quarter of
millennials
would rather
lose one of
their five
senses than
their
smartphone...
"Togetherness in the good old days," by L.S. Crain.
No. 134 The Pinehurst Gazette, Inc. p.33
/www.SandhillsWeekendDental.com