Child-Sized Screens and Adult-Sized Exposures to the Internet Parade of Horribles

Are we just plain nuts?

August Stream of Thoughts re: Tech

Disclosure: I am under the influence of having just watched the coming-of-age dollhouse inspired Wes Anderson film Moonrise Kingdom, with the young khaki scout and his “wife” and her left-handed scissors.  

Why do we have full grown adults using a device scaled for the fingertip of a pre-school child, and children accessing massive planetary-scale addictive infrastructure at their fingertips?

Are we just plain nuts?

Image by Martin Holy from Pixabay

Cell Phones at the Gym

When I am in the gym, often members are leaning over their cell phones. A number of exercisers juggle water bottles, phones, ear buds, towels, and eyeglasses…some alternating between putting on their eyeglasses and looking at their cell phones, and then taking off their glasses to do an exercise or use a machine.

I think that if Martians were to land on the roof and teleport themselves to the gym floor, they would have a question.

Why would adult humans use a device with alphabetized buttons sized for a child’s fingers, and with a screen so small that they can’t see it with the naked eye?

I think that Martians might come to the conclusion that for some strange reason, the adults are using their children’s phones.

I recently saw a staff member dismantle a stairmaster because it ate a frantic member’s phone. (Actually, she dropped it while she was stepping, hunched over, watching the screen.) Great that she steps, not great that she is wrecking her eyesight and her neck and spine while engaged in shallow breathing - because of the intense focus needed to look at a device that does not harmonize with her biology.

The brain really does not like being expected to coordinate the dual functions of walking or running and using large motor muscles, vs. visual focus on a tiny screen with the other senses diminished.

This is not how the body or brain are designed.

And the spine is not designed for ‘forward head’ - with the weight of the skull hanging in front of the body.

Yet, regarding exercise, I am grateful for 2 things.

One, I appreciate that so many people play pickleball and are not on a phone when they are on the court.  I think the bees are grateful too, because before pickleball, post-covid, I think we were headed in the wrong direction, nearly all of the time.

At least this new hobby stemmed the tide of a screen-dominated life, for some people, some of the time. More cowbell, and more pickleball.

Second, I am grateful that my primary form of exercise is swimming, because swimmers don’t swim and use a phone at the same time. Thank goodness.

Whether in the pool, lake or ocean, I am one with the elements, and swimmers have rules of the road and a shared cultural courtesy, including circle swimming in a small lane.

We’ve abandoned many of these courtesies of watching for others, including while driving, – due to screens. At times, I grow weary of the defensive posture I need to hold to navigate around those with their attention glued to their screens, unaware of their surroundings.

When I see truckers on the road watching attentively for everyone else, I am aware, via resonance, of the protective zone these drivers create around their vehicles. Meanwhile, my AM radio connection is decimated when I pass a “connected” vehicle spewing radiation. Whether others know it or not, I know that other connections are also being disrupted. I feel unsafe, but also with the onset of a tension headache. The exposure alters my biology.

My body is designed to alchemize with the natural frequencies of the cosmic current, sourced from the sun, and not these primitively conceived technologies created in a vacuum.

What I feel though, mostly, is deepening sorrow for those lost to screens and misguided tech.

We could be building a society based on the accumulated knowledge available via mind-body integration practices, instead of the distortions born of tech, including tech neck, eyestrain, poor posture, carpal tunnel, reduced physical activity, muscular pain, sleep deprivation, anxiety, tension headaches, back and neck pain, shoulder and arm pain, thumb pain; increased risk of insulin resistance, obesity, and Type 2 Diabetes; interference with chronobiology and circadian rhythms; and a loss of a sense of time, presence, and relationship, to name a few.  

Access to the internet does offer valued benefits.

The problem is the technology choices, IMO, especially wireless tech.

School Buses and Tracking Children

For example, this week’s report from Salem MA exclaims Salem Schools Implement Student, Bus Safety Tracking Measures!

“Salem parents and the school district will be able to track where and when their students get on and off school buses this fall with the launch of a new "Wayfinder" program that scans a student I.D. badge upon bus entry and departure.”

I am horrified about equating surveillance and tracking of children with ‘safety’ via unsafe technologies.

A colleague pointed out to me that parents have been indoctrinated to feed off of their children, to support their need for control and their tech addictions, using a delivery system that in and of itself is not safe for children, both energetically (due to electrical pollution) and emotionally. The indoctrination starts with ultrasound and baby monitors.

The concept haunts me to my core. (See: Technology Addiction: Unmasking the Silent Threat to Adult Well-Being)

It makes me almost as upset as seeing leading environmental groups implying that being able to track a whale via a wireless transmitter and the necessary vast network of infrastructure equals conservation- without assessing the health impacts of the transmitters, and without considering the environmental, energy, and resource demands of the entire “wireless ecosystem” - an industry term which is an insult to Nature.

How do we confront this hypnotic hold that the idea of instantaneous, ubiquitous data has on our sense of ‘guardianship’ and safety?

Economics and Regulations

There are also economic consequences. We are now throwing more money at Next Generation 911 – “moving 911 off the traditional public switched telephone network (PSTN) to an IP architecture. Interestingly, the FCC believes that moving 911 off the PSTN will reduce the risk of 911 outages.” ????? We know from experience (fires, storms) that cell phone towers, which require electricity, fail in many disaster scenarios. Maintaining some level of landline coverage, which does not require electrical power, would be a wise and responsible option.

The FCC also believes that the thermal threshold is an appropriate measure for safety for non-ionizing radiation, and that children’s safety can be evaluated using a model based on an adult military recruit’s head.

How is it that the engineering community has not addressed such a wildly inappropriate metric?

What if escalating risks and damage aren’t being caused by ‘climate’?

What if they are being caused by very bad decisions, for example, not hardening the grid to protect against solar flares and EMPs?

Let’s ask someone else, other than the FCC, about safety.

Signs of Hope? A Growing Chorus

Fortunately, the community of concern is growing. Most are not anti- tech, but are recognizing the downsides, (including the inconvenient truth about outsourcing of tech harm to impoverished nations, for both mining and disposal.) Closer to home, the grotesque consumption of water and electricity for AI is also looming large.

It is possible to appreciate the advantages that technology offers, and to also heed the late lessons from early warnings about the underlying abject lack of safety and environmental stewardship. It is possible to both appreciate technology and also responsibly advocate for children and vulnerable populations. Our brains have the capacity to do this.

We short sell our capacities when we allow politics, the media, the industry, and the military to create polarizations.

Tech can evolve, and so can we.

I have been (gratefully) following a number of commentators questioning other aspects of technology, even if these sister-sciences have not yet gotten wise to EMF/RF.

Paris Marx of Tech Won’t Save Us and Disconnect is described as “a tech writer.” Gizmodo Australia notes, “Tech Won’t Save Us weeds through the crap and snake oil of the industry and discusses the human consequences of technology.” Mashable says, “A healthy counter dose to the nauseating tech utopia idealism that usually surrounds Silicon Valley and enthusiast tech press coverage.”

Blood in the Machine’s Brian Merchant explains “why, in the age of big tech, gig apps, and AI, we should be thinking a lot harder about how technology is deployed—who it serves, and who it squeezes.”

 Along with over 41,000 other substrack readers, I am also a fan of Gary Marcus of Marcus on AI who “has become one of our few indispensable public intellectuals. The more people read him, the better our actions in shaping Al will be," according to author Kim Stanley Robinson.

I believe these movements will start to converge with the efforts directed to the RF/EMF health and safety issues.  When they converge, we will witness the return of reason, and a renaissance. We can come back to our senses, which is literally an antidote for polarized, excessive, unbalanced, and unwise tech use.

Because - this tech is about how we use our senses, as well as our musculature, our minds, our relationships, our Earth, and the gifts of each incarnation.

Adults Offering Creativity, Flexibility, Steadfastness, Loving Warmth, Peace, and Equilibrium

The Waldorf community (based on the teachings of Rudolf Steiner) is one of my favored sources for inspiration and grounding regarding values-based education, and tech sobriety.

A recent newsletter from Waldorf Today asked, “What capacities do children need to face the unknown future? How can we support the growth and development of these capacities within education in our homes and classrooms? Creativity, flexibility, steadfastness, loving warmth, peace, and equilibrium are some of the necessary soul-spiritual capacities that require strengthening within us in our roles as parents and educators.”

I am going to propose a theory that I am holding about technology, especially cell phones. 

In addition to the very real consequences of blanketing the planet with artificial frequencies, I believe that the actual design of cell phones and the stress that they impose on our senses, and the incompatibility with our physiology, is diminishing our creativity, flexibility, steadfastness, loving warmth, peace, and equilibrium, for one very simple reason.

When we forcefully limit our visual focus on a small screen, demanding the contraction of the inner eye muscles and related brain function on a very small field of vision, and shut down and tune out our other senses in a stress response, we are un-integrated, and not inhabiting our full potential life force or consciousness.

We engage in shallow breathing due to this over-focus, and we manifest unnatural inward detachment. We are disembodied.

The more time we spend in this state, the further behind we fall.

We can catch ourselves in the act in the split second when we take our eyes off the screen and re-inhabit our environment with all of our senses.

It is an unnatural transition challenged by a trance-like inertia, because the screen alters our body consciousness and mind-body connection.  

We can hope in that split second of transition that we don’t find ourselves having hit the car in front of us. This is one reason why some experts are already reversing the trend of screens in cars. “Touch screen critics warn increasingly complex infotainment systems pose potential safety concerns. A 2017 report from the AAA Foundation claims drivers using infotainment systems to complete tasks like typing in navigation destinations or sending a text were visually and mentally distracted for around 40 seconds.”

We need more discernment, and more tech reversals.  

We need to get it together regarding how we use large and small muscle groups, and how we are impacting our focus, (see: 15 Ways Technology Is Eroding Our Attention Spans - slide show).

We need to pay attention to the unnatural positions and juxtapositions that we force ourselves into, to use our tech.

Our technology should harmonize our biology, and that of everyone around us, including children, pregnant women, and health-vulnerable groups.

I remember one EMF researcher asking consumers to question, “whether the desire to speak with anyone, anywhere, anytime, interferes with the ability of a child with autism to speak, ever, in their lifetime.”

There are so many more questions that need to be asked about the links between exposures to the frequencies we generate, vs. neurology.

Engaging in purposeful work while still accessible to children's needs?

Another article in the Waldorf Today newsletter is entitled: Nature as a Beneficial and Positive Force for Children on their Path of Development through Life. It is written by Swedish teachers of kindergarten children ages 3-7.

Within the role of the teacher is the important task of being an active presence around the children whilst maintaining a vigilant and observant eye in order to be responsive to the children. During free play where the children are involved in non-adult-led activities, the teachers around them are engaged in purposeful work while still accessible to the children's needs.

Children are being exposed to experiences (tech, social media, pornography, addiction) via cell phones and screens, on devices that don’t even sustain adult creativity, flexibility, steadfastness, loving warmth, peace, and equilibrium, much less nurture children’s developmental needs.

The balance between purposeful work vs. relaxation is not supported by the design of incompatible and addictive tools. We are cultivating an increased mindlessness and disconnect.

Those on small screens must alter the balance of their senses to compensate for an unhealthy device. Physiological strain causes biological stress and makes the individual’s attention less accessible.  

This is why, in 2022, “the world's largest lifeguard association has issued a warning that parents engrossed in their cellphones while kids are swimming can be a deadly mix. The German Lifeguard Association is claiming that parents absorbed in their cellphones is a growing problem that has contributed to children drownings.” -  SOURCE

Reading a small screen inhibits the ability of the brain to monitor the outer environment, including presence towards loved ones.

The tech itself is a problem. Its artificiality demands and requires that we alter our sensory processing capacity.  This includes unnecessary and unhealthy jarring images, incompatible color combinations, light flashes, pop-up interruptions, and blue light.

Throughout each day, those not on screens and phones encounter humans who are accessible and present, and those who are not. - traveling in the car, accessing a piece of equipment in the gym, shopping.

Despite all the data and the data delivery systems, those not on screens are more alert to incoming feedback and safety issues in the immediate environment.  

Whatever we call this group, from Luddites to tin foil hats to activists to advocates to tech safety educators to “low intelligence, violent, right-leaning arsonists under the influence of Russia who are a threat to national security and the U.S. quest for full spectrum dominance” – as Paris Marx notes, ‘Tech Won’t Save Us.’

We can begin to rein this in.

We can choose digital discrimination and unmachining, and in doing so, prioritize each other and the abundance of this earthly life.

Moment by moment, we can become aware of our choices. There are millions of ways that we can start to repair our relationship with our tools vs. our lifeforce.

And, it’s such a beautiful world out there.

I love the sentiment of the Persian poet Rumi. “Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I’ll meet you there. When the soul lies down in that grass, the world is too full to talk about. Ideas, language, even the phrase ‘each other’ doesn’t make any sense.”

In that field, do not bring a phone.