Mandarin McLuhan and Media Ecology

So, it's time to get back to the old blogging board, and long past time to let you know about a book I published last year. It was a bit different from the other books I've published, as you can no doubt detect from the books title:

麦克卢汉与媒介生态学

And just in case your ability to decode the Chinese logographic writing system has gotten a little bit rusty, that translates to

McLuhan and Media Ecology

And now, before you get the impression that I am anything other than a typical monolingual American, let me assure you that I did not write the book in Mandarin. The translator was Hu Julan, who is also on the faculty of Henan University, where I have been a guest, and the book is published by Henan University Press. Here is what it looks like:

There's a nice view of it on this Chinese website where it's being sold, and here's a link to it's Amazon.cn page. And I don't know if it will work right, but I also see it strangely appearing after scrolling down a little on this Amazon.cn page, mixed in with a random assortment of products.

Of course, you can find it on a number of other sides as well. The cover is kinda small on this one, there's a really interesting effect when you scroll over the cover on this one, and then there' a funny version on this one, let me see if I can get it on here:

But as we all know, you can get anything you want on the original American Amazon's restaurant, and just in case you want to purchase a copy here in the good old USA, here you go:

*** 麦克卢汉与媒介生态学 (McLuhan and Media Ecology) ***

I also want to make it clear that this is a new book, not a translation of a book that was already published in the English language. It is an original collection of essays, some of which you may have read elsewhere. In case you're wondering what you're missing out on, assuming you can't written Chinese, here's the contents:

Introduction to McLuhan and Media Ecology

Media Ecology and the Legacy of McLuhan

The Medium and McLuhan's Message

Korzybski and McLuhan

The Effects that Give Cause, and the Pattern That Directs

McLuhan and New Media

Counting Electric Sheep: Understanding Information in the Context of Media Ecology

The Fall of Nations: The Fate of Social Systems in the New Media Environment

On the Binding Biases of Time

Heroes and/as Communication

Drugs: The Intensions of Humanity

Narcissism and Echolalia: Sense and the Struggle for the Self

And there you have it, my first foray into Chinese book publishing. And not my last, as translation is already underway for another collection. I'll keep you posted!

On Being Weary and Wary of ‘Awareness’

Before the month ends, I think I better share my latest op-ed published in the April 28th issue of the Jewish Standard, and posted online on their website hosted by the Times of Israel. The title of the piece is On Being Weary and Wary of ‘Awareness’ and I think I'll let it speak for itself:

April is Autism Awareness Month. As we are close to the end of the month, chances are that you’ve already seen or heard that statement.

So let me ask you: Are you more aware of autism now than you were at the beginning of the month? And what do we mean by this vague thing we call “awareness” anyway?

I looked online and found a “Cause/Awareness Monthly Calendar,” which confirmed my suspicions that almost every month of the year has multiple causes assigned to it. April has six listings, including Parkinson’s Disease Awareness Month and Sexual Assault Awareness Month. If there’s a cause out there that does not emphasize the goal of awareness, I have yet to come across it.

And yet I don’t see much in the way of assessment of this goal. How is awareness measured? Who measures it? How are the results distributed? I believe that awareness actually refers to attention, which is the basic currency of our electronically mediated environment. The primary question is: Is the cause in question getting enough attention from the news media, the entertainment media, and our social media? And secondarily, are the audiences and participants paying enough attention to these messages?

My daughter turned 21 this winter. When she was 2½ years old, she was diagnosed with autism. Looking back some 18 years ago, I know that what we call autism awareness was not very widespread, not even here in northern New Jersey, where there are the largest numbers and the greatest concentration of children with autism in the United States.

Back then, most estimates ranged from 1 in 1,000 to 1 in 500 children with autism nationwide. Increased awareness coincided with increased incidence, and now the estimates range between 1 in 45 and 1 in 68. And given the higher numbers in our region, this means that chances are you know someone with autism, or someone with a family member who has autism.

As the numbers grew, autism advocates began to call it an epidemic. Specifically, they referred to the epidemic of childhood autism. And it was an epidemic that affected families from all walks of life, from every income bracket and socioeconomic status, as well as every race, ethnicity, and religion.

A major turning point in autism awareness came when a grandson of Bob Wright was diagnosed with autism. Wright was the CEO of NBC at the time, and he and his wife, the late Suzanne Wright, founded Autism Speaks in 2005. Through his influence, autism suddenly received much more attention in the news and entertainment media than it ever had before.

It is worth asking ourselves why social problems only receive attention when the rich, the famous, and the powerful are touched by them, when the problem is experienced by someone close to a media professional or politician. Of course we are grateful when someone with a public platform finally speaks out. But why do awareness and attention have to depend on a contemporary variation on noblesse oblige?

And again, what is “awareness” all about? It is certainly a far cry from understanding.

I recently spoke with a friend and colleague whose son, about 10 years older than my daughter, also has autism. And we talked about the fact that our children will never really grow up, be able to live independently, have their own place, hold a normal job, marry, or raise children. About how much they depend on us and continue to depend on us. And about how uncertain their future is as we grow older, grow less and less able to care for them, and eventually will become unable to provide them with a home and necessary supervision.

We talked about what will happen to them when we’re gone.

It is so very hard for us to watch the parents of typical children celebrate the usual rites of passage and talk with mixed feelings about becoming empty nesters, knowing that fate has something else in store for us. Our special needs children require so much more of their parents than typical children as they’re growing up, and their special needs do not magically disappear when they become adults. The pressure never lets up, and it never goes away.

Awareness? Feh! Let’s face it, if you don’t live it, you just don’t understand, just can’t understand, not really. Not fully. So forgive me if I find all this talk about awareness to be awfully shallow, promoting the illusion that something real is happening merely by calling attention to causes on our news, entertainment, and social media.

I remember when Ronald Reagan was elected president, budgets were cut, policies were changed, and all of a sudden we saw schizophrenic individuals who previously had been institutionalized winding up on the streets, homeless and helpless, unable to take care of themselves. It was a shonda, a national disgrace.

Now think this through with me. For the past two decades, we’ve been made aware that there is an epidemic of childhood autism, with numbers steadily increasing. And be aware that there is no cure for autism. So now, be aware that we are facing an epidemic of adults with autism. And let me ask you, are you aware of what is being done to deal with this ticking social time bomb?

Nothing.

Local school districts are required to provide people with autism with an appropriate education until they age out after their 21st birthdays. After that, services are limited, if any exist at all. And for all but the most severe and violent individuals, we parents will try our best to take care of our children for as long as we are physically and psychically able.

How much longer do you think that will be?

We could have begun to prepare for the problem when Barack Obama was elected president. He had the right outlook. But the economy had just crashed under George W. Bush, Obama understandably was preoccupied with recovery from recession and with affordable healthcare, and he was faced with an obstructionist Congress for most of his tenure. Now that we have a Republican president, House and Senate, our government is back to cutting social services, so I doubt we can expect any proactive measures in the near future.

No, in all probability nothing will happen until the time when the parents of adults with autism no longer are able to provide them with a home, and the streets again are flooded with homeless people helpless to take care of themselves. When that happens, in the not too distant future, awareness will become more than a matter of news reports, feel-good films and TV programs, and social media memes. Awareness will become a face-to- face reality, an embarrassment, a source of guilt for the more enlightened, a source of fear for others. And only then will the public demand action, and public officials respond in kind. That’s what happened with the schizophrenics on the streets back in the 1980s.

So what does awareness mean to you? I guess it means that you’re aware that it’s Autism Awareness Month. I guess that amounts to awareness of awareness. And maybe, maybe, if you’re really made aware, that can lead to being informed. Maybe.My guess is that how well informed you are about autism depends on how close you are to an actual person with autism. And even then, after all, being informed is a far cry from actual action.

So please forgive me for being weary and wary of awareness. But please be aware of what’s coming down the pike, and when it happens, be aware that you were warned about it. And be aware that it was a failure of understanding, compassion, and foresight, and above all political will, that caused the problem.

That is the kind of awareness that we need to get across right now, in this month of April.

Villanova Grad School Interview

As the 2015 Harron Family Endowed Chair in Communication at Villanova University, I was interviewed for the department's graduate program blog by one of our MA students, Mirna Momcicevic. The interview was posted on October 28, under the title of Interview with Dr. Lance Strate, our 2015 Harron Chair.

So click on the link if you want to see and maybe read it on their blog, or read it right here and now, below:

1. Dr. Strate, as the primary editor of two editions of Communication and Cyberspace and Social Interaction in an Electronic Environment, can you discuss today’s state of social interaction in general, and social interaction via social media? What kind of approach to social interaction, both general and that on social media, should our graduate students take?

Social interaction has been affected by the electronic media in general, especially by television, and even more so by new media and social media. One of the changes has been towards increasingly more informal forms of interaction. While informality can come across as more personal, genuine, and inviting, it also means that there are few if any rules or structure to guide us, to let us know what to expect from others and how to respond. E-mail and other forms of messaging, for example, is often approached as a form of casual conversation, and I am my colleagues may react to a message that starts off with something like, “Hi, Prof, how ya doin?” with some mixture of bemusement or irritation, what happens when your boss sends you a message that is entirely informal and friendly? How do you respond, given the power differential? This also speaks to the blurring that occurs between different roles, and the boundaries between public and private. If you write a letter, the old fashioned kind with ink and paper, there are rules we follow, with the placement of your address and the recipient’s address, opening with “Dear…” and closing with “Sincerely,” and all that helps us to stick to a more formal mode of address in our communication. And all that is absent when we communicate electronically, so it is essential to be very careful about the messages we send, to think about what kind of relationship we have with the person we are communicating with, and what kind of situation we are dealing with. What is the appropriate mode of address? That is a key question.

There has been a great deal of concern expressed about mobile media in particular, and how that affects face-to-face interaction. Being constantly distracted is obviously a major problem. Eye contact is one of the most important form of nonverbal communication for regulating interaction, and obviously that becomes problematic when our attention is always called away to our devices. Being mindful of the ways in which we use technology, and understanding that we do not have to be online and available and instantly receive and respond to messages and alerts 24/7 is essential. Many of the new media mavens who promoted the internet back in the 90s are now advocating for taking breaks and turning devices off, and there are movements like that for having a Technology Shabbat or Sabbath. It is certainly worth considering.

At the same time, new media have extended our ability to connect with one another, and organize ourselves socially, and that has been enormously empowering. For example, my wife used email discussion lists (e.g., Google groups) to connect and organize parents of children with autism in the northern New Jersey area. Before this kind of connection was possible, parents in that situation were simply too overwhelmed and lacking in time and energy to meet face-to-face, and are often lacking in basic information on services and how to deal with schools and boards of education to receive what they are entitled to. Electronically-mediated social interaction has been a great boon for individuals who would otherwise be isolated.

2. Dr. Strate, after so many years of being an expert, and with so much experience in the communication field, what are some of the most important advice you could offer to our graduate students? How should they approach the “real world” that comes after education?

Being an “expert” in communication is quite challenging, because the state of communication is always changing. Back in the early 90s, there were many predictions, some relatively accurate, about the future of communication, regarding the internet, virtual reality, increased access to information, and the like, but almost no one predicted the mobile revolution, the almost complete disappearance of telephone booths, or texting. So our job is harder than folks in many other fields, because we have so much to keep up with. The most important advice that I can offer, though, is never to forget that communication is fundamental to the human condition, that what counts are human beings and human relationships, and what Martin Buber termed the I-You relationship, treating others as persons, not as objects.

3. How do you feel at Villanova? How is Villanova similar/different to other universities?

Villanova has proven to be a very convivial, congenial, and collegial environment, and I have very much enjoyed my time here with the communication faculty. I am very impressed with the quality of students at Villanova, and especially the graduate students. Coming from Fordham University, there is a great deal of common ground, although the Jesuits have their differences from the Augustinians. Fordham is more of an urban university, which has its advantages, but I very much like the Villanova area, the relaxed atmosphere, and of course all of the interesting historical and cultural attractions of the Philadelphia area. Villanova is also smaller that Fordham, and Fordham is much smaller than other universities like New York University, where I did my doctoral work, so Villanova has a very intimate feel.

4. How would you describe our Department of Communication here at Villanova? What are some of our strengths, and how could we, in your opinion, improve ourwork?

You have a great department here, and I especially like the fact that it is so well grounded in the discipline of communication. I find that very refreshing, since that it my background, and it’s something missing from my department at Fordham. At the same time, I would certainly urge the faculty to take advantage of the interdisciplinarity of our field, which is in many ways our strength. Reaching out to and communicating with the general public is also very important. And I would certainly stress the need to have faculty with a background in media ecology, that is very important in my view, really essential, but of course I’m biased in that regard.

5. Why is graduate school is important? Can you tell us how did graduate education impact your personality and life? What would you advice to our perspective students who have hard time deciding whether or not start graduate school?

I know some of my colleagues decided as undergraduates that they wanted to go to graduate school, maybe even were interested in academia that early, but that wasn’t the way it worked for me. Simply put, I really didn’t know what I wanted to do when I was a senior undergraduate at Cornell University, so I wound up going on for my MA at Queens College of the City University of New York, where I met some doctoral students working in the Multimedia Lab there, Ed Wachtel, who I later became colleagues with at Fordham, and Joshua Meyrowitz,  and when they heard that I was interested in the work of scholars like Marshall McLuhan, Daniel Boorstin, and Jacques Ellul, urged me to apply for Neil Postman’s doctoral program in media ecology. So I did, was accepted, and again, having nothing better to do, started my studies there, but was not convinced that I wanted to be an academic until many years later. Somehow, it turned out to be the right thing to do, and I wound up being fairly good at it. So as far as I’m concerned, this path found me, I didn’t find it. And I remember Neil Postman saying that he decided to become a professor because it was in the classroom and with students and colleagues that he found a universe of discourse that he felt comfortable with, felt good about, and I guess that’s the same for me. It just fits. And when I was unsure, he said to me that nobody is getting rich these days, so you might as well do something that you love, that makes you find meaningful and fulfilling. He also suggested that if I didn’t, many years later I would realize my mistake, regret it, try to come back, and things would never be the same—this was said in a joking manner, he had a great sense of humor.

But apart from all that, being able to go to graduate school is a great privilege, it’s when you really know how to learn, what you want to learn, and can really appreciate the opportunity to do so. There are so many things in life that can interfere and interrupt the chance to pursue graduate education that you really ought to go for it if you can. And while it’s never too late, it certainly is easier when you’re younger, before life gets increasingly more complicated. And learning about communication gives you an edge in anything you might pursue in life. It’s practical in so many ways, but it also goes to the heart of what makes us human, and helps us in our efforts to retain our humanity in a technological age.

New York Top 10 Googles

So, back on December 16, I was quoted in a brief article on top Google searches in New York City for 2014. The results had just been released that day, but I got to see them a day early (woohoo!) so that I could provide some comments on the results. 

I then had a brief telephone conversation with reporter Ivan Pereira, who wrote the article that appeared the next day in am New York (or is it amNew York? Hard to be sure of spacing and punctuation these days, it's ambiguous as it appears in print and both are used in the Wikipedia entry on the paper, and there also is the alternative of amNY as it's abbreviated and in its URL form, also as amny.com. Oh, and note the pun here, between AM as in ante meridiem, or morning, the paper being put out for the morning rush and often gone by the afternoon, and am as in the verb to be, as if to say that the paper is New York, or a representation of New York, the sort of Aristotelian statement that Alfred Korzybski was opposed to, although I am certain he would have appreciated the word play, and made room in his general semantics for the ways in which such double entendres can actually raise our consciousness of abstracting).

However you list the name of the paper, and it is actually a paper, you know, printed with ink on actual pulp, it bills itself on the cover, right under its name, as "Manhattan's Highest Daily Circulation Newspaper" (a fact I have not myself verified). The paper is distributed for free every weekday, and its distribution is numbered in the hundreds of thousands. According to the paper's Wikipedia entry,

The paper is primarily distributed in enclosed newspaper holders ("honor boxes") located on sidewalks and street corners with high pedestrian traffic. Workers ("hawkers," sporting a red amNewYork vest) are sometimes paid to station themselves near NYC transportation points and offer the free paper to passersby. As a result, the paper has had much success with morning and evening commuters.

The entry also mentions that the paper is owned by Cablevision, who bought it from the Tribune Company, along with the major newspaper, Newsday, in 2008.

So, here's the cover of the December 16th, 2014 issue:

Now, before continuing on with the article, let me share with you the Top-10 Trending Searches in New York City, New York in 2014, courtesy of Google:

1. World Cup Schedule
2. Avonte Oquendo
3. Donald Sterling
4. Flappy Bird
5. 2048
6. Missing Plane
7. Oscars 2014
8. True Detective
9. Ebola Symptoms
10. Frozen

and here are the Top-10 How To… Questions for New York City, New York in 2014:

1. How to harmonize
2. How to focus
3. How to network
4. How to photoshop
5. How to reupholster
6. How to listen
7. How to samba
8. How to cosplay
9. How to declutter
10. How to wow

and the Top-10 What is… Questions for New York City, New York in 2014:

1. What is ebola?
2. What is tryptophan?
3. What is ISIS?
4. What is Alibaba?
5. What is bitcoin?
6. What is POC?
7. What is squally?
8. What is edamame?
9. What is gamification?
10. What is quantum?

and finally, the Top-10 News and Events for New York City, New York in 2014:

1. World Cup Schedule
2. Missing Plane
3. Oscars 2014
4. Ebola Symptoms
5. Ferguson Missouri
6. Brazil vs. Germany
7. Golden Globes 2014
8. Mayweather vs. Maidana
9. Wimbledon 2014
10. Unemployment Extension

And now, here is Ivan Pereira's article:

Top Google searches in NYC in 2014

New Yorkers put their own unique spin on Google searches in 2014.

The search giant revealed today the top searches made within the five boroughs in 2014, and the World Cup came in first.

Although the tournament ranked second nationally, Google trends expert LaToya Drake said the energy around the event was different in New York, propelling it to the top.

“It became this collective viewing experience,” Drake said. “Even if you weren’t a soccer fan, you were being left out if you didn’t know the matches.”

Lance A. Strate, professor of communication and media studies at Fordham University, credited the city’s diversity for making the World Cup a top trender. At the same time, he said the No. 2 search topic of 2014, Avonte Oquendo, stressed New York’s camaraderie.

Although the 14-year-old autistic Queens boy ran away from his Long Island City school in the fall of 2013, New Yorkers’ concerns persisted through when his remains were found in January.

“In New York, people are tightly packed together, so there is a sense of involvement that you don’t see in other areas,” he said.

The Google data, which didn’t include New York search trends for December, found that the top “What is” query from in the city was “What is Ebola?” The city had its own case at the end of October when Dr. Craig Spencer was hospitalized with the disease following a humanitarian trip to Africa.

“Once it came to the states, there was a lot of fear,” Drake said. “People were looking for answers.”

As I said, a very brief article, especially when it's reduced to text as it is here, or even over on their site where the article is followed by the top ten lists, and also includes this image:

This is not a search box...

Ok, I added the caption myself, couldn't help but make the allusion to the famous painting by René Magritte, entitled La Trahison des Images (The Treachery of Images), but better known by the caption that is part of the painting, Ceci n’est pas une pipe (This is not a pipe):

But speaking of images, I hope you don't consider it treacherous or a pipe dream if I also share how the article looked on page 4 of the issue, continuing on to page 5:

So, now, you can see that the article is not the article is not the article, which brings to mind Korzybski's general semantics principle of non-identity, and the related notion that the map is not the territory, which is what Magritte was trying to get across. And am New York is not amNew York or amNY, etc. Along the same lines, the top Google searches for New York do not necessarily represent what was most important, most valuable, or even most perplexing to New Yorkers. It only tells us what it tells us, that is, what New Yorkers used the search engine to search for most often. To give one example, love is very important to most people, and often very puzzling, but I doubt it was a search term that would ever come up in a top ten list.

Simply put, what remains unsaid is what exactly do these lists represent? What are they indicators of? What are they symptoms of? It's interesting that no one is every quite able to put their fingers on the answer, and perhaps somewhat sad to say that most people never even raise the question. So all it amounts to is a bit of trivia, a bit more of what Neil Postman called amusing ourselves to death, and what I punningly altered to amazing ourselves to death, and I think this applies because we are in many ways amazed by the searches and the fact that the results can be tabulated in this way (and we should also be a bit concerned, given the fact that big data of this sort can be used to influence and manipulate us in myriad ways).

The results are also an example of what Daniel Boorstin termed a pseudo-event, a news item that does not report on something that actually happened, or would have happened had there been no news medium to make the report. Sure the data exists, but the whole idea of doing a story on top ten lists of Google searches is a brilliant way to promote Google itself, and the idea of the Google search itself, great public relations, but what is the actual news value. As Boorstin noted more than half a century ago, pseudo-events are designed to fit the format of the news media, so they are easy to report on, and make for good news items, but they are ambiguous, and in fact part of their attraction is in the fact that they beg the question, what does it mean?

So, when we come down to it, the top Google searches represent exactly what they say they are, the top Google searches. They are nothing more than that, they are what they are. Like an image, like a photograph, like data, they may be used as evidence of something, but make no claim or argument of statement, in and of themselves. But in saying, they are what they are, we also have to say, Ce n'est pas ce que c'est, this is not what it is. Or as Korzybski liked to put it, whatever you say something is, it is not.

Non-identity is the first non-Aristotelian principle of general semantics, and non-allness is the second, and that certainly applies to my quote in the article. I spoke to Ivan Pereira for about fifteen minutes on the phone, and gave him way more commentary than he could possibly use. That's a given when reporters reach out in this way, so this is not a complaint, merely a point of reference. And it's good to have an outlet like Blog Time Passing where I can fill you in on some of what was not included in the article.

Now, if you follow my blog, you know I've done this before, and it is particularly easy to do when my comments are provided via email. In this case, though, they were delivered orally via a telephonic exchange, so I have no recorded record of them. So I'll just fill in what I can remember, which includes the point I already made about the meaning of these top Google search results. Raising that question was obviously more than could be dealt with in the article.

Beyond that, what particularly stands out for me is on the subject of Avonte Oquendo. Pereira used my general point about New Yorker camaraderie as a product of population density, and I can understand why, as it speaks to the distinctive character of New Yorkers and the New York lifestyle, and does so in a positive manner. What he didn't include were my comments about the New York Metropolitan Area also having a very high proportion of individuals with autism, which is what made the story resonate so much locally. Of course, in making this point, I noted that the metropolitan area includes the New Jersey suburbs, which has the highest incidence of childhood autism in the nation, and pointed out that a large number of individuals who reside in the North Jersey area commute to work in Manhattan, and would therefore be doing those Google searches from work. This would be in addition to the relatively high rate of incidence within New York City itself. Now, I think this is a much more relevant, important, and even insightful point. So why wasn't it included? It's possible that New Yorker prejudice against Jersey played a role, but I doubt it. I think the problem was more aong media ecological lines, in that the point was too complicated for a format that favored a short and simple comment.

I also noted that New York had a case of Ebola, a point included in the article, but without any comment that I made (I'm sure I wasn't the only one to bring it up). I also remarked that many of the items in these lists were probably high up in Google searches nationally, but what seems to speak specifically to New Yorker concerns, given the hectic, fast-paced lifestyle, the constant level of stimulation, so much so that when New Yorkers go out to the country, it is not unheard of for individuals to have trouble sleeping because it's too quiet for them, and again the density and tight spaces that New Yorkers occupy, are search items about how to harmonize, focus, listen, and declutter.

There are some interesting items relating to economics and careers, such as Unemployment Extension, what is bitcoin, and how to network, and I think that how to reupholster speaks to the thriftiness and old world sensibility of New Yorkers. Pereira used my comment on the diversity of New Yorkers, which includes the fact that so there are so many immigrants and expatriates in residence, that probably made the World Cup trend higher here that in most of the rest of the country.

All of this is an attempt to interpret the data, a kind of exercise in Talmudic hermeneutics, but again, following Postman, the problem is one of decontextualization, that like TV, these lists appear in the context of no context, to use Postman's phrase, so we really don't know what these results represent about us. What is the reason that people do a Google search for a particular term? Under what conditions do people search or don't search for any particular word, phrase, or topic? What makes particular search items more or less popular? Are we more likely to search for things we hear, see, or read about on the news? Are we more likely to search for things we watch on television? Are we more likely to search for things we encounter online? Have mobile devices changed the way that we search? These and many more questions are the kind of context analysis that's needed to really make sense out of these reports on top Google searches of the year. 

This also relates to the third non-Aristotelian principle of self-reflexiveness. Are the top Google search terms a map of a territory, and if so, what's the territory? Or are they a map of a map, or a map of a map of a map?

And of course, it follows that the terms we search for have much to do with the search results that are returned, which is after all a variation on what good old Marshall McLuhan said, the medium is the message. And we don't need Google to tell us that!

Addiction as Faulty Metaphor

So, a few weeks ago I participated in a discussion over on the Media Ecology Association discussion list on the topic of media addiction. I normally don't get involved in exchanges on this subject, but another participant on the MEA list, Kent Walker, questioned the validity of referring to habitual media use as a form of addiction, so I decided to weigh in with my 2¢ on what might be considered a pet peeve of mine.

I do want to be clear that I understand that some folks are very involved and committed to the idea of media addiction, and if they want to use that sort of language, they are free to do so. I am not condemning it. But I am questioning it. I think some people may have felt threatened by me doing so, but that is the whole point of critical inquiry, isn't it?

Anyway, I think my comments on the discussion list were substantive enough to share here on Blog Time Passing, and I hope you agree, or at least will hear me out on why I think the current broadening of the term addiction is problematic.

Here are my first set of comments:

I think it may have been in a junior high school class in what was called "Hygiene" back circa 1970 that I first learned the medical meaning of "addiction" as referring to a substance that causes a physiological dependency in the user. Drugs that were categorized as addictive included alcohol, tobacco, opium/heroin, and barbiturates, while drugs like marijuana, LSD, mescaline, and amphetamines were categorized as non-addictive, but habit-forming. This came as part of a new effort at drug education, in response to the counterculture's embrace of illicit drugs, and the same distinctions were made when I was an undergraduate later on in the 70s, when I was taking a class in therapy and counseling and did some volunteer work for a drug counseling center.

As a former addict myself, in my case to tobacco, although cigarette smokers only occasionally referred to themselves as nicotine addicts, I can attest to the fact that there is a world of difference between substance addiction and habitual use of non-addictive drugs, or media, or any other sort of activity for that matter. I've known a few alcoholics as well, and that form of physical addiction seems even more intense, and it is well known that heroin addicts who go cold turkey rather than easing off of the drug can endanger their health, and even risk their lives.

This is why I personally do not support the current usage of addiction to apply to anything that is habit-forming. I know there are neurological explanations involving the brain releasing endorphins, but I just don't see that as comparable, and I do think the broader use of the term confuses an important distinction, and condition.

I suppose it could be argued that "media addiction" is a metaphor, like "media ecology" which of course I embrace. But not all metaphors are equally appropriate. Ecology can be understood as being about how organisms relate to their environments, and as such need not be confined to biology. Many of us in media ecology object to the use of literacy as a metaphor in "media literacy" because it ignores the distinction between the written word and other forms of communication. On the other hand, while I would prefer "media education", I can accept the usage of "media literacy" because the metaphor generally does not lead people to confuse television with books. And I don't go around objecting to folks who use the metaphor of "media addiction" because there is value in looking at our media use as habit-forming, creating media dependency, and generating withdrawal symptoms at times when people try to or are forced to go without.

But I don't use the metaphor myself, and I do think there is a problem in placing alcohol abuse in the same category as constantly checking your Facebook and Twitter feeds or playing games on your cellphone. When it comes to physical substance addiction, I think there's a difference there that makes a world of difference.

By the way, another point I should have made is that in addition to being a nicotine addict who has not had a cigarette in two decades, I also have the caffeine habit, to the point where I get a headache if I don't have at least one cup of coffee in the morning. But based on my first hand experience, it is clear to me that there is a world of difference between the yearning for my morning cup'o'joe, however strong it may be, and what I used to experience when going too long without a cig—what we referred to as a nic-fit.


Anyway, my post was troubling to some folks, and one response came from my old friend, Marty Friedman, who noted that there has been research done in this area that let to the changing definitions of addiction among professional therapists, as reflected in the Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5), released by the American Psychiatric Association in 2013. So here was my response:

I know that psychologists change their views over time, and continue to do so, but that doesn't mean that the current view is correct, and there sometimes are political or social reasons that influence their "scientific" conclusions. The key distinction that they are overlooking, perhaps because they are psychologists rather than physicians, is that physical addiction is not just about psychological dependency or even neurological symptoms, but about actual change to the body, on a cellular level.

Now, people can use the term "addiction" to mean something other than physical addiction, but I am suggesting that that is best understood as a metaphor rather than a variation on the same phenomenon, and that it is an example of what Neil Postman referred to as the great symbol drain and the demeaning of meaning. And I think he would suggest that maybe we need different words for addiction that is physiological in nature, and the psychological sense of feeling as if you were addicted to some activity.

There is also the question of how far do we go in using scientistic terminology to talk about human behavior. We may not always want to frame behavior in terms of morality or ethics, but is every dysfunctional or negative behavior a syndrome or malady of some sort?

And I think there is definitely room for a media ecological critique of the tendency to frame behavioral problems as "sicknesses" in need of "treatment" or "therapy" of some sort. This comes out in some follow-up comments I made:

The value in looking at the broadening of the term "addiction" as being metaphorical is that it leads us to ask what is the purpose of the metaphor, what are the similarities, and the differences?

Referring to a habitual activity, be it gambling, sex, media use, or the use of substances that are not physically addicting as an "addiction" takes the activity outside of the individual's locus of control. This does reduce or eliminate personal responsibility for the behavior, which disallows any evaluation based on morality or ethics. This is important, given the long history of moral condemnation of behaviors that individuals have little or no control over, but leaves no room for any philosophical or spiritual views. It also undercuts the degree to which individuals can exercise control over their own behavior, and defines the problem as a medical condition, which requires the services of a professional specializing in the disorder. Of course this serves the interests of the psychotherapeutic profession, which is not to deny that there are many instances where therapy can be helpful, and at times necessary (and the same is true of pharmaceuticals). But this does fall into a kind of technical thinking, as in Neil Postman's technopoly and Jacques Ellul's la technique.

We know that some individuals exhibit Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, and that many have this syndrome to a greater or lesser degree. And yet we don't use the metaphor of addiction for behaviors associated with OCD. We don't say, for example, that someone is addicted to washing his or her hands over and over again. OCD is the other extreme where we see the problem lying in the mind or as a neurological disorder, and not in the habitual activity. Does the metaphor of addiction simply point to the tendency that exists in human beings (and other species) to a greater or lesser degree to engage in repetitive behaviors? (Aside from OCD, repetitive behavior is also a characteristic associated with autism.) What is the difference between ritualistic behavior and addiction?

Considering addiction as a metaphor, it can be instructive to consider what habits are not labeled addictions. Are we addicted to showers if we take one every day? To brushing our teeth if we do so after every meal? Is there such a thing as being addicted to reading? If reading is not an addiction, can you look at anything with writing on it, a sign, a newspaper, book, flyer, poster, etc., look right at it, and not read what it says?

What I am trying to point out here is that we need different terms for different phenomena, and that the reification of metaphors can be the cause of confusion.

Addiction, even in the broad sense in which it is defined by the American Psychological Association, is an individual condition, psychology being about the individual mind, rather than the collective culture and society. But my friend, Eric McLuhan, got into the discussion to point out that we can also refer to an entire society as being addicted, say to television, or the internet, cell phones, or other technologies such as the automobile. Here is my response:

We mainly speak of addiction on the individual level, whether it's addiction to physical substances or addiction to certain activities. We might speak of addiction in a collective sense to talk about how large numbers of people were forced or encouraged to become physically addicted, for example that the British got China hooked on opium. But we still are talking about individual addiction, just that it's happening on a large scale.

But now, is it apt to say that, as a society, the United States, for example, is addicted to television, computers, cell phones, etc.? I certainly would argue that as complex systems, contemporary societies are dependent on various technologies for their existence, and would not be able to function without them. But to use the term addiction in this regard strikes me as even more of a metaphor than to use it to refer to individuals engaged in habitual or obsessive behaviors.

To give one example, it's been said that we are addicted to petroleum, and that is a powerful way to describe our dependency on that source of energy. But if we suddenly ran out of oil, and gasoline, and had no immediate substitute for it, the result would be more than just withdrawal symptoms, as the loss of trucking would mean that all of us living in major cities would run out of food very quickly. If roads are our arteries, and trucks are the cells carrying nutrients, then aren't they intrinsic to the social system (as a kind of organism), rather than acting as a foreign substance altering us collectively? If language is inherent in our species, then are the new languages that evolve to be considered a foreign substance or a natural development?

If we employ the metaphor, then we might make a distinction between dependencies due to addiction, and dependencies due to necessity, the distinction between say alcoholism and needing water to survive. This is the territory Innis was scouting out.

Anyway, what troubles me is not the use of the metaphor, but the loss of distinction between addictive substances on the one hand, and other forms of dependency, obsessive-compulsive behavior, and ritual and habitual behavior.

Following some further discussion the list on the subject, I decided to post some further thoughts:

a few more comments on the subject...

There has been a good amount of criticism about the possibility that children are being over-diagnosed as having ADD and ADHD. While there are cases where there is a genuine neurological problem that can be alleviated through appropriate medication, the concern is that anytime students exhibit any kind of behavioral or learning problems in school, they are given a medical diagnosis and prescribed drugs as treatment. In other words, the problem is that a medical framework is being extended inappropriately to areas where it doesn't belong.

I think it's reasonable to ask whether the same is occurring with addiction, which was earlier understood to be a physiological, and therefore medical problem. This sort of questioning is in the tradition of Neil Postman and especially Ivan Illich, not to mention Thomas Szasz. And again, the big problem has to do with clinical diagnosis, rather than the use of metaphor.

Also, in teaching about new media, I tell students about the famous early case involving a virtual community dealing with unethical behavior, as written up by Julian Dibbell under the title of A Rape in Cyberspace. And one question I ask is whether the term "rape" is appropriate for the kind of virtual act that occurred, or whether this usage discounts the seriousness of the actual, real word crime. I think the same question can be asked about virtual addiction, given the seriousness of actual physical addiction. Even when used as a metaphor, words have power to shape our understanding and our responses, and overuse and misuse can result in the demeaning of meaning, to use Postman's phrase.

And I will say in all seriousness that I was a heavy smoker for two decades, averaging 2-4 packs a day, and in that time I know I did some damage to my body that was irreversible. I'll also point out that, as cigarette smokers, Neil Postman and Christine Nystrom both died of lung cancer, and James Carey of emphysema. And I myself found it very difficult to quit, impossible to just go cold turkey, and only was able to stop smoking by being weaned off of nicotine via the patch. I have gotten hooked on all kinds of other activities, playing computer games all night, compulsively checking Twitter messages on my phone, etc., but nothing compares to what I went through trying to quit smoking. So from my personal experience, addiction represents a special and distinct category.

I also find it significant that recovered alcoholics continue to say that they are alcoholics, and always will be, and can never go back to having an occasional drink now and then. That need for absolute abstinence is not comparable to what may be termed sex addiction, or gambling addiction, or media addiction.

Now for something on the lighter side:

I am addicted to the English language. I can't help myself, I can't stop myself from using it. I think about it night and day, I can't get it out of my head. It's there even when I sleep. It affects my thinking, my emotions, my behavior, altering my very view of reality. And the addiction has harmful effects, in leading me to expect the world to be relatively static rather than dynamic, filled with things rather than events and processes, filled with isolated phenomena rather than a dense network of relationships, etc. There have been efforts to help people like me break this addiction, from Alfred Korzybski's general semantics to various forms of meditation and mysticism, but time and time again addicts like me find ourselves getting another fix, often without even realizing what we're doing. I know some use a methadone-like treatment, turning to immersion in a different language to break free of the hold that English has on them, but then they just find themselves addicted to that other language. As far as I know, the only known cure for language addiction requires direct action to remove or disable sections of the brain.

I'll stop now, lest someone accuse me of being addicted to this topic...

Now, in response to some criticism arguing for the extended use of addiction, here is the first part of what I had to say:

I don't think that the treatment for sex addiction requires lifelong celibacy, does it? I think there is a distinction to be made between addictions where the only cure or form of recovery involves complete abstinence, and other behavioral problems where moderation is sufficient. Is the solution to "internet addiction" to never go online and never use email? Does a recovering "news junkie" need to avoid newspapers and news broadcasts altogether? Is the answer to media addiction to completely cut media out of the individual's life, whatever that might mean?

I thought I was pretty clear on the fact that I am not denying that problems exist regarding habitual activity, compulsive behavior, and dependencies. These are very real and very serious problems, individually and collectively. I'm just questioning the use of the specific term "addiction" and asking if it's appropriate. I know that some people are especially invested in that metaphor, and I do agree that the metaphor refers to actual psychological and social problems. My concern is over precision in language, and the question of whether to frame the problems in medical terms, which would suggest they require clinical treatment, as opposed to alternate framings that allow the problems to be approached through education, for example.

Before continuing on, let me note that a couple of folks of the list pointed to the etymology of the word addiction, which is interesting in that it is based on the root term, diction, implying that it has something to do with language and communication. So, continuing on, here is my response to that:

I'm all for using etymology to understand concepts in instances where we are dealing with commonly used words, words that have vague or fuzzy definitions, etc. But in this case, the issue is not the root meaning of the word, but rather its operational definition. The term "addiction" has very specific clinical and medical definitions, and it is fair to ask whether the definitions being used are appropriate or useful, just as we may ask the same for the clinical definition of "deviance", for example, or "insanity". The etymology of the term "malaria" may be of some interest to historians of science, but it does not help us in understanding what the term refers to in current medical usage, and it would be absurd to argue that, given its root meaning of bad air, it should also be applied to diseases brought on by air pollution, or mustard gas.

I do hope, in raising these questions, I am not coming across as addictatorial...

And that is pretty much the sum of the points I made in the discussion, which I hope have been of some interest and utility to you, dear reader. But as a bit of an epilogue, let me note that there was one more email I sent to the list on the topic, which began with a brief  personal response to another list member that isn't relevant here, after which I added the following (true story!):

Now, I just opened a fortune cookie, and the fortune reads: "We first make our habits, and then our habits make us."

Coincidence? I think not...

As it turns out, that fortune is an aphorism that comes to us from a western source, the 17th century English poet, John Dryden, although some mistakenly attribute it to Charles C. Noble. This brings to mind my 2011 post about Neil Postman's quote, Children are the Living Messages We Send to a Time We Will Not See.


Anyway, maybe some folks are addicted to using the term addiction, but as to how the word will be used in the future, far be it from me to venture any prediction.

To Go the Distance for Autism

You may remember last year's post on this topic, Going the Distance for Autism?  And perhaps you also heard about the latest estimate reported by the US Center for Disease Control and Prevention, that puts the autism rate at 1 out of 50 children, up from 1 out of 88 just one year ago! When my daughter first was diagnosed, almost a decade and a half ago, the rate was only 1 out of 1000, although soon after it was revised to 1 out of 500!

I should add that whatever the rate is nationwide, it's always much higher in New Jersey, where I live. Part of the reason may have to do with the environment and all of the heavy industry that the state was associated with. But another reason is that New Jersey offers the best services and schools for children with autism, so many families move here when one of their children is diagnosed.

The statistics are shocking! Unbelievable! But terribly, tragically true! And don't forget that children with autism will grow up to be adults with autism. It's a social time bomb about to go off. And I don't think even Obamacare has much in the way of provisions for that eventuality. But whatever problems adults with autism may have to deal with, or that we as a society will have to deal with on their behalf, they will be intensely magnified if they don't get the help they need, beginning in early childhood, as they are growing up.

So, while there are many different ways in which the problem needs to be addressed, one of most important things that anyone can do to help is to support the specialized schools that give children with autism the best chance of leading happy and productive lives. A group of these schools in the New Jersey/New York Metropolitan Area have banded together to raise money for autism education through the annual Go the Distance for Autism fundraiser.

You can help too, if you're so inclined, by visiting my daughter Sarah's page. Just click here. But I'll also share with you what it says over on her page.

Sarah's First Day at EPIC and Sarah Today

Sarah turned 17 a few months ago. Unlike other girls her age, she isn't looking forward to high school graduation, or looking at colleges. She isn't talking about boys, or fashion, or athletics, or any of the many things that teenagers care for. She doesn't talk on the phone or update her status on Facebook or go hang out with her friends.

Because Sarah has autism, we don't have to worry about her going out with other teens, about where she might be going and what she might be doing. But we do worry about what will become of her, about how she will get along as adult, especially when we're no longer around to take care of her. And we worry about her seizures, which come every so often despite the medication she takes. And we worry about her when she's not feeling well, and can't tell us what's wrong.

We worry, but we know that Sarah has made great progress over the years, and continues to do so, working hard with the help of her teachers at EPIC School.

Now, as a 17-year-old, with the help of her teachers at EPIC School, she is learning how to use money, wash dishes, send a text on a cell phone. With the help of her teachers at EPIC School, she goes to Target to practice making a purchase on her own, and goes out to lunch with her classmate Gina every Friday, and orders her own meal. the help of her teachers at EPIC School, she takes part in a supported work program in the community, unpacking boxes, putting clothes on hangers, doing office work. the help of her teachers at EPIC School, Sarah is learning what she needs to know to be a productive citizen, take care of herself to the best of her ability, and live a fulfilling life.

With you help, EPIC will continue to help children with autism like Sarah, children who desperately need the intensive type of assistance that only these kinds of schools can provide. With your help, EPIC will be able to launch an adult program for children like Sarah, for when they turn 21 and age out of the educational system. With your help, Sarah and her classmates will have a chance to live happy and productive lives, which is all that any of us can ask for. With your help. Won't you help?

Having shared that with you, once again you can visit Sarah's page to donate or participate, and any support that you can give, not matter how much, is greatly appreciated. And, of course, please do so only if you are able to, financially and otherwise. Thank you!