China today

Digibesity books and articles

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Alone Together

Digibesity books and articles: Alone Together, by Sherry Turkle
Sherry explores where technology is taking us and how society adapts to answer new questions brought on by the rise of mobile technologies, robots, computers, and other electronic gadgets. In particular, Turkle raises concerns about the way in which genuine, organic social interactions become degraded through constant exposure to illusory meaningful exchanges with artificial intelligence. Underlying Turkle’s central argument is the fact that the technological developments which have most contributed to the rise of inter-connectivity have at the same time bolstered a sense of alienation between people.
See more: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherry_Turkle

Yes smartphones are useful

Of course the new  technologies are great and allow to do us so much and more efficiently. But they should remain tools and not replace our human life.
See this excellent article:
“Hooked on our smartphones”
By Jane E. Brody – 9 January 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/09/well/live/hooked-on-our-smartphones.html

Extract:
The near-universal access to digital technology, starting at ever younger ages, is transforming modern society in ways that can have negative effects on physical and mental health, neurological development and personal relationships, not to mention safety on our roads and sidewalks.

“Why We Can’t Look Away From Our Screens”

Interview with author Adam Alter by Claudia Dreifus, 6 March 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/06/science/technology-addiction-irresistible-by-adam-alter.html

In a new book, “Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked,” the social psychologist Adam Alter warns that many of us — youngsters, teenagers, adults — are addicted to modern digital products. Not figuratively, but literally addicted.

More about the book:
Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked
by Adam Alter
Intro Barnes & Noble:
Welcome to the age of behavioral addiction—an age in which half of the American population is addicted to at least one behavior. We obsess over our emails, Instagram likes, and Facebook feeds; we binge on TV episodes and YouTube videos; we work longer hours each year; and we spend an average of three hours each day using our smartphones. Half of us would rather suffer a broken bone than a broken phone, and Millennial kids spend so much time in front of screens that they struggle to interact with real, live humans.
In this revolutionary book, Adam Alter, a professor of psychology and marketing at NYU, tracks the rise of behavioral addiction, and explains why so many of today’s products are irresistible. Though these miraculous products melt the miles that separate people across the globe, their extraordinary and sometimes damaging magnetism is no accident. The companies that design these products tweak them over time until they become almost impossible to resist.

Digibesity can harm, and kill you

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Deadly crisis

Digibesity can harm but it is also a killer.
See earlier post: https://www.beijing1980.com/2017/04/04/digibesity-the-new-social-plague/

Looking at the impact of the automobile on U.S. society, some disturbing figures.
Every nine days 1,000 people in the USA are killed in automobile accidents (2016 figures). That is 40,000 deaths in one year. While enormous progress was made to make driving less dangerous, statistics show that in the past two years vehicle deaths started climbing again, and this by 14%.
The only plausible cause is texting, calling, watching and posting on their phones while driving. Examples abound.
Forget about those Muslim extremists in the USA: cars and guns are the big killers.
Even Belgian police warns for the smombies: the smartphone zombies. A research in six European capitals found that 17% of the pedestrians have a dangerous habit walking around and looking at their screens. The Dutch are the most careful, the Swede the most careless.

Are Teenagers Replacing Drugs With Smartphones?

By Matt Richtel – 13 March 2017
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/13/health/teenagers-drugs-smartphones.html
The new drug: smartphones?!
Extract

Amid an opioid epidemic, the rise of deadly synthetic drugs and the widening legalization of marijuana, a curious bright spot has emerged in the youth drug culture: American teenagers are growing less likely to try or regularly use drugs, including alcohol.
With minor fits and starts, the trend has been building for a decade, with no clear understanding as to why. Some experts theorize that falling cigarette-smoking rates are cutting into a key gateway to drugs, or that antidrug education campaigns, long a largely failed enterprise, have finally taken hold.
But researchers are starting to ponder an intriguing question: Are teenagers using drugs less in part because they are constantly stimulated and entertained by their computers and phones?

Chinese are for sure extreme users

Figures for 2016 indicate over 695 million Chinese accessed the Internet through their smartphone. WeChat had 768 million daily users. Waifi, sorry, Wi-Fi is everywhere.
Addiction has become a serious problem, as explained in China Daily:
“Screen Fiends”, 1 March 2017
http://usa.chinadaily.com.cn/epaper/2017-03/01/content_28397025.htm

It is the opium for the Chinese. A new prison.
OK, I admit I am also addicted to WeChat and often take a pic of the food. Must be a contagious disease. Or we can try the “Phone Stacking Game”.
The worst I have seen, close to my home, is a young girl driving a Porsche at an intersection, going through the red light while turning left, her TWO hands and upper body outside and taking a picture with her phone of a shopping center. How she did it without crashing into something I really don’t know. Maybe her sexy legs are helping with the steering.

The new age wedding

Not only is the definition of “kids playtime” different, so are weddings now:

Digibesity the new social plague

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Digibesity

Digibesitas (Dutch) or “Digibesity” for our English readers
See here in Dutch: https://www.ensie.nl/redactie-ensie/digibesitas
“Digibesitas is de benaming voor een verslaving aan sociale media en de middelen die worden gebruikt om toegang te verkrijgen tot deze sociale media. Digibesitas kan net als andere verslavingen het dagelijkse leven van iemand volledig controleren.”
Or in English: Digibesity
“The term ‘digibesity’ mainly refers to the fact excessive use of messaging and/or social media can result to addiction or other psychological issues.”

The new plague

I already posted some cartoons about “Digibesity the new social plague” in this post:
“Do you suffer from OCUD or Mal de Coucou?”

Do you suffer from OCUD or Mal de Coucou?

And that is:
OCUD (Obsessive cell phone use disorder)
Mal de Coucou (describes a phenomenon in which a person has an active social life but very few close friends)

Zombies do not interact

I really hate this attitude that kills human interaction. Yes, I also use my iPhone to take pics, selfies and send them to friends but I also put the phone down to TALK with REAL people, look in their eyes, maybe hold their hand.
Worse is, it does not just kill human interaction, it can actually really KILL you. And for those victims, ran over by a car or something: I’d say, well done.
People now walk on the street as zombies, glued to their screen and miss all what is around them. I like walking at times so I can see more of the surroundings, on my bike I better watch out where I am going… And sitting somewhere, in a bar, in a waiting room or just outside I like to watch people passing by.
The zombies miss all that.

Cartoons and more

Some more great cartoons as well as pictures of how people now “connect and socialize”.

And for those who are totally addicted, a helping hand for hire:

Ask yourself: do you belong to the generation of idiots? Maybe, according to Einstein.

Some Chinese understand humor

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Jokes are not universal

Some Chinese understand humor that matches our Western norms. Agreed, the guy is an overseas Chinese and I am not sure Mainland Chinese would get the jokes. Reason why there is an important tip for foreigners in China: avoid telling jokes as it can lead to serious misunderstandings.

Thanks to WeChat

On one of the WeChat groups I found this video, hilarious: “Don’t Skip the Sex Talk”, by Jinx Yeo. The video: https://www.facebook.com/pg/JinxYeoComedy/videos/?ref=page_internal

And see his Facebook page, where you find more videos: https://www.facebook.com/JinxYeoComedy/

For those without VPN, see here the video:

A little secret

This year I hope I can finish and publish my book about … jokes. It will not be for a Chinese readership as the jokes are basically Anglo-Saxon.

Chinese love queuing, sometimes

Posted on by Gilbert Van Kerckhove

Good manners?

Our Chinese friends can be very annoying because of their queue-jumping attitudes. But Chinese love queuing, sometimes.

I am always taken aback how they can queue up for hours to get anything free of charge.
Like here in Sanlitun, to get a free ice cream “MAGNUM”, said to be “Belgian”.
I would rather pay the 30 RMB than standing in line for so long.
Oh well, I am not Chinese enough I guess.