Using+Technology+to+Free+Ourselves

In this session we shared, as a group, how the use of technology in our work an personal lives has affected us. In varying degrees, technology, and the Internet specifically, feels like an addiction that is keeping us in a virtual world rather than a tactile one.

We are all addicted. Comparisons between this meeting and a 12-step program came up repeatedly.

Our identities seemed to be tied up in being connected to a screen (cell phones included). Successful installation only seems to make us available for several other unsolved problems.

The momentum of doing seems more pervasive in technology where I am measured by how quickly "it" gets done. We need ways of regaining perspective. We will need to find this question of freeing ourselve in our own lives before we can help students also question where to draw the line.

At one point we went around the circle and each person shared a strategy they use, if any, to disconnect themselves from technology. Here is a list of what was shared:


 * Reminding myself not to respond to an email that feels pressing right away. If I count to 10…
 * Limit number of times I check email, not after 9 o'clock at night.
 * I wish I wasn’t connected all the times. Sometimes I go hiking. If I am around tech too often I'm aware I'm on it
 * Go off of it all summer.
 * I do yoga
 * Email was becoming compulsive.
 * Never offline, always writing email.. more of issue being in charge of systems.. when things go wrong I'm saying "I didn’t invent it". All the responsibility on me. “it’s your Internet”
 * Set aside one hour for actual reading - going for a walk
 * No proscribed ritual for shutting it down
 * Always on - my 6 year old is my best shut down tool
 * I like being connected
 * I overindulge - get back right away.. There should probably be a 12 step program for it.
 * Always connected at work, I use sneaker mail for a complicated email - meaning I walk over to talk to the person. My five year old.
 * Not intentionally, my music class and I run out …
 * 1/2 hour before I leave in the morning.. read it first.. I am relaxed and I know what I am for. Tuesday tennis
 * I used to be addicted. Lately never checking outside, except during work hrs.
 * No rules of alway or never. I meditate to help have choices in all parts of my life including technology. No TV or cable, just video and DVD at home. Goal is to improve choices everywhere. Difference between digital and tactile experience. Stepping back and observing.
 * Better about checking email… setup a timeout system so no one can stay online all day at school. Idle for 10 minutes, short time to be on.
 * If you mark it read before you open it the time stamp won’t work.
 * When I am home.. I only have dial up in the country so not that big of an issue. At work I will check the helpdesk because that is important.. I like to be outdoors.
 * Having a 2 year old at home. Teach martial arts is the antithesis of computing, check ego at the door.
 * I have an internal alarm, I go to 1st through 3rd grade classes and "reboot". Ask wife to tell me to close the laptop.
 * Talk to person in person, sometimes I am sitting in front of damn computer too much
 * I use an alternative to laptop, it’s addictive, singing in a rock and roll band
 * Teach people to solve their own problems.. if they are emailing me they are emailing me after they have done some work.. creating a community of problem solvers. I started playing slide guitar.. to support my 850000 hobbies. Solve my problem self-fulfilling. My son won’t 16 won’t speak to me if I am in the room and if we go into another room and IM then we can start a conversation. the devil and tools.
 * Quit cold turkey when I was sick. I use it, at the end of the day, relationships.

With children, we have to provided better choices than screen time or else you can't expect them to prefer anything else.

We ended the session noting that there is a larger issue of trust involved. We don't trust that removing distractions will bring us what we want. We don't trust that the "me" who emerges when things are quieter, is the me I will be comfortable with. We are in a culture that is being discouraged from trusting direct experience as unsafe.

We need to find a discipline for making space for ourselves.

Repeat session day 2 SESSION 5: FREEING OURSELVES THROUGH TECHNOLOGY convened by: Akbar Ali Herndon arvind's notes

technology challenges my identity

those e-mail pings are ego

how do we draw back from the pull?

technology doesn't work for everything

difference between online friend vs in-person friend

how do we teach students that?

what is the right amount?

do our schools operate more like professional organizations or more like families?

Share basecamphq.com as a project management tool

Project Manager (PMI) is another management tool that can help free me from email as a "to-do" list

how are we responsible for freeing ourselves by using the technology? are we setting ourselves up for failure?

put yourselves in situations when you are totally disconnected

are we afraid of silence?

apparently "the" has "that" (the school, Columbia)

Blackberries - where did they come from? Business model

Can we all do the day without technology (Marymount does it) - talk about it at NYCIST meeting?

Look online for communication matrix - what tools being chosen and why? Choose the right tool for the right job

50% of e-mail is misinterpreted - British study

Read Everything Bad is Good for You - Steven Johnson

An intelligence that has a chance to express itself when we are not connected to all of the electronics - Akbar

Who's driving us to use more technology? Is it about money? They're making us use it more and more?

My month is Costa Rica unplugged was liberating

Book: FEED by M.T. Anderson - recommended by M. Jeffery Earl

If we don't have the discipline to "turn it off" then starting small and developing discipline is necessary

We are all addicted to something here. The sooner we acknowledge this the sooner we might have options for freedom