From Printing Press to Smartphone

There is a lot of talk these days about how smartphones are making us all ADHD and our children illiterate. Some studies also show that ChatGPT is weakening our critical thinking abilities. Maybe this will sound annoyingly contrarian, but when did we decide that focus, literacy, and thinking are inherently good for us?

Plato believed speech was superior to writing, largely because writing lacked the dialectical engagement that leads us closer to truth. Writing, to him, was a mere derivative; speech was where authenticity lived. This negative view of writing flipped when Gutenberg invented the printing press.

In Of Grammatology, Derrida chose the privileging of speech over writing to make his case for Deconstruction. Although his argument still holds, I’ve always found that a weird choice, because by the 20th century, writing had long been privileged over speech. In any case, as he pointed out, there’s no solid ground for believing that either is superior, more originary, or authentic. Zen Buddhism echoes a similar view. There isn’t much written text for monks to study, and reading isn’t their primary mode of learning. So if our children end up better at speaking than writing, what exactly is the problem? Was Socrates a lesser person?

When did we agree that being able to focus is better than being able to track multiple things at once? Being autistic, I often wish I could be less focused. In group conversations, my mind locks onto one thing at a time. Since words are an essential part of a conversation, I have to shut out everything else by looking down, which can result in missing what is expressed through body language.

And what about thinking itself? Does thinking deeply or constantly make someone better? In my observation, the opposite seems to be true. Zen monks devote their lives to stop thinking. And from what I can tell, that’s far harder than thinking a lot. Anyone can do the latter.

So, I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. If smartphones and AI make us less focused, less literate, and think less, we’ll just be different, not better or worse.