INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY11/06/22
It's been said by social media Internet documentaries that social media and their corporate platforms race to the bottom to disrupt you and grab your attention. When you click on an ad or link to a website, they get your attention and the possibility of buying something.
Usually the things you don't need but feels a bit guilty when bypassing the opportunity.
Today, I have already planned to clean the dining part of my apartment. At 06:30 hrs, I got up and as usual in the morning I check my email and see what's new on my favourite news sites.
Something pops up either an ad or on the news that grabs my attention and takes me away from my normal sites. And as my interests lead me from one site to another, my feelings and senses are fully occupied, I have completely forgotten about cleaning my dining room.
It's now 08:30 hrs and I want to start cleaning my dining room, but it makes me somewhat feel excited and lively when I keep on surfing, at the same time feel tired and stressful when I think about cleaning my dining room.
The right thing to do for me is to clean the dining room because I am moving in two days and of course the apartment has to be cleaned. I have cleaned the bathroom the day before and today it's the dining room; tomorrow the bedroom.
In my mind, the right thing to do is to clean the dining room. But my feelings and senses don't feel good about it. So I am likely to not do a good job if I ever do it at all.
I don't know the conventional scientific term for this but I am thinking of 'cognitive dissonance', a conflict in decisions of priorities. I am also thinking of how feelings and senses totally overwhelm the mind by actually feeling bored and stressful when thinking away from the feel-good stimulant, you know the dopamine effect and addiction.
It could be said that I am addicted to the Internet, only that I deny it like most addicts. Besides, I am a principle person and I have no real conflict between mental and physical decisions. But I understand how powerful feelings and senses are in making one feels good or stress.
This is it! The pattern or psychology of your behaviour is recorded every time you wake up, check your email and read the news. Every thing you click on indicates your interests and likes. And of course, when your interests and likes are met, you feel good.
While this is happening, you are training the chemicals in your brain in responds to your feelings and senses. If this is true, then you can retrain or untrain the same chemicals by changing your feelings and senses.
The ground up approach is changing your feelings and senses; the top down approach is changing your mind.
And this is crucial to change. Obviously, feelings and senses do just that. They feel good or stressful. It is when one learns to feel good about doing the right things such as cleaning the dining room. And cognitive dissonance may prioritise objective and productive things over pastimes and leisure activities.
I can add the urgency of time and the consequences of paying a fee if cleaning the dining room is not done. And once the landlord list me in the 'tenant from hell category', OMG, I'm going to be homeless.
You see how a simple act of leisure can make one homeless, break up families, lose jobs and other escalations to violence and crime.
So are you happy now huh! Information Technology is destroying society.
That is why we like to hang on to solid objective values of id, moral principles and social order. They provide the anchor to slow the slide down the spiral.
Ids are values passed down from family, culture and belief. When prioritising decisions, feelings and senses are measured against values and principles. And it is likely that the one who has a strong standard of values and principles will feel good about doing the right thing. The one who prioritises good feelings of material desires is likely to end up homeless.
Who knows, the feelings and senses may work out a trick to escape liability, you know, but the slide of the spiral is inevitable.
There has to be a better way to sustain a living without destroying the physical and social environment. The old static material economy continues the slide of the spiral. The wellbeing economy sustains a balance and stability from the mind to the social and physical.
It's now 09:35 hrs and I have to get up and start cleaning.