TIFFANY SHLAIN: Technology isn't this separate thing from us. It is us.
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TIFFANY SHLAIN: I think as you get older, or at my age, you really understand your interdependence with everyone around you. And I think as a species, developmentally we need to be getting
to that real understanding of everything we do through an interdependent lens. So a lot
of my work is trying to explore this idea of how we're all connected
how we're living in such an interdependent world and time
and how to really incorporate that as a lens that we view issues and the way we move about
the world. So, I think technology is clearly showing us how we're connected in all these
new ways, but I still feel like we need to approach it from all these different perspectives.
TIFFANY SHLAIN: So I'm always trying to think about, how do you visualize this connectedness?
And I feel like, this is in the zeitgeist, I mean, we have all these tools. I think the
big thing is, these tools aren't - technology isn't this separate thing from us. It is us.
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TIFFANY SHLAIN: And fundamentally, our desire to connect with one another, that's why we've
created all these extensions, to connect further in a new way. So I'm interested in asking,
you know, why do we do the things we do? Who are we? And what is all this, what's the potential
of all this connectedness? What's the bad part of all this connectedness? And where
could it take us?
I used to be a smoker - it's nothing I'm proud of. But I remember the feeling when I would
be smoking, and I'd want another cigarette, and I have a cigarette in my mouth. And I'm
going, what is this desire from?
In my feature documentary "Connected" I definitely go into that.
TIFFANY SHLAIN: I was flying to New York to visit this good friend of mine, and just as
the plane was landing I was getting that kind-of, you know, fidgety feeling of wanting to check
my cellphone. And I was thinking, It wasn't that long ago that when a plane landed, we
would all lung for our cigarette packs. Well actually, we used to all smoke on the planes.
But nowadays when a plane lands, we all lung for our cellphones with that same kind of
addictive fever, like we can't stand not being connected for a second longer.
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It's called an infinite dopamine loop. When you're like, searching - you're staying up
late at night, and you're going from link to link, and you think, God, I should go to
bed, I need to get sleep, but you can't get offline. You're addicted to the searching
and the connecting and the everything. And it's great, but to a point.
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There's a lot of incredible aspects of being this connected. I also think we're incredibly
distracted. I unplug from technology one day a week, um, with my children and husband,
and that's been this profound shift for me in the last year and a half. Because I was
too connected, I was feeling too pulled in a million directions.
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And I, I rush towards Friday nights. We do it on Friday night. And, uh, sundown Friday
night until sundown Saturday night, and I just feel like it's this resetting of my soul.
I feel like I'm a better mother, wife. I get to write in my journal. I, I read, which is
very difficult for me to do these days, in a focused manner. And then Saturday night
I can't wait to go back online, and I kind of appreciate being able to act on every thought,
and contact whoever I'm thinking about. But I like putting my mind and my soul in a different
mode of existence one day a week, and I like knowing that I get that. The repetition that
every day you have this day of not being on, and not being available. So, it's great. I
highly recommend it.
TIFFANY SHLAIN: You know I think that technology is changing the way that we're existing so
much, and I'm really trying to get people to stop and go, Let's talk about it. I think
good things happen when people have a conversation. It's just, we're all moving so - we're all
so busy. We're just in this incredible time where we are, um, thinking in news ways, we're
connecting with new thoughts in new ways, we're recombining those thoughts in new ways.
TIFFANY SHLAIN: Today, in the twenty-first century, all of us in this room will be alive
to experience what it's like when every single person on the planet is connected. What an
amazing thought that is, that everybody on the planet will be connected and be contributing
their wisdom, their thoughts, their different perspectives to this connected network to
kind of tackle some of our biggest problems. And I think that new ideas are gonna come
from that in ways we can't even imagine. That's where I get really hopefully, if we just don't
get global ADD in the process of that. We're not so distracted we can't see the good ideas.
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TIFFANY SHLAIN: My name is Tiffany Shlain and please subscribe to THNKR.