Dr. Jantz — #Hooked Presentation

Dr. Gregory L. Jantz, Ph.D.
#hooked: the pitfalls of media,
technology and social networking

Hook often describes a thing that
grabs you, traps you, sticks to
you, or simply fascinates you.

Apart from your money, you have
something every seller, retailer and
manufacturer wants – your
attention

Every day they work hard to hook
your attention, compel your
focus, dominate your mind share.

They want you hooked,
addicted and liking it.

Technology is powerful –
drawing you in, altering your
world and expectations, even
defining who you are.

Powerful things should be approached
with caution, but many abandon
wisdom when it comes to the latest
upgrade or newest technological
convenience.

From Twitter to iPhones, from
Facebook to YouTube, there is an
endless supply of things to hook our
interest, snag our wallets, and occupy
our time.

If you’re not careful, what
you start out controlling has
a way of controlling you.

“Here’s what LSD and iPhones do have in common:
they make us feel divinely connected to our
environments and to other people, they lift our mood
and bring us joy, they enrich humanity. Is that love?
Maybe. But at their worst, drugs and computers can
also create distance and trigger addiction, which can
destroy human connection and affection.”
Maia Szalavitz, “Steve Jobs Had LSD. We have the iPhone,” Healthland.
Time.com, 10/16/11.

We are deft at keeping out tangible,
understandable threats, but we often
leave ourselves defenseless against
other kinds of dangers, including the
most dangerous threats we lock
ourselves up with.

The positives and negatives unleashed
are not from technology; they are
unleashed through technology.
The positives and negatives come from
us.

Think back over the last 5
years – how much of your
life has been devoted to
online activities?
A Locked Front Door & Wide Open Web

Is that amount going down or
going up?

Instantly, anytime, anywhere you can join
with hundreds of millions of users in the
digital community. It’s a world of
geometric possibilities and vast potential;
is it naïve to wonder if all those possibilities
are positive or if all that potential is
beneficial?

Dealing with something this
compelling, this transformational,
this far-reaching calls for at least a
small bit of caution.

But caution is about slowing down,
holding up, taking a wait-and-see
attitude.
Technology is about full speed
ahead, ramping up, can’t-wait-to-
see-what’s-next.

Technology moves so fast that
stopping to take a second look
means being left behind.

Technology glitters. It is polished
and displayed in the most favorable
light by those who want to sell it,
and viewed favorably by those who
want to acquire it.

We tend to lock up our houses,
deadbolt our doors and bar our
windows. We keep out tangible,
understandable threats but often
leave ourselves wide open to other
kinds of dangers.

Technology is a
connection point.
Technology grants us access to a vast
array of information but we allow it
access to our most personal
information.

Every connection is a two-
way conversation, whether
you mean it to be or not.

When you use the Internet to
discover things, you invariably
reveal more than you know –
it’s unavoidable.

Every time you use the Internet,
you’re being targeted and you
provide the ammunition – the
information – yourself.

“So while the Internet has in some ways
an ability to let us know to an
unprecedented level what government is
doing. . .it is also the greatest spying
machine the world has ever known.”
Julian Assange. AgenceFrance-Presse, Inquirer.net, 03/16/11

Technology results in us knowing
and being known.

Technology allows us to tailor what we
see, hear, and say. This customization
gives us the illusion of total control
and makes it ever more difficult to see
and admit how technology could be
controlling and changing us.

Getting a novel gadget or using
technology in a new way is much
like entering into a new
relationship.

When I got my first computer,
I was in love.
When I discovered email,
I was in love.
When I found the Internet,
I was in love.

After a while, I found myself spending
too much time on the computer. I used
to be thrilled to get email; now I process
hundreds daily. I’ve found myself
places on the Internet I had no business
being.

As in all relationships, there is a
“honeymoon” period. At first, I’m
thrilled; over time, I’m less so.
I find myself looking for my next
“relationship.”

Technology connects you to others –
good or bad – but it also connects
you to yourself – good or bad.

Technology gives you the impression
you’re making your own rules so it’s
interesting to see what rules you break,
where you’re willing to compromise,
what excuses and rationales you’ll use
to be able to do what you know you
shouldn’t.

Technology has a way of making me
feel even more in control, more in
charge, more capable than I actually
am.

Technology has a way of luring you
into doing and viewing and saying
things you later regret.

Technology can reveal aspects of
character, integrity and personal
weakness that both shock and
shame the one exposed.

Each of us needs to be honest about
how often, how much, and why
we’re tethered to technology and
whether that’s a positive or a
negative in our lives.

As you think about your life and
how you’re using your time now,
what have you reduced or
eliminated in order to make room
for technology?
Connection Section

The more gadgets and gizmos I have
around me, the more opportunity I
have to act on my impulses – good
or bad. Time and distance are no
longer filters.
Multi-Taxed

Before I know it, I’ve acted on my
various impulses and find myself
juggling multiple things at once.
Multi-Taxed

I used to compete with myself to see
how much I could accomplish in the
shortest amount of time.
Over time, this led to personal and
professional burnout.
Multi-Taxed

I am susceptible to the siren-song of
technology that it really is possible
to have and do it all.
Multi-Taxed

We cannot really do two things at
once. We are focusing on one and
putting the other on autopilot.
Multi-Taxed

We’re spending a good portion of
our day and many of our activities
on autopilot. The question
becomes: What price are we paying?
Multi-Taxed

Continuous partial attention – “to pay
continuous partial attention is to pay
partial attention continuously. It is
motivated by a desire not to miss anything
and to be a live node on the network – in
touch and seen by others.”
Linda Stone – “Q&A: Continuous Partial Attention
Multi-Taxed

Continuous partial attention –
“Continuous partial attention is an always-
on, anywhere, anytime, any place behavior
that involves an artificial sense of constant
crisis. We are always in high alert when
we’re in constant partial attention.”
Linda Stone – “Q&A: Continuous Partial Attention
Multi-Taxed

Multi-Taxed
Whether it’s called multi-tasking or
continuous partial attention, it is a
life lived in “an artificial sense of
constant crisis.”

Multi-Taxed
If a person is in a constant state of
partial attention, aren’t they also in
a state of partial distraction?

Multi-Taxed
This media-driven continuous
partial attention syndrome may
create distractibility as compelling
as ADD – attention deficit disorder.

Multi-Taxed
Symptoms of ADD are an inability to
maintain focus, to exhibit wandering
attention with poor listening skills, and
a tendency to overlook details. I have
felt the same things while distracted by
technology.

Multi-Taxed
Dr. John Ratey, Harvard Medical
School and author of Delivered
From Distractions, calls this
tendency pseudo-ADD or acquired-
ADD.

Multi-Taxed
The brain cannot process two things
simultaneously; but it can switch
back and forth between the two
very, very fast.

Multi-Taxed
We can train our brains to switch
faster but with technology the
number of things we’re asking our
brains to switch between is
increasing.

Multi-Taxed
We keep piling on the tasks we’re
asking our brains to keep track of so
we can have it all and do it all.

Multi-Taxed
The more things we cram into our
lives, the more ways we feel
obligated to produce.

Multi-Taxed
The very things we thought were
supposed to make our lives easier
have turned it into a nightmare.
We’re getting stressed out.

Multi-Taxed
Stanford University study of HMM
(heavy media multi-taskers) and
LMM (low media multi-taskers)
#hooked – pages 37-38 under the “Not Me’ subheading

Multi-Taxed
Overstimulation produces a
cacophony of distractions, and
those who use media the most
appear to be the most distracted and
the least able to filter it out.

Multi-Taxed
Those who were able to “unplug”
from competing technological
distractions did better on the
cognitive tests. Less was actually
more.

Multi-Taxed
Example of the Dunning-Kruger Effect
– where cognitive bias occurs when
people believe incorrectly in their
superior skill or knowledge and fail to
recognize their mistakes.

Multi-Taxed
People who love technology don’t
want to believe it’s a myth to engage
in five things at once and well.

Multi-Taxed
Multi-tasking is not the answer but
we want to believe the thing
hindering us is what will save us.

Multi-Taxed
“I Can’t Think!
The twitterization of our culture has
revolutionized our lives, but with an
unintended consequence – our
overloaded brains freeze when we have
to make decisions.”
Cover of Newsweek, March 7, 2011

Multi-Taxed
People are overloaded with the
sheer volume of information
available. When people get
overloaded, they tend to detach and
have difficulty making rational
decisions.

Multi-Taxed
Filtering choices conquers
indecision but overload creates
paralysis.
#hooked – pages 40-41 – the Sheena Iyengar study

Multi-Taxed
When choices pile up, people mess
up. They make impulsive judgments
just to get the decision made or they
hold off deciding.

Multi-Taxed
All of that information, all of those
tasks, go into a holding pattern like
planes at an over-busy airport.

Multi-Taxed
Perspective can’t bubble up to the
surface when insight is weighted
down by a glut of information.

Multi-Taxed
Wading through less is more –
especially when what you need to
tap into isn’t more from the outside
but more from the inside.

Multi-Taxed
The DIKW Hierachy –
Data
Information
Knowledge
Wisdom

Multi-Taxed
Wisdom requires having knowledge
based on information composed of
data. Data alone will not produce
wisdom.

Multi-Taxed
Wisdom is not just the
accumulation of data; it is data’s
synthesis; and synthesis takes time.

Multi-Taxed
What all this multi-tasking appears
to be best at is creating stress,
tension and a deterioration in our
ability to make good decisions.

Multi-Taxed
According to the Newsweek article, there
are two types of people – sufficers and
maximizers.
Maximizers were like the HMM people –
they couldn’t stop taking in information
and had trouble making decisions.

Multi-Taxed
These are similar to the old category
of Type A people.
Type A people were great at
business, amassing wealth and
dying young.

Multi-Taxed
Given these studies, it would seem
prudent to try to more like the
LMM, the sufficers, the Type B
people and learn to limit exposure
to technology.

Multi-Taxed
This can be a hard sell because limit is
to technology what diet is to eating –
restrictive.
We do not want to be restricted; we do
not want to be limited; and we certainly
do not want to be on any kind of diet.

Multi-Taxed
When we conclude that we
absolutely need these things to
survive, we cede control over
to them.

Multi-Taxed
LMM people still use media;
the difference is they are able
to self-limit and self-regulate
its use.

Multi-Taxed
The sufficers still access information but
they stop when they’ve found what they’re
looking for. They trust their judgment to
provide the correct answer not a flood of
information.

Multi-Taxed
It’s so seductive, though, to think you
can multi-task. But the more you
multi-task, the more tired you become
and each additional task requires
more time and mental energy.

Multi-Taxed
The technology we’ve invited into our
lives can be tyrannical with each new
device yelling, “Hey! Over here! Look
at me!”

Multi-Taxed
Technology drives our focus and
everything else becomes a distraction
handled on autopilot – walking,
driving, talking or even dealing with
other people.

Our gadgets and devices are so
compelling and user-friendly, we
develop a relationship with them to
the exclusion of other people and
more important tasks.
Multi-Taxed

Connection Section
Consider this statement:
In a technological age, knowledge is the
Holy Grail of power and prestige. In an
age of productivity, “getting things done”
is kingly. In an instant age, time is
money.

Your Brain on YouTube
Facebook popularity feels like hitting
the lottery. It feels good, and you
want to continue to feel good, so you
keep doing it.

Doing this stuff activates your brain’s
pleasure centers. The more fun it is,
the more you want to do.

“Each time we get a message or text,
our dopamine reward circuits
probably get activated, since the
desire for social connection is wired
into us.”
Time Magazine, Wired for Distraction: Kids and Social Media,
March 19, 2011

Today’s technology provides a minute-
by-minute symphony of chimes, bells,
beeps and growls from every
connected device in your life.

Fun is fine but the line between
activity and addiction lies at the
crossroads when a positive activity
takes a turn toward the negative.

Ask yourself:
How important has technology become in
your life? Remember, priority equals
importance. You may say it’s not that
important but if you give it priority over
other things, you’ve given it importance.

Ask yourself:
Does using technology make you feel
better, more in control? Does not
using it make you feel worse? This is a
reward response.

Ask yourself:
Do you find yourself using technology
more often and for longer periods of
time? This is prevalence.

Ask yourself:
Do you feel anxious or uncomfortable
if you can’t use technology or if you
just think about not doing it?
Consider how you feel about
cessation.

Ask yourself:
How has technology disrupted your
life and relationships? How much
disruption are you willing to
experience to keep doing it?

Ask yourself:
Do you say you’re going to do
something different but then turn
around and do the same thing? How
much are you reverting to old habits?

Addiction is behavior that controls you.
Your impulses, your pleasures, your
anxieties, your fears, your preferences –
take center stage over your better
judgment or reasoned decisions.

Much of this technological activity comes
down to impulse control. Many of us keep
answering the siren call of technology
with increasing urgency. Our impulse is
to give in, not slow down or stop.

Our impulse is to say “yes” to
experience a short-term gain, even if
our technology use results in a long-
term loss.

The more new stuff you’re trying to
pack into that drawer of your life, the
more pressure it puts on the things
and people already there.

We are temporal creatures – with a
past, present and future. Technology
tends to anchor us into just one aspect
– the present.

I have to take the long view, even if
that means living with self-imposed
limits, restrictions and saying “no” to
my impulses.

Connection Section
Life is short – why not just do
something because it feels good, fun
and pleasurable in the short term?
Why worry about the long-term?

Thank You for Being a Friend
Previously, friend was a
noun, meaning someone
you knew well and liked.

Using friend as a verb is a
recent phenomenon, thanks
to Facebook.

People now have friends in the
hundreds. But, how many people can
you realistically be friends with? Jesus
had only 12 apostles and spending time
with them was His day job.

In the verb world, friending is a simple
click but in a noun world being a friend
has some time-intensive substance.

Friendship requires:
•Trust
•Honesty
•Understanding
•Acceptance
•Mutual benefit
•Sacrifice
•Affection

Like crops on Farmville, real
friendships wither without cultivation.

Once you’ve friended all these people,
what happens if you want to simplify
your life? How will they – or you – feel
when defriended?

Maintaining your online presence can
interfere with your offline life.
Maintaining all those friends can seem
like continuing a never-ending chain
letter.

Inviting family and friends to your
virtual party isn’t the problem; it’s what
happens when virtual strangers show
up.

Connection Section
Why do you think Jesus
kept a relatively small
number of close friends?

Just Like Real Life
So much of what is done on the
Internet can simulate reality because of
how real it looks. This intensity of
experience creates a virtual reality.

Just Like Real Life
There are virtual worlds – worlds that exist
only as computer-simulated environments.
There are virtual communities – made up of
people connected only online.
There are virtual relationships – with no
physical interaction at all.

Just Like Real Life
The Internet can be one enormous escape
hatch. When life becomes too hard or
stressful, it’s compelling to jump down the
rabbit hole of the Internet into a world of
virtuality.

Just Like Real Life
Living a virtual life happens when
you start to put more value in the
experiences you create than the
ones encountered in real life.

Just Like Real Life
An online profile can become a
staged production where what is
presented is engaging and
compelling but ultimately is not the
total picture.

Just Like Real Life
The more stressful your
life is, the more of a draw
virtual distractions
become.

Just Like Real Life
The online life can become a fantasy
life. Children create fantasy to
practice who they will be; adults
create fantasy to hide from who they
are.

Just Like Real Life
In a virtual world you can choose to
deal only with the challenges that
don’t matter because they not real.

Just Like Real Life
The Internet gives a sense of false
anonymity but that is an illusion.
Nothing we do online is anonymous.
Someone, somewhere knows. Your
spouse may not know, but Google does.

Just Like Real Life
People may forget your latest
slip of the tongue but your slip
of the keyboard may haunt you
forever.

Connection Section
Is it easier for you to be
truthful on-line than it is face-
to-face?

Real Connection
Often the people we disconnect
from are the ones closest to us
because they’re the ones who
know the truth.

Real Connection
The draw of online activities
can be as much about
disconnecting as it is
connecting.

Real Connection
A real-life disappointed spouse
can be difficult to ignore, but
online you don’t have to
acknowledge you’re married.

Real Connection
Your virtual life must be
created; your real life must be
lived. You have creative
control over the one; you have
limited control over the other.

Real Connection
Online activities provide a
powerful mix of immediacy,
anonymity and intimacy,
especially when dealing with
sexual content.

Real Connection
Virtual intimacy has the
power to create and forge
personal relationships.

Real Connection
Whether or not physical adultery
follows, emotional adultery is still
a violation of the marital
relationship because it fractures
the relational unity of the
marriage.

Real Connection
Real-life relationships often center
around the day-to-day minutia of life.
Online relationships can go deeper,
becoming a sounding board and a
confidante.

Real Connection
Online relationships can provide a
grass-is-always-greener scenario. But
in that scenario, you’re never
responsible for the sad state of affairs
on your side of the fence.

Real Connection
If you are single, the ultimate point of a
dating site should be to meet real
people, not spend all of your time with
online profiles.

Real Connection
Go online, sure, but remember to bring
your honesty, integrity, value and
principles with you when you go.

Real Connection
Emotional adultery devastates
relationships because it unhinges
emotional attachment and reconnects it
online, Pornography devastates
relationships because it overwhelms and
hijacks sexual fulfillment.

Real Connection
The Internet is the perfect
delivery system for the drug of
pornography and explicit
sexual content.

Real Connection
Give all your food, water and
care to your virtual
relationships and watch your
real-life ones suffer and wither.

Connection Section
“Technology [is] the knack of
so arranging the world that we
don’t have to experience it.”
Max Frisch

Instant Download
As a society, our perception of
time – what is instant and what
is slow – has changed.

Instant Download
Technology has altered our
expectations and expectations have a
huge impact on our lives, our
happiness, our sense of security, and
our ability to live a balanced,
peaceful life.

Instant Download
Getting what you want on
demand is near kinglike
power and control.

Instant Download
Technology has increased the ways
people can be connected, and it’s no
surprise that the connection points
have blurred the lines between work
and family, public and private.

Instant Download
Technology is very good at projecting
the urgent, complete with vibration,
warning sounds, special rings, pop-ups
and alerts. The sheer volume of
urgency can translate into importance.

Instant Download
Urgent things are quick. Important
things can be like glaciers, ever
moving but at a slow pace, building
up immense momentum but only
over time.

Instant Download
Having to wait is like being
told “no” a hundred times a
day. We don’t like to be told
“no.”

Connection Section
How can understanding your
unrecognized expectations
help you sort out the urgent
from the truly important?

The Anxiety of Off-Line
A study showed the very
thought of living off-line
produced anxiety – they
termed this disconnect
anxiety.

Technology becomes addicting
when not only your relationships
are dominated by media but your
dominant relationship is with
media.

Four ways people experience disconnect
anxiety:
Safety
Work
Social
Navigation

When we’re separated from
our gadgets, we become
disoriented and lose the sense
of where and who we are.

Connection Section
How long could you be
disconnected before you
began to feel anxious?

Transfer of Power
Technology transfers power
from the older generation to
the younger.

Transfer of Power
Kids don’t use a manual to
find out how to use the
device; they use the device to
find out how it works. They
let the device teach them.

Transfer of Power
When kids know more than
adults about technology – and
know they know – there has
been a transfer of power.

Transfer of Power
When parents no longer
control their kids’ access to
other people, entertainment
and information– there has
been a transfer of power.

Transfer of Power
Adults are the ones who bring
all these devices and
technology into the lives of
our families – then decry the
resulting lack of relationship.

Transfer of Power
When kids have the power to
choose, they don’t always
choose wisely. Adults must
choose wisely for them.

Connection Section
If the amount of time you’ve spent
learning your kids’ devices is less than
the time it took to buy it, wrap it, and
give it, you might want to consider
becoming more familiar with it yourself.

Who Are You, Really?
Technology should assist us in
communicating who we are,
not distort or overshadow
who we are.

People who are comfortable with
themselves don’t feel compelled to
rush out and buy the latest gadget or
toy in order to enhance their sense of
self.

Technology has a way of magnifying a
person’s worst traits and impulses.

Technology is a willing accomplice in
hiding the real you and projecting the
false you.

The more reliant we become on
technology, the more control over
our personalities and our
personal happiness, we give to it.

I buy technology to enhance my
life but, without care, that same
technology can quickly degrade
my life to its worst forms of self-
expression.

Connection Section
With technology, are we walking
the dog or is the dog walking us?

Finding the Off Switch
Every piece of technology has
an off switch, whether we know
where it is or not, whether we
want to use it or not.

A tech detox is a voluntary
reduction in your use of
technology.

How to accomplish a tech detox:
Plan your progress
Start small
Don’t just reduce, replace
Be clear on your goals
Stick to your detox rules
Determine consequences ahead of time
Take advantage of what you’ve learned
Take the next step

Connection Section
What would be the benefits
to a personal and family
tech detox?

The Ultimate Filter
Proverbs 19:21
Many are the plans in a
man’s heart, but it is the
Lord’s purpose that
prevails.

The Ultimate Filter
Technology is great for
compartmentalizing –
creating discrete little boxes
to contain things. God,
however, cannot be
contained.

The Ultimate Filter
Psalm 10 -- the arrogant
man says to himself, “God
will never notice; he covers
his face and never sees (v.
10).”

The Ultimate Filter
Psalm 33:13
From heaven the Lord looks
down and sees all mankind.

The Ultimate Filter
Hebrews 4:13
Nothing in all creation is hidden from
God’s sight. Everything is uncovered
and laid bare before the eyes of him to
whom we must give account.

The Ultimate Filter
Before we go headlong toward the
next technological marvel, we may
want to stop first and “count the
cost.”

The Ultimate Filter
Choosing quiet means saying “no” to
technology distractions. It means
finding time each day, whenever
possible, to intentionally choose to be
fully present with God.

The Ultimate Filter
It’s amazing how much priority,
power and omnipotence we ascribe
to our little technological devices;
they become our idols.

The Ultimate Filter
The foundation of our sense of self, of
our value and worth as a person, is best
built on a true knowledge of who we are
in the spiritual world, not the illusion
we’ve crafted for ourselves in the virtual
world.

The Ultimate Filter
Technology taps into our inner two-
year-old, that part of our personality
that grasps tightly to our toys and
screams, “Mine!” --- but God expects us
to be mature in Christ (Ephesians 4:13).

The Ultimate Filter
We become incensed when it takes
20 seconds to download a webpage;
God’s purposes and plans can take
millennia to develop and come to
fulfillment.

The Ultimate Filter
God’s view is a decidedly long
view; in God’s lexicon, slow is
not a dirty word.

The Ultimate Filter
Don’t be consumed with guilt
over what you’ve learned; be
empowered to change.

Connection Section
Lord, I give my use of
technology over to You. I
will have no other gods
before You, including a
digital one.

Dr. Gregory L. Jantz, Ph.D.
www.aplaceofhope.com
www.drgregoryjantz.com

Dr. Jantz — #Hooked Presentation

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