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About Eugene weekly. (Eugene, Oregon) 1993-current | View Entire Issue (July 21, 2022)
Local Vocal and FROM A TO Z BY JOHN ZERZAN (Anti-) Social Media WE NEED CIVILIZATION TO COLLAPSE I t is a madly accelerating techno- world, one of endless interrup- tion. So-called social media have clearly made social exis- tence worse. Popular books and articles treat online immersion as a threat or an affl iction. Outsmart Your Smartphone, by Tchiki Davis (2018); Overcoming Internet Addiction for Dummies, by David Greenfi eld (2020); “I Gave up my Phone for 30 Days to Tackle My Screen Addiction — and it Changed My Life,” by anon. (2012), for example. It's instructive that the designers and purveyors of social media are very likely to keep their own kids away from it. Apt to send them to Waldorf schools, where electronics are banned! “Detox” programs and camps proliferate, especially in summer. The negative and addictive effects of social media could hardly be more widely known, as per countless stud- ies and reports. In the rushed technosphere, do folks daydream anymore? Some of us still write letters, but they've been pretty much replaced by tweets, “likes,” and the rest of fast-food-type “communication.” Even though we know that outside social media, people have more time and enjoy better mental/emotional health. "The Machine Stops" is an E.M. Forster story written in 1909. Forster envisioned people averse to human interaction and living in separate underground pods. They communi- cate electronically, controlled by a network called the Machine — until it begins to fall apart. Jaron Lanier, who, ironically, brought us virtual reality, fi nds hope in the storied collapse of the Machine as he tries to imagine a reformed model for social media. This could somehow be realized via a big changeover, called for in his 2018 book, Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now. Social media needs a make- over because, after all, “We can't aff ord to ditch it,” he asserts. We can't aff ord not to try to fi x it, "because otherwise we'll eventually have to gut a whole universe of digital technology." A whole universe that is carrying us further and further into the isolated, unhealthy, deskilled, surveilled, alien- ated dimensions of technology. Lanier is desperate to salvage this universe, but my hope is that it will collapse like the Machine in Forster’s story. It is really up to us to decide what needs to go. Always wired, ever more so? Or… ? John Zerzan is a local anarchist writer whose books include Elements of Refusal and Future Primitive. You can listen live to his “AnarchyRadio” at 7 pm Tuesdays on KWVA 88.1 FM or via audio streaming. $30 ALL TOP JULY 30, 2022 ALTON BAKER PARK Performances - Demos Marketplace - Food Vendors Youth Acvies 10:00 A.M. - 9:00 P.M. Free Admission www.AsianCelebraon.org SHELF EIGHTHS TOP SHELF $199 OZ. ANY PURCHASE $40+ $5 OFF WI TH THI S COU PON 1553 OAK STREET, EUGENE, OREGON 97401 Presented by the Asian American Council of Oregon 4 J U LY 2 1 , 2 0 2 2 (541) 636-3323 EXP 7/31/22 WWW.PEACHMENU.COM DO NOT OPE RAT E A VE HI CL E OR M ACHI NE RY UNDE R T H E IN FLU EN CE OF T HIS D R U G FOR U S E ON LY BY AD U LT S 2 1 YEARS OF AGE AN D OLD ER • KEEP OU T OF REACH OF CHILD REN E U G E N E W E E K LY . C O M
