In 2014 when I took my diagrams from September of that year to the classroom, I sort of knew the elephant in the classroom was the machines of computers and the internet. I used the student's computers or Chromebooks as one example that proved that bigger, faster, stronger, and smarter were better than smaller, slower, weaker, and unintelligent for mental health. Does any student ever ask for a smaller hard drive, a slower internet service, a weaker wi-fi signal, or a unintelligent phone? I think in writing in the past to the larger audience, I have not addressed the elephant in the room as effectively as when I spoke of my materials in the classroom. In writing this post, I want to address the positives and the negatives of the elephant in the room.
The machine as understanding
When it comes to big, computers can do much bigger things than previously in an even smaller size. A laptop today dwarfs the bigness of past computers in what load of data it can handle and operations it can perform. The internet's numbers are incredible. Look how many hits can happen in less than seconds for an internet search. These numbers put your neighbor's volumes in a library to shame in some cases. So while the quality of information may suffer, the sheer number of sources is enormous. The students know this. The adults cry foul due to lack of quality. While I agree that quality is important alongside of quantity, the combined bigness is staggering after factoring in quality.
The negative though in understanding is the quality part. It is a problem. When I did research on mental health and on high end scholarship for discovering the meanings of words in a biblical text, I found that the best quality research was not always accessible on line. I had to go off line and submit an inter-library loan request to find a lot of primary materials. The internet though often did alert me to the places to go. It still has a quality than my old-fashioned research efforts could not touch for size! So can the internet be bigger in quality? Yes, it can. Can my Bible program called BibleWorks be of higher quality. Yes, it can. It probably will be in the future
The machine as inspiring
The speed of an internet search engine is inspiring. It shows off speed like the fastest man or woman cannot touch. It probably sets new world records for speed every day! The problem is that many don't understand the speed part.
People are not seeing how the shift from water to wind to sound to light to electricity has changed the speed of life. These different means brought us boats, then cars, then planes, then lasers, and then the internet. People don't know that the speed of electricity when it comes to signal speed is in trillions of kilometers per hour. No boat or water can touch that speed! Not even light can touch it as only millions of miles per hour.
That jump from the speed of light to the speed of electricity is incredible. It is inspiring. Think of how you can call the person standing next to you in the same room and the signal can travel from your phone to a cell phone tower to a satellite and to their phone in a second or less. I can't run that fast!! Hence the weakness of inspiring speed.
The negative though is that some people let this part of the elephant in the room bother them. They try to match it's faster by going faster too. The problem is that while our minds can do things in a split second, our bodies consist of a lot more than a mind - there is bodily strength, a soul for connecting, and a heart for counting. Our selves are made up of more than electricity, we also have water, wind, sound, and light to deal with as well. They operate at a diverse # of speeds. A human needs a variable speed control to match up with real life. One speed - like that of electricity will not cut it.
On the most serious level, the elephant in the room may be the major contributor to why manic-depression and anxiety are on the rise while psychology seems to have contributed on this topic some great insight. I think the elephant speaks louder than text after text on mental health that does not recognize the machine leading to us living too fast (or in rebellion against machines - too slow). The machine has exposed a weakness in our thinking, the literature does not address well.
I used to think that Aesop's Fable of the Tortoise and the Hare with the moral of "slow and steady" was at least an elephant in the room. Maybe as a kitten. Likewise, I thought all the psychological literature on slow down to fight manic-depression and anxiety might be a mouse in room. I now know they are no longer very large. The machine in the room dominates. It says fast is better than slow, but its lesson can lead to everyone trying to make all things like the electronics of our day.
The machine as motivating
The machine can make things that used to be difficult, easy. I think of how difficult it used to be to make a negative of a photo and get it to a friend. Now, I can turn to my printer with its scanner and take photos from the early 1900s and share them on Facebook with many of my family members. I can easily find out if my library has a book I am looking for or I can go to WorldCat and find books and information on them that took weeks and months previously as I waited for the library to find things for me.
This motivates us to do things that are now easier than before. It can make the once difficult easy. I don't understand why sometimes it makes things more difficult instead. Well actually I do.
The weakness of machines is that the inventors or techies think that strong is the same as big. No. Let me say it again. No. Strength is not another kind of big. It is instead flexibility. It sees the yoga master as the strongest man in the world. I think the strongest man competitions should be called the biggest man competitions! But back to computers. They lack flexibility, sometimes making the once easy now more difficult. Go figure!
Still, at the end of the day, they overall contribute flexibility, the ability to do the once impossible. Yeah, baby! I'm motivated!
The machine as captivating
Walk into any room of people and machines called computers, tablets, and cell phones and you'll see people captivated by the machines. If some of the people are of a certain kind - a celebrity of some kind, then the people might still be captivated by people. The machines show us the previously unseen. Teachers can do the same, but sometimes they lose sight of their unique place in the world of training the mind to be captivated. Science captivates by showing the previously unknown.
People are captivated by the smart person who puts old wine in old wine skins - that hot rod Lincoln and new wine in new wine skins - new software in new hardware. It is taking the concealed and making it revealed. It is taking the once hidden and making it known. Our machines - the electronics - can do just that. So can great teachers and parents.
The problem is when the teachers and people only pay attention to the old and not the new. They try to put the new into the old or the old into new. They can't see. They are blind. People who can see usually don't follow the blind.
The problem is that computers and the internet are also blind. They can be used for seeing or for blinding. They can focus attention and captivate for good reasons or they can distract us from the bigger things in life. Can we see? Can we prevent distractions and know to see what matters most? Can we see what machines help us see and what they blind us to seeing?
Conclusion
So the elephant in the room of machines and electronics must be treated with respect. It can be seen as understanding, inspiring, motivating, and captivating. You have to respect anything or anyone that does those things. There is no point in trying to ignore something so big, so fast, a little strong, and scientifically smart.
You can try to say that small is better, slow is better, weak is better and unintelligent is better; but you will lose. The lessons are elementary, really. Every child knows that big, fast, strong, and smart is better. Why else do they look up to the adults? Why don't you agree with artificial intelligence and put natural intelligence back into that mind of yours? It feels good doesn't it. Don't ignore the elephant, see it. Now that you see it, you are back in charge of your decisions.
Sincerely,
Jon
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