Translator: Dawn Theresa Suffling Reviewer: Amaranta Heredia Jaén
Ana stared at it,
she said she loved it
and she literally put it in her pocket.
Then, she asked me what I thought.
I said, "It's good,
it has various functions.
It's an excellent cell phone".
I've come here to talk to you about the relationship we have with devices.
I'm a psychologist, I know how to listen,
and psychology has until now dealt with what people do,
think, feel, say, and how they relate to us and themselves.
But, the fact is that devices
increasingly take up more of our time.
We're increasingly surrounded by technology
and we relate to this technology more and more.
I suggest
that we delve into this and see how we relate to technology,
I'll primarily talk about the cell phone,
which is the technology we have most at hand.
(Cell phone ringing)
Answer it. Answer it.
(Laughter) (Applause)
To start with I suggest a scenario.
Just imagine, leaving your house,
walking a block
and arriving at the bus stop just as the bus gets there.
That sounds more like science fiction than imagination.
Let's try another.
You leave your house in your car,
full tank and drive two or three blocks in your convertible,
and at that moment you realize something terrible.
Your worst nightmare has happened.
You've left your cell phone at home.
That's the paradigmatic scenario.
The question I'm posing to everyone is,
raise your hand if you dare.
Who would go home to look for their lost cell phone?
OK, I'm going.
(Laughter)
I knew this would happen, I said it.
Because normally approximately 50% of the people
would go home, today, this is a special audience.
It's a polite way of saying something, right?
Perhaps we'll see why this has happened with this particular audience.
So, we have the answer and now I suggest
that we make a kind of diagnosis,
if you want to participate, raise you hand.
Based on "ringxiety" or "ringtone anxiety",
something described by the psychologist David Laramie,
I suggest you consider:
Firstly, at any point in your life
have you heard your cell phone ring, even though it hasn't?
(Laughter)
Want to raise your hand?
(Laughter)
Let's continue.
So quick.
Have you felt your cell phone vibrate,
(Laughter)
even though it hasn't?
This is annoying.
Have you felt "no cell phobia?", a new condition of our times.
I mean, "no cell phobia".
The phobia of going out without a cell phone.
Good.
I create work for my colleagues, you know, right?
(Laughter)
Lastly, have you felt naked?
I'm referring to devices,
when you don't have them with you?
Good.
And you upstairs as well, right?
I want to focus on this as it seems important.
Just imagine Marco Polo,
Ferdinand Magallenes,
Christopher Columbus,
and saying to them,
I'm going to sail the seas without a cell phone.
(Laughter)
Clearly, when one steps back and looks at it,
one says, well, we've obviously changed.
We've become weaker.
We're more reliant on technology.
Much more.
There is a story about this, about the telephone in particular,
as we're talking about it,
I've got a story that I'm going to tell you.
Firstly, we have a device that used to be there,
behind closed doors at home.
Where one went to make a call.
It was an object there.
I mean, we had a touch-and-go relationship.
Or call-and-go.
And if you're older, dial-and-go.
(Laughter)
Then, we started to have a more formal relationship.
Cell phones started to appear and we started to go out.
Not everyone, just some,
we started going out, to make the relationship official,
more and more,
and we started to go out more formally, every time.
At the beginning people were embarrassed to talk on a cell phone.
Do you remember?
Because it was something private.
Something that we used to do behind closed doors.
So, there were people that looked for private spaces to speak in.
Now if the cell phone rings you answer it.
Whatever you're talking about.
If mine rings I'll answer it.
(Laughter)
It's changed.
We've have become... Sorry.
Also, there were other people who used fake cell phones at the start.
Do you remember?
I mean, they were toy phones,
it was incredible.
People wanted to be different, the other side of narcissism,
shame and exhibitionism.
They were talking on fake cell phones.
So, we started to form this relationship,
to such an extent, that the relationship is touch-and-go,
we started going out and made it official.
We got engaged, right?
Then, this relationship started to get all clingy,
Kind of like, "Sweety, are you going out without me again?"
(Laughter)
Hi to my wife who's up there.
(Laughter)
I'm such an old woman.
And we've started to feel like our cell phone is part of us.
I mean, touch-and-go, going out, making it official,
and it started to cling on to us.
This is a survey in Puerto Rico.
So when they ask, "How do people feel without a cell phone?"
Guess what people said?
"Like something's missing".
"They feel helpless".
"Insecure".
"Worried".
But, the worst is that they feel like an artificial limb.
(Laughter)
I mean, you remember, right?
A touch-and-go relationship becomes an artificial limb.
We can't live without it. We got married.
That's why you feel these emotions.
What they found, keep calm,
is that they're, well, almost normal.
(Laughter)
A few years ago, I spoke about the concept of hypo-body,
which is the concept of how one feels without technology.
Technology amplifies and allows you to do things.
When one doesn't have it, it feels like these things are missing.
And these feelings of hypo-body are just cultural experiences.
As it was something outside of the body, that was attached to us,
and when we don't have it we have all of those feelings
that happen to you, and to me too.
To the point of feeling it like a phantom limb.
Like what happens to amputees that lose a limb,
but they can still feel the sensations.
As if it were still there, a foot or a hand. Right?
An arm.
But, regarding relationships, there's more to talk about.
Because amongst couples, the interfering cell phone
has become a kind of umbilical cord.
This is very clear in couples.
One sees people sending text messages.
I do it with one thumb.
The kids do it with both thumbs.
And in a couple, it creates such a feeling of intimacy
that it withdraws you from the world.
And it puts the biggest smile on your face that you've ever seen.
(Laughter)
It's true that the cell phone creates intimacy.
Deep intimacy.
You feel like saying things that you wouldn't say face-to-face.
That's the advantage. It's written letter.
But also, also,
knowing the other person is there.
The sensation of being close together is huge.
But, this umbilical cord is also related to our children.
And it works in a different way. It's different.
We think it has the same structure as a neuron.
It connects us with our children, it gives us security,
so we buy them one, they say, "Yes, I'll be much safer and relaxed".
But really, their neurons want
them to connect with their partners and friends.
To socialize.
When you ask people
why they want a cell phone,
the truth is this.
They may say that for security.
This neuron outline that appears when using a mobile device,
what it really wants is for kids to reach out and connect
with their friends, partners, the people they really care about.
Despite the fact that we pay for it. Most of the time.
Another thing that has changed. Look.
When we used to call by telephone,
we knew we were calling another house.
We knew for sure.
At times it happens to us at home, but not to me.
Because they don't let me say it.
(Laughter)
One takes on the role of parent, file, open, parental role,
and says,
"No! Don't call someone's house at this hour".
So, the children, not mine, yours or other people's,
or people who aren't here,
they look at you condescendingly,
with that face
that kids put on when they meet someone or have an anthropological meeting
with someone out of the ark.
(Laughter)
You recognize it, right?
(Laughter)
And they say,
"No, Dad, I'm not calling someone's house.
I'm calling a person".
(Laughter)
Good, good, good, good.
(Laughter)
Do whatever you want.
(Laughter)
But I raised the grades.
(Laughter)
If we thought that when we had all the answers,
the damned cell phones changed the questions,
they've also changed the context.
Many contexts.
The first question we used to ask in a phone call was,
"Who am I talking to?"
Today we know who's talking and who isn't.
Nowadays we ask, "Where are you?"
We need to re-locate the other person because cell phones create confusion.
They displace, but we need to re-locate their whereabouts.
It generates a psychological need to re-locate the other person.
Because contextual memory needs fixed locations.
Everyone remembers, think,
where they were when madman Abreu
scored the penalty during the World Cup in South Africa.
Everyone remembers.
With social networks we don't have contexts to join the experiences together,
we'll have this problem in the future.
That in itself would warrant closer study and it's not today's topic.
It has also changed the way we relate.
Because that object that we had there,
that was separated from us, is now with us,
and within that object there are various contacts, friends.
And so we are continuously connected by default,
We sometimes feel the need to disconnect as a respite.
Even though the cell phone is the screen that never switches off.
And this has consequences, above all for the kids
who now get between 2 to 3 hours less sleep than 10 years ago.
Don't call a house or send a message at this hour.
No way!
They send messages, they wake up, they answer.
And this affects them.
But it also means that we are always connected by default.
Instead of being disconnected by default, we are connected by default.
This relationship that we've established with the cell phone
provides many psychological functions, of support, companionship and protection.
Because my contacts are in that cell phone.
If I go far away, on the road, it has to be with me,
because it ties me to my loved ones.
But a shift has happened,
gradually, from people towards the objects that accompany us,
and this is the subject of my talk today.
In the past, religion provided security.
Surely, Magallanes and Columbus committed themselves
to Queen Isabella and God.
Sometimes it's difficult for us to be without it.
(Music)
Without doubt this video invites us to reflect.
It comforts us with the status we give to the important things in life.
I've told you today that many of us use this relationship
that we have with our cell phones.
The functions it provides are support and company functions.
It could also be said that it increasingly functions
as a kind of comfort blanket or a teddy bear,
as if we were children that needed something to get through life,
to go out, to encourage us.
It could also be said that some use them to subdue craziness.
Others use them as an almost anti-human shield.
Some people have stopped meeting for lunch,
because there's no point.
It's easier to see someone on Skype than to face them over lunch.
Or follow them on Twitter.
We are more connected.
The cell phone works well in this way, it leaves us waiting to feel important.
Because when we receive a call or we look at ourselves,
we say, "Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
who receives the most messages of all?"
(Laughter)
It's my wife. I tell you.
(Laughter)
No competition.
Or, "Mirror, mirror, on the wall,
who's the most followed on Twitter of all?"
It gives back. The cell phone is a great giver.
The great giver of images, of confidence, of feelings of belonging in the world.
Steve Jobs spoke at that celebrated speech at Stanford,
"Stay hungry, stay foolish".
And to do anything important one needs to be pretty crazy and hungry.
But, not everyone will join us on this journey of being hungry and crazy,
only a few.
Because one has to go through hunger, suffer craziness.
Because one has to suffer uncertainty. One has to tolerate it.
So,
what status do we want to give these devices in our lives?
In our relationships?
I think the most important thing is that those who join us
don't become invisible to us.
Thank you.
(Applause)