In the digital age of technology, our lives have become more dependent on our devices. From cell phones, to laptops, to tablets we are constantly connecting our daily lives to technology. While a lot has changed in the world of technology in the span of my lifetime, I see a dangerous course taking place and our lives are becoming more complex than it needs to be. Henry David Thoreau’s book, Walden is a prime example of remembering the importance and the enjoyment of the small things in life. “Our life is frittered away by detail. Simplicity, Simplicity, Simplicity!”[1] He writes. Even though Henry David Thoreau lived in a time when technology might not be as sophisticated and intertwined in our lives as it is today, his writings are still extremely relevant to our time.

Conditionally, our lives are constantly becoming integrated on the Internet. This notion is drastically increasing our reliance on Internet culture and it becomes a hindrance to many things such as social, cultural, and educational platforms in our society. In addition, the rise of Internet culture also promotes the surveillance culture, which can be detrimental to many freedoms we take here at home as Americans, as well as the rights of countless others across the globe. As with all of us being members of society, we should think of the ways that the fusion of culture and technology in the digital age can negatively impact all our lives and why it matters. This is particularly the reason why Thoreau’s concepts of living deliberately and civil disobedience are important mantras in this discussion in the desire to take back the peace of mind from technology.

Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts on July 12, 1817 and died on May 6, 1862. A firm believer in the transcendentalist movement of the mid-1800’s like his mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. As transcendentalists, which are seen by many as spiritual successors to Romanticism, they believed that one of the highest aspirations of an individual was the attainment of knowledge and centered a deep focus on self-reliance. Along with both Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, some members of the movement included: Emily Dickinson, Walt Whitman, and Women’s rights advocate, Margaret Fuller.

In an effort to put his transcendentalist beliefs to the test, Henry David Thoreau set forth on a stretch of land on Walden Pond, allotted to him by a friend and mentor, Ralph Waldo Emerson. Published in 1854, the book Walden tells of his time spent at Walden Pond. Henry David Thoreau spent a total of two years, two months, and two days in a self-handmade cabin. In the opening lines of Walden, Thoreau writes: “When I wrote the following pages, or rather the bulk of them, I lived alone, in the woods, a mile from any neighbor, in a house which I had built myself, on the shore of Walden Pond, in Concord, Massachusetts, and earned my living by the labor of my hands only.”[2]

Thoreau continues on in the next chapter explaining what drove him to take to task his ambition to test his skills out on Walden Pond, “I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived.”[3] It is within this quote that personifies the definition of this research, “discover that I had not yet lived.” He writes – we are constantly being consumed (in the essence of time and ability) by our technology that it leaves a lasting negative impact on our society and culture.

It should be noted that not all advances in technology are bad. For example, the consumer has been rewarded with plenty of options on how and where to enjoy their form of entertainment; be that as it may: movies, television, music, video games, and Internet-based content via cell phones, desktop computers, laptops, and tablets. In a book entitled The Cultural Industries, David Hesmondhalgh, a professor of Media, Music and Culture at the University of Leeds, writes of the benefit of technology growth to the consumer, “These features suggest a greater degree of choice and control for consumers including a greater degree of ability to have experiences across different platforms or technologies, as media fragmented or multiplied.”[4] Further, as technology grows, they also become more user-friendly, less expensive, and more accessible. As more and more people are connecting, however, one begins to wonder the simple law of physics, the equal and opposite reaction.

The problems caused by technology are troubling; on social issues, they are the most apparent and deafening. In a study done by Miller McPherson, a professor of Sociology at Duke and Arizona University, Lynn Smith-Lovin, a sociology professor at Duke University, and Matthew E. Brashears, a sociology professor at Cornell University, entitled, “Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades” found technology severely attributed to social isolation, stating “computer technology may foster a wider, less-localized array of weak ties, rather than the strong, tightly interconnected confidant ties.”[5] Within their research they found that 25% of the 1,467 Americans surveyed suffered from social isolation due to technology. In retrospect, a previous and similar survey, done just 20 years previously, concluded that 10% of the 1,531 Americans surveyed suffered from social isolation due to technology.[6] It should be noted that while this study was done in 2006, nearly eight years ago, it still holds relevance that social isolation is a growing trend.

Sherry Turkle, an MIT professor, and clinical psychologist, recently held a TED Talks keynote in 2012, “Connected, but alone?” where she states that now in the digital age people use social media and technology to give ourselves a feeling of companionship. In the digital age, technology creates the “illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship.”[7] She continues to state that technology is gratifying social isolation because it gives us the feeling that with technology we create the atmosphere of our attention, the thought that we always will be heard, and the comfort that we’ll never be alone. Turkle warns that as this social phenomenon continues and graduates, people will begin to feel unappreciated if those three key points are not constantly met as technology advances. Where then is the endpoint if technology, which is supposed to bring us closer together, makes us feel further apart? Technology must be redefined as a tool and not a substitute for human interaction. While Thoreau often discussed the importance of the ability to be independent and self-reliance, he understood that society needed companionship. Companionship is part of what makes us human, a life without it is desolate and without meaning, no form of technology can completely replace the desire for real human interaction. Even though he essentially went off into Walden Pond to be alone from civilized society, Thoreau understood that companionship was one of the greatest treasures on Earth and that it was just as important as the desire to be alone, “I had three chairs in my house; one for solitude, two for friendship, three for society.”[8]

In the age of social media, people post and share because they want to be heard. Like the ever-changing real life experiment of the Truman Show, a movie staring Jim Carey about a person’s life being constantly recorded and turned into a T.V. show, social media glorifies the desire to be center stage and in the spotlight. As Sherry Turkle mentions, social media has caused a new symptom she calls “I share therefore I am.”[9] She further explains that it is no longer an instance of wanting to connect because of a feeling, but connecting because people want to have a feeling. The problem that social media creates is the new the environment where an individual feels that if they are not able to connect and share, they feel isolated. Gone is the glory and self-reflection that comes with solitude.

Dr. Jerald Block, an author for the American Journal of Psychiatry, almost resonates Turkle’s voice when in an interview with the news site, The Guardian. Dr. Jerald Block calls for Internet addiction to be deemed an illness because it creates a very unhealthy compulsive-impulsive disorder. Like Turkle’s three key points, Dr. Jerald Block believes that Internet addition has four main components: excessive use, withdrawal, compulsive desire to have better computers and software, and negative repercussions such as arguments, lying, poor achievement, and social isolation.[10] If we as a society let technology control our narrative, what does that say about us as a society or as an individual? Are we not in control of our own lives that we let a device dictate it? One of the most important things to remember as Walt Whitman once reminded us of our each and individual purpose in life, “The question, O me! so sad, recurring—What good amid these, O me, O life? Answer. That you are here—that life exists and identity, that the powerful play goes on, and you may contribute a verse.”[11] Technology and the Internet are designed as tools, not as an extension of our being.

Technology in many ways is supposed to bring us closer together with a faster, more reliable means of communication, but has instead made us reliant on instant gratification and short bursts of communication. Try and remember the last time you received a hand written letter or sat down to write one yourself. When was the last time you called someone just to talk, to a friend or a loved one, about nothing – instead of sending him or her a text or an instant message on social media?

As society changes throughout the times so does the culture shift. The ability for a constant connection to the Internet pushes society and culture into the desire for instant gratification. This causes content, no matter the medium, to be less deserving of our human intellect. In short, it promotes trash culture. In the mid-1940s when the world was just about to end World War II, German sociologist Theodor Adorno and Jewish philosopher Max Horkheimer penned an article that warned that the consumer side of Capitalism could have some serious implications. They warned that the desire for constant access to consumer goods could devalue a product or industries worth, “Films and radio no longer need to present themselves as art. The truth that they are nothing but business is used as an ideology to legitimize the trash they intentionally produce.”[12] They both would continue with the warning of devaluation of culture as the desire for consumerism would grow, comparing it to almost an assembly line, “Serious art has denied itself to those for whom the hardship and oppression of life make a mockery of seriousness and who must be glad to use the time not spent at the production line in being simply carried along.”[13]As Internet technology and consumer demand grow for instant gratification and our culture gets flooded with an assembly line of trash culture, it is not long before other areas of civilization become affected, like the domino effect already seen in society to culture.

With technology and Internet culture constantly changing the landscape of society and ever-connected culture, with it also bears the burden of changing the way we as a society think and educate one another and ourselves. Modern technology has given us instant, seamless, access to information, but it has come at a price. Joanna DeMars, a Master’s student at Iowa State University, explains that technology has directly and negatively affected the classroom and the learning experience, “instructors and students need the training to learn how to use online technology.”[14] She writes in a blog she created for the University of Iowa’s Education Technology Center. This poses a problem because essential class time, that could be used to teach children, is taken away from instructors, so that they may be shown how to use new technology and equipment. This also comes as a problem because as technology advances, some children, teachers, and even educational institutions can’t afford the modern or updated technology. This leaves the classroom at a disadvantage for a learning environment as the reliance on technology grows in our society.

The Educational drawbacks don’t stop there. In fact, there are much longer lasting problems that persist as we lean toward an increased dependence on technology and Internet culture. In an article in the Washington Post, Michael Hairston, president of the Fairfax Education Association, the largest teacher’s union in the United States, says that technology has made cursive writing a “dying art.”[15] This is extensively troubling because as cursive writing fades out from our culture, not only will be gone the ability to write it, but to read it as well. Countless historical and governing documents won’t be able to be read by just anybody and society will be at a loss for it. While some might argue that it really doesn’t matter if cursive writing were to disappear in society, the bigger and much more simple picture of reading family documents will be gone forever. Want to read that love letter from your Grandfather to your Grandmother or work on your family tree and read United States Census data to discover your family origins? This is why learning and teaching cursive is still important in the digital age.

The problem with education in the digital age goes much further than the ability to read or write in cursive. In a recent study done by Betsy Sparrow, a professor of Psychology at Columbia University, Jenny Liu, a board certified medical review officer based in New Jersey, and Daniel M. Wegner, a social psychologist professor at Harvard University, found that technology creates a phenomenon that they describe as the Google Effect. In the study, they explain that having instant access to information via the Internet creates an “external memory source that people depend on for information.”[16] In essence, people tend not to remember specific information if they know where to find it. This can come as a problem in society if the dependence to stay plugged in determines the amount of information we can retain. If we depend on technology for memory retention and don’t have access to the Internet, what happens if we need to recall a specific piece of information? Thoreau mentions in Walden his concerns for people becoming dependent on technology, “But lo! Men have become the tools of their tools…we now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven.”[17] We have indeed become tools of our tools in the digital age, depending on computers and the Internet’s ability for indexing information for us. As a society, we have “forgotten heaven” as it relates to attaining raw knowledge, from actively learning the material. Instead, we just remember where to look for it, dependent on artificial intelligence to act as a filing cabinet.

When we share, post, and announce our daily activities on social media and across the Internet, we not only foster social surveillance but also endorse self-censorship. In a research project done at Carnegie Mellon University by Sauvik Das, a Ph.D. student, and Facebook’s own data scientist, Adam Kramer discovered that nearly 71% of all Facebook users engaged in self-censorship.[18] This can come as a problem in the age of social media because as people post and share their thoughts, the mere thought of self-censorship defies a natural right of free speech granted to every single person on the planet.

Most alarming to our ever-connected lives to the Internet is that it inadvertently promotes the surveillance culture. Much like the Truman Show, as mentioned earlier, the desire to constantly be heard causes a problem because the promotion of the surveillance culture is indivertible. A study entitled The Work of Being Watched: Interactive Media and the Exploitation of Self-Disclosure, done by Associate Professor Mark Andrejevic at the University of Queensland Australia, explains the underlying problem with the surveillance culture, “The real issue at stake is not personal privacy, which is an ill-defined concept, greatly varying according to the cultural context. It is power gains of bureaucracies, both private and public, at the expense of individuals and the non-organized sectors of society.”[19] He later continues that as technology grows problems with surveillance will follow suit, “it has failed to provide effective resistance to encroaching surveillance.”[20] So at what cost do we as a society give privacy over the ability to share our thoughts over social media? The overwhelming price could be priceless to Americans and citizens around the globe as the surveillance system grows.

Here in the United States, our government is divided into three specific branches in order to maintain a stable government. James Madison, often cited as the Father of the Constitution, describes the structure of our government as follows, “All the power surrendered by the people is submitted to the administration of a single government; and the usurpations are guarded against by a division of the government into distinct and separate departments…The different governments will control each other, at the same time that each will be controlled by itself.”[21] The founding fathers knew the importance of safeguarding citizens against big and expansive government, having just fought for Independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain. Upon crafting the Constitution, James Madison took acknowledgment of the difficult task he and his fellow countrymen now faced, “If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”[22] As time has passed, however, government over-reach and its invasion of the privacy of Americans and people around the world have accelerated through surveillance culture and the power of the Internet.

On September 11, 2001, the world was in disbelief and immense shock as it witnessed an attack on American soil, like nothing it had ever seen before. Four terrorist attacks sent a message to the world that not even the biggest, most powerful nation on the planet was invincible. Nearly a month later on October 26, 2001, President George W. Bush signed into law the Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001, also known as the PATRIOT Act. This act, which undercuts large provisions of the Fourth Amendment, was passed with overwhelming support in Congress. Patricia Mell, a dean at John Marshall Law School, wrote Big Brother At The Door: Balancing National Security With Privacy Under The USA Patriot Act. Patricia Mell explains the reason why the Patriot Act had such huge support by Congress and the majority of Americans at that time was because “people believed drastic measures were needed to restore security and prevent future attacks.”[23] She continues to explain that there are very profound dangers associated with the act, “The Patriot act expands government access to private records without significant judicial review and that it gives the federal government the ability to compile dossiers on private citizens.”[24] With the expansion of technology and thus, the surveillance state, the United States government has the ability to keep a watchful eye on not only every American citizen but in the process, violate civil liberties world wide.

This all sounds like something from George Orwell’s, book 1984, doesn’t it? I mean what government would spy on its own people? The truth is “stranger than fiction” as the saying goes and the ability of the surveillance state is indeed a real threat. On June 6, 2013, a story would come out of The Guardian, describing an international data-mining program run by the National Security Agency called PRISM. This program collected data on private citizens abroad and in the United States. The program snatched data from tech industry leaders like Apple, Google, Facebook, and Yahoo.[25] Later, it was discovered through Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency employee that provided the leaked information, that the National Security Agency looked at and recorded the social connections of millions of Americans from sites like Facebook and also collected GPS location information, voter registration data, property records, and tax data.[26] This violation of unalienable rights stands against everything our country was founded on. The ability of the surveillance state shouldn’t even be part of the equation in the digital age and unfortunately, it is perhaps the biggest piece of the ability of the Internet.

The human race is a social butterfly and aspires to do great things. Thoreau protested that knowledge was the greatest gift to be bestowed upon mankind, “Instead of noblemen, let us have noble villages of men.”[27] As Sherry Turkle mentions in her TED Talks presentation, we have the greatest chance of success in our generation in taking back our lives if we recognize the problems with technology.

Technology is a very powerful tool, if we re-learn how to control it and not allow it to control us. Technology has with it the social qualities and abilities that can bring us closer together than ever before, with no limit to distance. It has the ability to bring to us vast cultural advantages, advantages that can allow us to get content and information at the push of a button. It brings with it educational benefits that free ourselves from the boundaries of small-town American libraries with unlimited resources for attaining knowledge, all within a few keystrokes on the keyboard. We shouldn’t have to fear that what we share with our friends and family across the Internet will ultimately be recorded by the government. We shouldn’t have to fear that the government’s surveillance state is creating dossiers of our private information. Civil disobedience in the wake of these atrocities has the ability to free us from the stranglehold of oppressive government. Let us invoke Thoreau and come to realize that the first step in reining in overreaching government is to stand up against it, “Let every man make known what kind of government would command his respect, and that will be one step toward obtaining it.”[28] Let us come together on things that unite us and not center ourselves on those that try and divide us. We can take strength in the words of former President John F. Kennedy as he once spoke them in 1958 at a Loyola College Alumni Banquet in Baltimore, “Let us not seek the Republican answer or the Democratic answer, but the right answer. Let us not seek to fix the blame for the past. Let us accept our own responsibility for the future.”[29] As with all of us being members of society, we should think of the ways the fusion of culture and technology in the digital age can positively impact all our lives and why it matters that we have the will and the ability to reclaim our solitude from technology. Each day that we have is a chance to change the conversation that we have with technology, but only if we as society to choose to do so. As Thoreau once eloquently stated, “Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star.”[30]

[1] Thoreau, Henry David. “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.” Walden. New York, N.Y. Literary Classics of the United States, 1985. 69.

[2] Thoreau. “Economy.” Walden. 6.

[3] Thoreau. “Where I Lived, and What I Lived For.” Walden. 68.

[4] Hesmondhalgh, David. The Cultural Industries. London: SAGE, 2002. 346.

[5] Mcpherson, M., L. Smith-Lovin, and M. E. Brashears. “Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades.” American Sociological Review: 373.

[6] Mcpherson, M., L. Smith-Lovin, and M. E. Brashears. “Social Isolation in America: Changes in Core Discussion Networks over Two Decades.”358.

[7] Turkle, Sherry. “Connected, but alone?” Lecture, Ted Talks, New York, N.Y., April 3, 2012.

[8] Thoreau. “Visitors.” Walden. 105.

[9] Turkle, Sherry. “Connected, but alone?”April 3, 2012

[10] Smith, David. “Addiction to Internet ‘is an Illness'” The Guardian. March 23, 2008.

[11] Whitman, Walt, and Malcolm Cowley. “O Me! O Life!” Walt Whitman’s Leaves of Grass: The First (1855) Edition. New York: Viking Press, 1959. 302.

[12] Adorno & Horkheimer. Ouellette, Laurie. “The Culture Industry.” In The Media Studies Reader. New York: Routledge, 2013. 13.

[13] Adorno & Horkheimer. Ouellette, Laurie. “The Culture Industry.” 18.

[14] DeMars M.D., Joanna. “Advantages and Disadvantages of Technology.” University of Iowa. Education Technology Center. August 6, 2012.

[15] Shapiro, T. Rees. “Cursive Handwriting Is Disappearing from Public Schools.” Washington Post. April 4, 2013.

[16] Sparrow, B., J. Liu, and D. M. Wegner. “Google Effects on Memory: Cognitive Consequences of Having Information at Our Fingertips.” Science, 2011, 776.

[17] Thoreau. “Economy.” Walden. 30.

[18] Madrigal, Alexis. “71% of Facebook Users Engage in ‘Self-Censorship'” The Atlantic. April 15, 2013.

[19] Andrejevic, Mark. “The Work Of Being Watched: Interactive Media And The Exploitation Of Self-disclosure.” Critical Studies in Media Communication: 232.

[20] Andrejevic, Mark. “The Work Of Being Watched: Interactive Media And The Exploitation Of Self-disclosure.” 233.

[21] Paulsen, Michael Stokes. Our Constitution: Landmark Interpretations of America’s Governing Document. New York: Federalist Society, 2012. 11.

[22] Paulsen, Michael Stokes. Our Constitution: Landmark Interpretations of America’s Governing Document. 11-12.

[23] Mell, Patricia. “Big Brother At The Door: Balancing National Security With Privacy Under The USA Patriot Act.” Denver University Law Review 80.2.2002. 379.

[24] Mell, Patricia. “Big Brother At The Door: Balancing National Security With Privacy Under The USA Patriot Act.” 394.

[25] Greenwald, Glenn. ” NSA Prism program taps in to user data of Apple, Google and others.” The Guardian. June 6, 2013.

[26] REPORT: NSA MAPS OUT A PERSON’S SOCIAL CONNECTIONS.” The Big Story. The Associated Press, 28 Sept. 2013.

[27] Thoreau. “Reading.” Walden. 83.

[28] Thoreau, Henry David, and Philip Smith. “Civil Disobedience.” In Civil Disobedience, and Other Essays. New York: Dover Publications, 1993. 2.

[29] John F. Kennedy Library and Museum.” John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum. N.p.,n.d.

[30] Thoreau. “Conclusion.” Walden. 248.

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