Has technology forced us into a 'present shock'?

Jim Giles, consultant

It is no longer possible for leaders to control how a political story unfolds (Image: Larry Downing/Reuters)

In Present Shock, Douglas Rushkoff says everyday technologies have destroyed our sense of perspective, but his insights need better backup

TOWARDS the end of Present Shock, the media theorist Douglas Rushkoff describes a radio talk show participant called Cheryl. She had phoned in to discuss the white trails that aircraft leave behind as they pass overhead.

Like other followers of the "chemtrail" conspiracy theory, Cheryl argued that these clouds contain chemicals that governments are distributing for some unknown but certainly nefarious purpose. Perhaps, she suggested, the aim was the creation of a planet-wide system for causing earthquakes. "Illuminating," replied the host, apparently in earnest.

Rushkoff knows why people like Cheryl think the way they do. In recent decades, he says, everyday technologies have forced us into a discombobulated state of constant alert. Our phones beep around the clock with news of emails, tweets and text messages. And entertainment networks have largely abandoned long-form narratives in favour of the strobe-like intensity of reality television.

Changes like these, thinks Rushkoff, have robbed us of the ability to pause and to put events into context. We are afflicted with "present shock". Among other things, it causes some of us, like Cheryl, to see connections where there are none.

Arguments of this nature, which link technology with major cultural and social changes, involve joining up a lot of dots. Rushkoff starts the process at an intriguing point: the invention of the remote control. Once channel-switching became effortless, viewers became less tolerant of character development and the other mechanics of narrative that help build a show up to its climax.

To keep newly impatient audiences locked in, networks had to up the frequency of dramatic events in their shows. Hence the creation, among other new genres, of reality television, where scandals hit the screen so regularly that viewers never hit the remote.

This loss of narrative has had knock-on effects. All disciplines rely on familiar grand narratives - the triumph of the underdog or the comeback of a fallen great in sport, say. But these don't resonate in our "post-narrative" world, says Rushkoff. It is one reason why, he argues, attendance at American football and baseball has declined in recent years.

Something related is also at work in the world of news, he says. Now the audience has no time for narrative, politicians are finding it harder to control the story they attempt to create about themselves. The result is policy-making on the fly.

These are big claims, but Rushkoff doesn't come close to substantiating them. Sometimes he simply gets his facts wrong: baseball attendance, for example, rose over the past two seasons. It is true that crowds thinned for a few years from 2007, but if you had to bet on the cause, would you go for the great recession, which began in 2008, or the death of narrative?

Rushkoff's other examples aren't much more helpful. He uses George W. Bush's so-called "mission accomplished" statement, made years before US forces actually withdrew from Iraq, as an illustration of how it is no longer possible for our leaders to control the way a political story unfolds. Yet Bush was hardly the first ruler to suffer from moments of hubris.

These careless examples irk, but others are almost offensive. At one point, Rushkoff notes the mental burden caused by multitasking - such as simultaneous tweeting, watching of television and talking on the phone - and suggests it may be a cause of teen suicide.

It is a bizarre foray into a complex issue. Mental health specialists have debated numerous causes of suicide in young people, from substance abuse to genetics. Whatever the causes, suicide rates among young people have remained relatively flat in the US during the past two decades.

This use of such loose sourcing and flawed examples has an ironic result: I was left feeling that Rushkoff has identified some interesting and potentially important phenomena, but woven them together so carelessly that the theory he has created disintegrates on close examination. Which, if you think about it, isn't a bad definition of a conspiracy theory.

This article appeared in print under the headline "Big bold claims"

Book information
Present Shock: When everything happens now by Douglas Rushkoff
Penguin
$26.95

Source: http://feeds.newscientist.com/c/749/f/10897/s/2a40e48e/l/0L0Snewscientist0N0Cblogs0Cculturelab0C20A130C0A40Chas0Etechnology0Eforced0Eus0Einto0Ea0Epresent0Eshock0Bhtml0Dcmpid0FRSS0QNSNS0Q20A120EGLOBAL0Qonline0Enews/story01.htm

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