Displacement Effects

it matters how we spend our precious time

My monthly column for 3 Quarks Daily was published yesterday. You can read Getting in Touch: The Animal Need for Connection in a Virtual Age over there. (No paywall.) As usual, I will re-publish it here on my Substack in the next couple weeks.

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Few things matter more than how we spend our time, and what we give our attention. Ancient yogis and the Buddha, not to mention Socrates and Plato, already thematized this. (In the Phaedrus, Plato even reflected on how the technology of writing and reading affects our powers of attention and memory—not for the better.) Imagine what they’d think of our times, where the digital technology driving advertising, social media, gaming, and online commerce have made capturing and holding our attention into a high—and often dark—art.

Social psychologists such as Jean Twenge and Jonathan Haidt frame the basic issue in terms of a displacement effect: time spent on screens displaces time that could be spent irl. My essay for 3QD starts with the assumption that this displacement effect is among the most significant problems with the technology. In other words, what we’re doing on our screens matters less than the opportunities missed because we’re on them.

I first learned of this idea before the internet was a thing, by reading about another disruptive technology, TV. In his book Four Arguments for the Elimination of TV (1978), Jerry Mander argued that the problem with TV is the technology itself, not the programming. Setting the stage, Mander noted that people get distracted by questions of content. They might argue, for example, that TV is benign if you’re watching, say, Bergman’s film adaptation of Mozart’s The Magic Flute on PBS (highly recommended by the way!) Whereas TV is a waste of time, or worse, if you’re watching sitcoms, procedural dramas, reality TV, etc. But Mander argued the content matters less than what our highbrow- and lowbrow viewers have in common: both are in a supine position, physically and mentally; both are staring at a glowing screen and being affected by content.

Mander’s point about TV applies perforce with digital technology, which is far more addictive than old school, three-channel TV. As he observed, our conversations largely focus on content. Are children getting access to porn and other inappropriate content? (Yes, of course they are.) Can we tweak the algorithms of social media so as not to encourage negative thoughts and behaviors? Can we put better firewalls in place? These conversations are the ones Meta and other media corporations want to be having, even when it puts them in the hot seat.

Because as long as we’re having it, we’re distracted from the more important conversation, about how bad it is for children, or anybody, to spend so much time staring into a glowing screen, engaging with (whatever) content. That conversation, however, threatens profits, which by definition matter more to corporations than any negative social, physical, and mental-health consequences stemming from their business models. A familiar consequence of the displacement effect is announced in the title of Twenge et al’s published research, Less in-person social interaction with peers among U.S. adolescents in the 21st century and links to loneliness.

So, it matters less what you’re doing online, or who or what you’re engaging with, than the fact that you’re not engaging in real life. And don’t be fooled. Even when we feel like we’re making good connections through virtual technology, the evidence shows it’s not sufficient to meet our animal need for connection—which depends on embodied presence with one another. That’s the conclusion of my essay in 3 Quarks Daily.