After completing the Digital Detox exercise, I was frankly relieved to finally have my phone and feel connected again. In the first few minutes I was ecstatic, checking different apps and messages franticly, and after a few minutes of replying to conversations, checking stories and notification, the excitement came to a halt and I felt kind of empty again – “Ok, I checked everything, I’m all caught up, so now what?” I thought to myself. Of course, I could have started scrolling through endless news feeds and subscriptions, but I didn’t feel compelled to do so. I was happy to finally make arrangements to go out, to see my friends, to talk to my parents, to be able to listen to music as background to my daily actions, as well as to Google (Duck actually) things that I needed to know more about, such as what movies are playing, where to order karak from, how long does it take to get to Al Muneera by taxi, etc.  

Thought this exercise, I was surprised that I didn’t have to change many aspects of my daily life – for instance, I didn’t feel uncomfortable that I don’t have my phone around when in the dining hall, or that I would have to sit alone because I didn’t plan to meet anyone. I have to keep in mind however that I had to do many things in preparation for this day- to print my readings, to make to-do lists, and avoid traveling off-campus. On another day, it might have been much more challenging to stay away from technology. What I felt was hurt the most by my digital abstinence were the little conveniences that technology provides me with, such as reminders and timers, quick Duck searches, taking notes on my laptop and having spell-check to proofread my writing.  

Sherry Turkle’s recollections of her experience with reclaiming person-to-person communications resonated with me on some level. Even though I consider myself very present in the moment, observant and invested in the immediate world around me, many of the social situations described by Turkle captured my own experience with people around me. For example, the level of “emotional intelligence” or “emotional development” of some of my friends lacks in ability to recognize emotions in people around them, inability (or lack of desire) to empathize, put oneself in another person’s situation and look at the situation from another point of view. This is not meant as a criticism, but just an observation of how easy is it in the present time to be emotionally distanced from people around you and to fall into thinking that you have a worldly perspective just because you have travelled and you have contacts from different nationalities, as opposed to trying to looks on the individual level at the moment and ask yourself “How is this person feeling in response to my actions, and why might that be?”. I certainly try to ask myself this question more often, and sometimes I apply the principle of embracing life’s “boring bits” and resisting temptation to seek comfort in digital entertainment to fill in the time.  

This is not the first time I’m going off-grid and taking time for myself, but it’s my first time in these two weeks since the beginning of the academic year. And it was all worth it – I re-energized myself and focused on the activates I was doing as well as enjoying the time with my friends.

I’ve never been to the gym without my phone because I always listen to the playlists and use some apps for workouts. So, it was not that challenging. Rather, it was really cool. I took my watch with my to use it as a stopwatch and relied on the playlist going on in the gym. They’ve got some nice music playing over there that I really enjoyed. I did feel like an outsider because majority of the people had their headphones on, but I realized I actually enjoyed working out without any device in my possession.

The Dining Hall experience was interesting because I completely forgot about the time and focused on eating my food slowly. Even though I went there without a pre-scheduled dinner plan with friends, I still met some of the people I meet every day; this time was different. We got the chance to talk more than we’d talk when we all bring our phones with us. The conversation lasted for one-and-a-half hour, not realizing we were there for that long – usually we would eat fast, chat a little bit, and leave. This time we talked about different topics including politics and post-graduation plans.

The most valuable part of the experience was the one going out. Having observed how most of the people in the clubs use mobile phones to take multiple pictures and post “the coolest” Instagram stories, etc. (I do the same things many times), I realized we do not take time to enjoy life, ourselves and the time spent with those surrounding us. Without my phone, I felt like I was back in my parents’ youth, which I actually enjoyed a lot; I could dance to the music and have fun with friends not focusing on who is going to see my story or like my new post (I actually realized that my parents had lots of fun when they were going out).

This whole experience reminded me that disconnecting yourself from the internet can give you a different perspective on the world and the type of life you are actually living most of the time. It served as a lesson for me that IT IS OKAY not to rely on any technological devices. However, I did feel bad for not replying to my family on the messages for more than 8 hours as they can get worried – it is daytime, I’m offline and am not receiving their messages. Speaking of this, maybe they should also try this “experiment” – and maybe not very frequent communication between both sides would be beneficial in future.

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Today, for the first time in as long as I can remember, I did not use my phone for eight straight daylight hours. Throughout my first two years at NYU Abu Dhabi, I’ve tried to become more mindful of my relationship with technology, primarily with my phone. I’ve downloaded apps that monitor my screen usage, which help me reduce the overall time I spend on my phone. Regardless of this, it still is the first thing I pick up in the morning and the last thing I put down before I fall asleep.

I used to justify behaviour like this by saying that I was staying in touch with friends and family through social media applications like Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram. What I realized, though, is that I would often opt to send snaps to acquaintances I made rather than schedule a meetup for coffee or lunch. I also noticed that some of the best times of my life were spent not on my screen, but on adventures I had with friends in real life. Sherry Turkle, the author of Reclaiming Conversation, mentions that there is a twofold purpose through having conversations with people offline. By having conversations with others, we can have better inner dialogue, which is crucial in times where there is no one to talk to, like when waiting for a train, or standing in a moving elevator. She also mentions how the mere presence of a phone on a dinner table can alter the types of conversations that occur. When I did not have my phone on me today, everything felt quieter. Walking on campus felt serene, and I did not feeling anxiety about checking phone notifications, because I didn’t have it on me. I feel like if I had my phone on me, I would have felt much more anxious about checking it, even if it was off.

In the short story The Machine Stops, E.M. Forster illustrates a world where humanity’s every want can be satiated through the “Machine”, to the point that characters in the story would rather stay hooked to the Machine than leave their rooms and experience sunlight. In many ways, I have felt this desire before. I would fall into YouTube rabbit holes or find myself missing sunset because of my video game playing habits. Forcing myself not to use my electronic devices allowed me to take advantage of the natural stopping-cues that come in daily life; It allowed me to have more ownership of what I want to do instead of just watching the next TV show episode because Netflix says it’s starting in 5 seconds.

In both The Machine Stops and Reclaiming Conversation, there is the concept that nuances of expression cannot be transmitted through the Machine. This is the primary motivation, in my life, for engaging with others and having conversations off the internet. There are so much more sensory input such as body language and vocal tone when communicating in real life. Today helped me learn a lot about myself and my cravings for my electronic devices. Although I don’t think I will be going on another 8-hour device detox, I do hope to use my learnings to have mini-detoxes where I put my phone away and focus on what really matters in the present.

In his book “The information” James Gleick points that written communication “comes into being to retain information across time and space” (31). While certainly technology only increases the place for storage of information with its vast databases, the question must be asked whether it also allows us to obtain that information easily.

The obvious answer seems yes – without internet we could not learn about events that happen across the oceans in seconds, we could not get our hands on curated content so easily and we would certainly not be able to see what our friends have for lunch every now and then through their Instagram posts. However, at a moment when all information in the world is at our fingertips due to the web and its many search engines, remembering information becomes seemingly unnecessary. We become better at finding what we need to know, but worse at studying and remembering it. Arguably, this still propels human innovation and the spread of ideas, yet it seems we have, to a certain extent, become better at finding where the information lies, rather than remembering what it says. Is that what knowing things means? 

This argument is supplemented by James Gleick when he notes that “The power [of conveying information] lies not just in the knowledge, preserved and passed forward, valuable as it is, but in the methodology: encoded visual indications, the acts of transference, substituting signs for things” (32). Because of the vast information around us and the many channels by which we can obtain it our attention spans have decreased. This has made us more repulsive towards sources of information that require dedication and time to go through, like books. Curated content can be seen as boring when compared to click-bite worthy titles and the pleasing belief that a sophisticated topic can be fully understood from a 5 minute video. Presentation of information has become, to a certain extent, more important that the content being presented, which in my mind undermines the reason why we wish to share and obtain information.

Many would argue that the fundamental notions that the two terms communication and technology carry are tightly intertwined with the very existence of mankind and the traits that elevate man above the rest of the animal kingdom. Namely, the ability to ‘communicate’, which I understand as the intended exchange of information/knowledge through any medium, as well as the ability to utilize ‘technology’, which I see as a basic ability of man to use physical or intellectual tools to complete tasks that either would not be possible without that tool or would be much more difficult and achieve, are the two quintessential characteristics that are attributed to homo sapiens but are not present in other living organisms to a similar extent and sophistication.

Building upon my simplistic definition of what communication and technology mean to me, being two important concepts that place mankind on the top of the evolution ladder, I believe that communication and technology together synergistically provide a set of capabilities that, in present day and recent past, establish a new grander scale for interaction between people and manifest additional value from these interactions to one or more or all of the parties that take part in these interactions. I want to highlight a few of what I consider the most important and revolutionary domains where tremendous value has been added by the interactions of communication and technology.

Connectivity – an overwhelming percentage of the citizens of the modern world utilize various technologies (such as apps, and social media, digital content consumption and creation) that help entities establish deeper connections between each other and between parties which might have been inaccessible to such an extent in the past, such as government, companies, celebrities, etc, and thus give them more rewarding experiences of everyday existence. Such connections can also deeply inform the personality formation of the individuals who embrace connectivity full-heartedly and unquestionably.

Data-empowered decision making – a concept that is becoming possible by the omnipresence of technology and the positive networking effects that this omnipresence induces. It enables individuals to make decisions based on factual information based on the collective experience of others, eliminating to a large extent the uncertainty of unavailability of information in a certain domain. Best of all, this data-empowered decision making opens up the possibility of tracking evolving patterns of human behavior in real time, due to the access to a large pool of data points that are constantly in interaction with each other or a certain system. 

Process automation – participants in the digital revolution of modern technology can leverage can focus their efforts on well-defined processes that can be performed by technology in order to save time, increase precision and outcome predictability, and ultimately alleviate burden of repeated human interaction. Successful process-automation involves designing the future state for each process, without regard for current constraints and in a sense enables achieving a better state by allowing the possibility to consider such state theoretically, then find ways to implement it in reality.

Communication – the act of transmitting and receiving information – is a fundamental aspect of the human experience. As social, thinking beings, we are constantly exchanging information  with one another through various means of expression. Even before we are born, we begin to participate in this transaction: consider the baby kicking his mother inside the womb, or the delicate, sweet moment of intimacy when a mother sings to her growing child. In both cases, communication is occurring, whereby some sort of message, emotion, or thought is being transferred between two individuals.

As Gleick aptly states in the prologue of The Information, “we can see now that information is what our world runs on: the blood and the fuel, the vital principle” (8). Indeed, when we narrow our focus down to the microscopic level, biological life itself exists because of the cell-to-cell communication that occurs at every transient moment. How much more do we as humans then, rely on communication!

Advancements in technology have largely served to improve and expand upon our ability to communicate, across distances and even time. When I first considered the term “technology”, I thought of such tangible, physical devices such as the radio, telephone, and computer. Especially now, living in the new era of technology, we have become so dependent on different gadgets for daily functioning. To me, at first, “communication technologies” would refer to such concrete tools as our smartphones and digital devices.

It makes perfect sense, however, that Gleick traces the development of writing itself as a technology in the second chapter of The Information. What is writing but a visual means through which information is transmitted? Thinking about this has made me appreciate how much we take communication technology for granted. Not just with the advent of the internet, and all the various apps we use to stay connected with each other. The very act of writing is a form of communication technology. It is a complex, codified system of symbols that enable thoughts, ideas, and information to be transmitted.  

Truly, “Every new medium transforms the nature of human thought” (12). As communication technologies continue to progress and evolve, we should celebrate – yet also remain cautious of – the opportunities and limitations that each brings to our ability to gather, express, and retain information.

Lauren You

Communication and technology for me has always been a way to stay connected to the rest of the world. Since I study in a foreign country, the Internet allows me to keep in touch with my close ones back home as well as making new friends abroad. As more and more people feed the system in this rapidly globalizing world, the Internet only grows with time and becomes harder to live without it each day.

As James Gleick’s book “The Information” points out, this phenomenon stems from our need for, and constant search of, information. We need to constantly interact with the people around us in order to live in this world. Humans are social creatures by nature, and communication is key to our survival. The mediums through which we communicate have developed over time, but they’ve always been there from the start.

Today, various applications like Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Google, and multiple news platforms pervade my life, bringing me information from all around the world and keeping me aware of whatever is required to get through the day. I wake up every morning to check what my family and friends have been up to, what the weather is like, what new announcements are up, etc. With information made so easily accessible, modern technology has perhaps made our lives too convenient for our own good. Sometimes our routine seems almost systematic, losing its value and lacking any real meaning. There are multiple side effects to this, such as creating false and deceiving images of ourselves online by choosing to only present the best parts of our lives and hiding our hardships and problems, which can affect our mental health. 

The proliferation of the Internet is inevitable, as new generations born into this tech-saturated world will continue to use and thereby fuel the industry. However, I think it’s important to be aware of our usage of it and make sure that we’re the ones in control. I personally think I’m pretty addicted to it myself since I check my phone at every possible moment, but I think being cognizant of it is the first step towards controlling my consumption and avoid becoming too reliant on technology. I could perhaps do this more by going on a digital detox every now and then, seeking information offline instead of refreshing my social media feeds, and focusing on real-life interactions rather than sending bland emoticons on messages.

We live in an era when technology rapidly grows, hardly knowing what the next step would be. Technology has become a vital part of our lives, such that when we wake up in the morning we always first check if there’s any missed call on our phones, a Facebook message, a notification, etc. When we respond to a message, many times we would use emojis, stickers or shorten words rather than a full sentence, thinking we deliver a message. Speaking of communication, if we refer to the time of the beginning of civilization, the first type of communication techniques used were the letter (characters) and body language; sound came into practice later. This means nowadays the type of e-communication people rely on seems to be similar to what our ancestors had used before they invented the spoken language.

Nowadays, a lot of people would think of communication as a verbal exchange of information between two sides. However, to me communication does not only represent a verbal exchange, as it has to do more with the message one is trying to convey and the information they transmit, whether that is spoken or body language or sent through an electronic device. In his book The Information, Gleick writes, “We can see now that information is what our world runs on: the blood and the fuel the vital principle. It pervades sciences from top to bottom, transforming every branch of knowledge.” Information is always transmitted from one end to another, then another one, and another one, and it keeps going in a circle. Every time, the transmitted bit of information is mixed with noise (information from another end), so that the receiver can use this new information in a different connotation able to deliver a different message.

The amount of information we receive through technology is immeasurable; it grows every second. Technology has enabled us to always know what is happening in any place on Earth, making us more connected that we have ever been. It makes lives easier for those migrating due to the ability to connect them to their loved ones fast and easy. Technology can also be abused for various reasons, negatively affecting the world and our lives.

For me communication is strongly related to language and culture and I mainly used communication as a medium for cultural integration. Being bilingual, in a largely bilingual country, implied a number of challenges: learning Romanian and Russian and how to navigate daily life based on the language I am expected/required to speak in different environments. In college yet again, at the beginning knowing only classroom English, with very limited understanding of cultural aspects, posed initial barriers. To improve my communication, I had to work on my knowledge of the language. However, as I switched more into a predominantly English milieu I lost my initial cultural and linguistic fluency in Russian.

With the advancement of technology it became imperative to build a vocabulary around the newly available devices and processes. The concept build, thereafter, around programming and coding strongly conveys that the new technologies are, in fact, tools of communication. It almost seems as if the advancement of technology mirrored the advancement of communication. For instance, the appearing of programing languages can be viewed as a parallel to the appearing of the writing. It helped establish logic and build a form of consciousness. While I am not certain whether extensive research has been conducted, I am almost certain that if the way of thinking of someone who is “literate” in programing languages will be compared against the thinking of  someone who is ”illiterate”, but surrounded by “literate” individuals, and then against someone who is “illiterate” in an “illiterate” society the results will be fairly distinctive. On a personal level, I have noticed this with my parents. Growing up in an environment in which coding was present and studying bits of it in school, shaped my thinking and understanding of the world, in ways in which my parents were not impacted. For instance, it is really easy for me to comprehend new technologies that appear on a daily basis, while for them it is always more of a science-fiction-y experience.

The connection between culture and communication has build norms and legal requirements that vary across the world. In some cultures swearing, for instance, is more normalised than in others. While in some countries verbal abuse is treated and punished as a crime, in others it is still viewed as rather abstract to be followed up on. At this point, it can be claimed that  there is also a culture of communication online, that is sometimes defined by the interests of users or by their cultural belonging. For instance, more often than not Eastern Europeans tend to simplify the smiley emoticon from this “:)” to this ”)” . Why? Not really sure. Governments around the world are also more involved today in the regulation of the online space, so cyberbullying or improper data collection can cause trouble to those using technology improperly while communicating.

Communication and technology to me are deeply embedded in the idea of culture. However, remembering that a few months ago, based on my activity, Facebook placed me in the “parents with adult child” category for advertisement, implies that often our online activities are simple data points in the bigger scheme of things.