This week I have discovered a new movement called ecopsychology http://www.ecopsychology.org/ which advocates that the health of the planet can have an impact on the well being of it’s inhabitants. It makes sense that the condition of a person’s immediate surroundings could change their psychological state and that things like noise pollution, traffic congestion and overcrowding in cites could contribute to rising numbers of mental health issues within the population.
I made the discovery when I picked up the most recent copy of Adbusters in my local indi bookshop. There is a featured essay by Kalle Lasn and Micah White called Ecology of the Mind https://www.adbusters.org/magazine/90/ecology-mind… which makes the claim that
“in the last couple generations, we have largely abandoned the natural world, immersing ourselves in virtual realms. Along with this transition to a new psychic realm, we have also seen the exponential rise of mental illnesses.”
The article outlines six contributing causes of mental atrophy which occur as a result of digital culture: noise, infotoxins and infoviruses, the erosion of empathy, loss of infodiversity, the fragmentation of our psyches (jumpy brain syndrome) and running out of culture. All of these are caused by our ongoing dependancy on computers and digital devices, particularly the internet. The authors quote Nicholas Carr http://www.roughtype.com/ when he claims that
“Over the past few years, I’ve had an uncomfortable sense that someone, or something, has been tinkering with my brain, remapping the neural circuitry, reprogramming the memory… what the Net seems to be doing is chipping away my capacity for concentration and contemplation. My mind now expects to take in information the way the Net distributes it: in a swiftly moving stream of particles.”
When writing about new technologies I have always been careful to avoid the reactionary riot of technological determinism that was prevalent within early critique of the internet. At the inception of platforms such as Second Life it was often fantasied that humanity might depart earthly realms in order to eat, sleep and reproduce virtually. What this edition of adbusters points out is that almost 20 years on from the birth of the internet, our bodies have not been so easily abandoned. While a little occasional internet use is in no way detrimental, when combined with 24 hour TV, constant use of iphones and ipods and the fact that more and more people sit alone at their laptops during 12 to 15 hour work days…. it could easily be changing the way our brain functions.
