AirPods and Shower Thoughts
A successful technology’s impact can be broken into several tiers. In the first tier, the impact is visible, positive, and widely adopted. The technology is praised by the public as another progression in human society. The second and third tier impacts are often invisible, negative, and impossible to predict. Consultants are paid to predict and mitigate these risks, but we can rarely predict the long term negative impacts of technology.
When Zuckerberg founded a social network, he hoped to list out his social circle and connect people; he never thought his company could undermine an election. When the Instagram founders wanted to give photographers and artists a platform to show cool pictures, they never thought they would contribute to rising teen anxiety, depression, and suicide.
We will not stop innovating and experimenting with the limits of technology. However, we can be aware of these invisible externalities and attempt to diagnose and limit their impacts early and often.
AirPods have been a major success for Apple.
AirPods are a continuation of a long trend of technology creeping into every waking moment of our lives. Starting with the radio, the TV, the iPod revolution, and smartphones, it has been increasing difficult to find time away from a device. The convenience of AirPods makes it even more easy to be connected and plugged into the internet.
Nick Pappageorge claims Airpods to be the first step towards transhumanism - "the belief or theory that the human race can evolve beyond its current physical and mental limitations, especially by means of science and technology."
Drew Austin, (@kneelingbus), writes a fascinating post about what AirPods mean for the future.
“As audio-based platforms take off, network effects would kick in, strengthening the incentives to leave earbuds in for longer and longer. It wouldn’t seem rude to wear them in conversation; it would be as acceptable as glancing at one’s phone or even sending a quick text message seems today. Just as people began to set their phones on the dinner table and direct a small percentage of visual attention toward them, so we might learn to split off a small, continuous share of auditory attention for the headphones we leave in — a rebalancing of sensory inputs to expand our sonic world beyond the merely local.”
We can already notice the societal trend evolve. We’re starting to see teens wearing AirPods while with their friends or parents, and we're seeing people leaving AirPods in while they check out at the grocery store.
Nick and Drew’s predictions are correct. AirPods are the first glimpse into a life fully integrated with technology. The second tier impact of AirPods is the elimination of solitude.
Solitude is the time spent without the input of others' ideas. Essentially, it is time spent alone with your thoughts. Solitude can come on a crowded subway thinking about work or your family. Solitude can be walking outside alone and thinking. Solitude doesn’t have to come alone in a cabin in the woods. Actually, if you’re reading a book in that cabin, it wouldn’t be considered solitude.
For the first time in history, we can spend large portions of our days without experiencing solitude. The smartphone’s ubiquitous internet connection provides nearly unlimited podcasts, songs, or audiobooks to consume. Outside of listening, we can always be connected to others through email, texting, and social media. While the benefits are enormous, I fear we are well on our way to completely losing solitude in our lives.
Cal Newport touches on solitude in his book - Digital Minimalism.
“Solitude Deprivation: A state in which you spend close to zero time alone with your own thoughts and free from input from other minds.”
As a lover of podcasts, I was initially skeptical of the importance of solitude. Constant access to the internet is a truly incredible privilege that I fully embrace. Why should we ‘waste’ our time when we can be learning and hearing smart people talk about a topic we are interested in? Technology has given us the power of information, why not take full advantage of that?
Why is solitude important? The answer may lie in a meme.
Memes capture a societal, cultural feeling at a point in time. We can get a glimpse of the cultural consciousness through memes. Consider the larger message that memes like “ok boomer” and “woke” convey. A popular meme can capture a feeling that many people are experiencing. A meme can be much more than Harambe.
The “shower thoughts” meme is an expression of decreasing solitude in our culture. The shower is one of the final places that technology does not have our grasps. This is one of the final places where people have the space to think freely and creatively without the input of others. The subreddit “Shower Thoughts” has 19.2 million members and describes the community as “A subreddit for sharing those miniature epiphanies you have that highlight the oddities within the familiar.” The shower thoughts meme helps display the importance of solitude.
Solitude is important because it gives us the time to think deeply and be creative. It allows for us to think about complex problems and emotions. In addition, solitude flexes an important mental muscle - being alone with your thoughts. Being alone with your thoughts becomes more uncomfortable the less you are exposed to it. I did a quick Twitter search and it seems we are feeling an increasing fear of being alone with our thoughts.
Technology and innovation have high potential upsides. However, there are costs to new technology. Losing solitude in our lives takes away something fundamental we have experienced for millenia. All of a sudden, we are removing a potentially critical aspect of mental health and important time for deep thinking. We are unaware of the consequences and invisible downside risk.
GenZ faces the problem of solitude at a higher level than any previous generation. Newport notes that a “2015 study by Common Sense Media found that teenagers were consuming media - including text messaging and social networks - nine hours per day on average.” This leaves little time for solitude. We know through countless studies that younger generations are more anxious and depressed than previous generations. We have to be cautious about removing solitude so abruptly.
As we move further to transhumanism, the second order impact of decreasing solitude will only become worse. As Drew notes, “Ideally, from Apple’s point of view, we will all reach a point where we all don’t just own AirPods, we rarely even think to remove them from our ears.”
If we jump out in front of this problem and attempt to understand why solitude is important and how to further incorporate it in our lives, we may help to curb the potential negative impacts associated with another technological advancement.