We have powerful tools on our digital phones, particularly in medicine. But the relationship with our phones is complicated…and not always beneficial.
The first time I ever came across the word alexithymia was in this New York Times opinion piece about digital phones by Steven Barrie-Anthony. As a physician, I love learning new clinical words with Greek roots – in this case “a” for not, “lexis” for words, and “thymos” which means “feeling” or “spiritedness”. Alexithymia (a word invented in 1970 by psychotherapists), is also known as “emotional blindness”, and means not being able to recognize your emotions.
Dr. Barrie-Anthony noted that the “vast majority” of his patients were experiencing an “alexithymic fog” due to the “gravitational pull” from their phones and social media, a condition that affected “the most important aspects of who they are, their relationships with others and how they move through the world.”
So what?
Do we really have agency when we get pulled in by the gravitational force of our phones? For our non-work related time, we pick the app…but then we fall into the dopamine feedback loop of whatever game we’re playing, or algorithms that are foundational to social media.
I think it matters more that I’ve realized, and not for the reasons I thought:
Being used by the tools of the digital world is different from using them as tools because it separates us from our authentic emotions.
“One constant I’ve found is how technology brings a kind of alexithymic fog — alexithymia being the condition of having difficulty identifying or being able to express one’s emotions. This isn’t universal, and the emotions we’re pushing away aren’t always the same. But it happens in a startlingly consistent way.”
Steven Barrie-Anthony
We need our emotions.
To tackle the problems of technology we have to return to our emotional lives for their own sake, and not always leap to doing or changing or fixing. This is the only viable pathway if we are to remain in touch with our humanness and to preserve love, empathy, emotional and spiritual richness, and the capacity to create art and music that reflect our inner lives.
Steven Barrie-Anthony
I have yet to experience awe in the digital world.
“When medieval Christians gathered in cathedrals, the soaring architecture and stained glass were designed to lift their thoughts toward the divine. The shared narrative included an image of the good life that directed one to love their neighbor as oneself. Today’s digital architectures are designed with a different purpose – to keep our attention firmly earthbound, focused on consuming content and generating data. The “infinite scroll” isn’t just a design feature; it’s a spiritual technology that trains us to value quantity over quality, novelty over depth, reaction over reflection.”
Tripp Fuller
p.s. Here are the first two posts in what I hoped would be a planned series on “The Tools We Hold”: