For As Long As They Could
By: Michael Davis
Tags: Cybersecurity, Mindfulness, Humanity, Social Media, Technology

Photo by Todd Trapani on Unsplash

How The Desire for Self-Actualized Technology Will Ultimately Drive Humanity Into Becoming Less Human

As you’re reading this, know that some of you may have already given your technology choices the power to distract your mind, reduce your attention span, and the perfect amount of permission to be less interested and more inattentive to the things around you. Even worse, some of you may have also given your technology choices the authority to leave you as the last person standing on life’s stage, the last to know and yes, the only person in the room wondering what just happened to your productivity. Some of you are also finding out that in this exact moment, the sweet sensation from that vibration, blip, or bleep from one of your million notifications will always emanate like a sweet monstrous Siren from your phone’s speaker.

Yes, you. The one walking into oncoming traffic staring at your screen wondering what’s up with Kanye this week.

Listen.

We’re becoming more and more distracted due to technology’s tight grip. This notion of — as you may already know — is clearly not rocket science. Numerous studies have shown that not only are we in downward spiral relative to our dwindling attention span, but we’re close to becoming our own worst enemy even as we try to find a viable solution space out of this digital darkness. Moreover, it doesn’t take a PhD in neuroscience or yet another clinical research study to understand that the long-term effects of being so distracted reduces our ability to truly live out our best lives, particularly as we try to master impactful, connected relationships with one another.

COVID-19 enters the chat room.

Damn.

So, what’s the point you ask?

Netflix’s show The Social Dilemma and others are simply repeating the same narrative that we’re somehow (and perhaps always have been) just another product and data point of every search, hover space, or double-click of the mouse. Every suggestion whether it be from YouTube, Facebook, or other social platforms is programmed with multiple layers of advertisements and creepy-crawly underground links, that the hours and hours we spend in screen time ultimately become our own damn fault; a self-driven prophecy of sorts because we have been continually warned by Cybersecurity profession ad nauseam about this impending distraction. Again, who wouldn’t want the freedom in having the world of information sourcing at our fingertips? Who wouldn’t want to have all of life’s FAQs within a swipe of a button or the click of the mouse?

We authorized it. We let it control us from the beginning.

For as long as we could.

Essentially, we let those digital creepy-crawlies into our humanity because from the outside, they looked pretty, seductive, and revealing. We allowed this disaster to happen in plain sight, and without the clarity of common sense until it was too late because everyone, I mean everyone reads the terms and conditions of all of the applications they install right? This dichotomy is the perfect balance in how technology connects, divides, distracts, and polarizes us in the same vein. What is worse is that this digital nakedness is fine for most of us, lingering between what is convenient versus what is needed. As cyber security professionals, we never forget that there are always three fingers pointing back at us as we indiscriminately point at every person who puts a password on a sticky note within arm’s reach of their desk.

See, we have to kick the digital jar loose together folks. We have to start seeing data as a living and breathing digital process. Further, we have to understand that perhaps that human things that we ignore today for sake of the digital things of tomorrow, will in turn ignore us as those digital things start to see themselves over the human things.

Do what now?

In other words, particularly during these COVID-19 times, where the randomness of blips and flickers of light from our phones have become a welcoming sound because the lack of physical connection points. We have come to a new understanding in how we connect, especially when the fear of leaving our homes is a true and realistic fear of dying. Even the sunniest and most beautiful of days have driven themselves to a nice comfortable deep-dive into the abyss of TikTok videos inside of our home protected on the couch. Even the social and political ramblings from your best set of “friends” on Facebook about things that would have neither captured your heart or attention before, are now being considered a safe space in between your work Zoom calls and your kid’s science project discussion.

We’ve arrived at a perfect social balance of wonderful and disgusting.

It’s 10pm. Do you know where your children are?

I’m sure Instagram and a few other sites know.

Look.

If this concept of a digital takeover doesn’t shake up your insides, know that when the digital dust has finally cleared, our major concern will most likely not be about the human vs technology impact from a biological or physical perspective, but rather from an emotional and connection perspective. We have to redefine our why when it comes to our seductive relationship within this digital fortress.

How might you refine this for yourself?

We have to let ourselves be seen by each other through awakened human eyes, and value this connection over anything digitally-driven.

So, I ask again — as it is now 11pm. Do you know where your children are?

Michael Davis is the current CEO and Founder of Merek Security Solutions (Merek.io), which is a data privacy and protection Cybersecurity firm that focuses on cognitive behavior relative to mindfulness and technology. A 22-year United States Navy veteran, Michael has worked in the Cybersecurity and Information Security field with IBM, Boeing, and the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) to name a few before starting his own technology mindfulness company. His firm is located in Santa Fe, NM.