Reading Response: "Program or Be Programmed" Ch. 1-5 by Rushkoff

While reading the preface and the introduction I kept being reminded of both McLuhan's "The Medium is the Message" and Daniel Quinn's Ishmael series of books. Rushkoff writes, "You know when you're watching a TV commercial, but chances are you don't know when you're living in a virtual one" (p. 8) This harkens back to McLuhan's anonymously quoted stanza, which has other tangents I'll comment on elsewhere:

In modern thought, (if not in fact),

Nothing is that doesn’t act, 

So that is reckoned wisdom which 

Describes the scratch and not the itch.

Similarly, Daniel Quinn explores Mother Culture; we live in it, but we do not know it, because that's all we've ever known. Like a fish swimming in water, most of us have no context of our environment. Rushkoff mentions "the kind of money we use [and] our dependence on the automobile" (p. 10) and that "We no longer question their existence or the ways in which they impact our lives because it seems they have always been here. They're just part of the fabric of our reality" (p. 10). There are no alternatives to capitalism, because that's just the way it is. And even if there were, they would be bad.

Understanding the motivations of the person driving the car, to use Rushkoff's analogy, is critical to understanding things from a 30,000 ft view. Where are you going, and is that where your really want to go? What other destinations mightn't we have discussed? Again, quoting Rushkoff, "You may always choose 'none of the above'" (p. 52).

Great advice follows, and I've been making progress to following it. Rushkoff advises "Do not be always on" (p. 28), and I've been configuring my devices to give me space. My phone is set to Do Not Disturb from 22:00 - 0700, and I've removed Facebook from my phone and tablet. Given its stress-inducing nature, I limit checking FB to <= once a day. That said, I tend to check Twitter when bouts of insomnia strike, which I'll agree isn't helpful. I had a smartphone for a few years, then circumstances provided a retro phone for several years, and I've only recently started using a smartphone again. That break was helpful in getting out of the habit of being on FB, Twitter, and email constantly. In fact I did several hours of work email off-the-clock every week before my retro phone broke me of that habit.

I think getting rid of cable freed me of some of the linear influences that Rushkoff mentions, esp. since streaming is less of a tether than live TV (even if you consider DVR as a cable-feature). The DVR became a burden, as I had recorded programs I felt I had to watch. Even with the forced ads of the current pay version of Hulu, I feel more in control and less obligated to consume content I'm not really interested in.

On outsourcing of memory (p. 39): This is spot on, and I've noticed this specifically re: route finding. I've made an intentional effort to look at routes before I go and to have a good idea of my destination's location. I noticed that when I rely more on Google Maps, my ability to recall routes/directions decreases since I'm not using those muscles as much. While I don't care as much about memorizing rote facts that I can easily look up, route finding is not a skill I'm interested in sacrificing to outsourcing.