Think Piece — Non-fiction

Written for the RSA -25/05/14

Ten years ago we’d never heard of names like Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp. And yet today, for many, they are modern pillars of daily communication. Social media has become an omnipresent host to our daily interactions with 72% of all internet users now active on some form of social media. We have an array of social media outlets to suit every kind of action, personality type and human expression- both newsworthy and banal – and our engagement online is increasingly unwavering; we send around 500 million tweets per day and spend on average around 15 hours and 33 minutes a month on Facebook, for example.

Social media has revolutionised the way we disseminate and receive information. While there are benefits to this, how does it affect the way we communicate with each other, who we choose to interact with and most of all how we feel? The video, The Innovation of Loneliness (above) is an effective and terrifying short film that in its essence presents us with the hard contradictory truth we’ve been avoiding; while we’ve never been so well ‘connected’ we have never felt so lonely.

According to The Mental Health Foundation in their report 2010 The Lonely Society, 1 in 10 people in the UK often experience loneliness. Tellingly, close to 60% of those surveyed in the 18 to 34 age group spoke of feeling lonely often or sometimes, compared with 35% those aged over 55. Reasons for loneliness, as the report details, are multifaceted, but let us consider the ever increasing role technology plays within this, particularly within the 18-35 demographic, given their typically high levels of engagement with social media. The rise of ‘Insta- friendships’, connecting and communicating via the online paradigms offered to us mean that an increasing amount of our lives are being carried out virtually, often at the expense of our relationships offline. As reiterated in The Innovation of Loneliness,

“We’re collecting friends like stamps, not distincting quantity versus quality and converting the deep meaning and intimacy of friendship with exchanging photos and chat conversations.”

It is not surprising, then, that the same Mental Health Foundation report found that, 48% of us believe that people are becoming increasing lonelier. For The Innovation of Loneliness, most humans are incapable of intimately knowing more than 150 human beings, and yet paradoxically the mainstream ethos running through social media is that the more ‘friends’ collected, the better. Sherry Turkle, in her TED Talk ‘Connected, Yet Alone’, makes a crucial point when she mentions that communicating in these edited and bite sized versions of ourselves does not provide fertile ground for empathy, real connection and a deeper understanding of human nature.

In a far cry from the messiness of real life friendships and relationships, we are presenting only our best angles, our best days and our most worthy accomplishments to each other. In neglecting our real life connections we erase our vulnerabilities, our weaknesses and our mistakes- all of which limits our capacity for growth and critical reflection. Moreover for Turkle, we are constructing and living by technologies that give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship which breeds the contradiction in our growing levels of loneliness. In her TED talk, Turkle recalls how many people she spoke to, whilst conducting her research, wished for ‘Siri’ the iPhone function to become more like a best friend. Indeed Spike Jonze’s film Her, a film in which the protagonist falls in love with an intelligent computing system, also speaks to this notion of our increasing expectations and hopes of technology.

However, in following our increased cravings for technological ‘intimacy’, do we absolve ourselves of the responsibility to be there for one another during the emotional, unedited and complicated moments of our lives? How much does the perverse gratification of having our condensed thoughts and opinions ‘retweeted’ and ‘liked’ create artificial responses in place of the more complex and empathetic reactions so often required?

In thinking about how can we truly feel less lonely and genuinely more connected, the saying, ‘a friend to everyone is a friend to no one’ rings true here. In a time where friendships can be disposable, comments edited until perfect and interactions often shallow, we need to question the point to which social media enables or disables our human relationships. And while our relationship with social media is still in its relative infancy, how might we continue to debate what positives to take from social media and the negatives to aspire to leave behind? In the meantime, it’s worth remembering the human relationships that we are shaped by, the ones that enable us to develop as people and the relationships that, for better or worse, cannot be deleted at the click of a button.

Written for the RSA -20/01/14

When was the last time you read a good literary book? Or recommended one? Though a staple for some, reading a good novel increasingly feels like a luxury not all of us can afford in the midst of busy schedules and digital distraction. Additionally, in a time where literary novel sales are declining and libraries are closing, it’s clear that our appreciation for the literary masterpiece is waning. It also seems as if children are beginning to mirror our increasing disengagement with literature; according to the National Literary Trust, only 40% of children aged 8-16 read daily in 2005, a figure which dropped to 30% in 2011 and by a further 2% in 2012.

However, a study in Science journal connects reading literary fiction with Theory of Mind; the ability to emphasise, imagine and understand the mental states of others. As part of the study, one group were given excerpts of literary fiction, while other groups read popular fiction and non-fiction. When finished, participants were asked to take a test to assess and understand other people’s thoughts and emotions. Interestingly, there were stark differences between those who had read literary fiction and those who had read non-fiction. Those who read the literary fiction excerpts exhibited increased levels of empathy, social perception and emotional intelligence. Participants who had read excerpts of popular fiction were also deemed less able to connect empathically.

The differences between literary fiction and popular fiction stir a series of old rivalries between ‘highbrow’ and ‘lowbrow’ interpretations of literature, but I think what is most important is the potential for literature to enable a person to think and feel creatively. Good literature gives space and time for the reader to delve more creatively into the psyche of their protagonist and to explore human complexities and behaviours. But as we become increasingly embroiled within the world of social media, everyday communication is often whittled down to 140 characters and appreciation in the form of ‘likes’ and retweets has become a normalised endeavour. Our thoughts are increasingly becoming condensed and immediate for social media consumption as are our reactions. Though clearly beneficial in certain respects, the world of social media often provides a somewhat one dimensional approach to communication, often bereft of emotionally sensibilities.

Reading literature, it seems, is fast becoming the equivalent of ‘slow’ food – wholesome and most probably good for you but without the immediate gratification and universal appeal of faster alternatives. Tellingly, on speaking on Radio 4’s Front Row earlier this month, writer Ruth Rendell connects the belated literary success of John Williams’ novel Stoner, a novel in which a young farm man falls in love with literature, with our literary nostalgia and claims the novel reminds us of a love of literature that we as a society seem to be gradually forgetting. But in thinking more widely about this loss, we need to consider and examine the detrimental effects of the increasing absence of literature, particularly when considering its role in the development of empathy and emotional intellect.

In contemplating the RSA’s current discussions on ‘the power to create’, it’s clear that reading fiction is certainly not the only wayto delve deeper into what creativity at the heart of RSA might look like (if only!). But it’s interesting and important to consider our collective levels of empathy and emotional intelligence when thinking about channels of power and creativity. And while recent debates are still at the forefront of the RSA psyche, maybe reading literature is not a bad start…