Dopamine squirt

I say again: screens on screens

Last night, my girlfriend forwarded me this blog post/op-ed from the Harvard Business Review. In it, a presumably successful "strategic adviser to CEOs and their creative teams" (whatever that means) talks about why he returned his iPad. My girlfriend correctly gauged that I would find it interesting, given the constant state of technology panic that I live in.

Peter Bregman, the CEO adviser, gives his reasoning for returning the iPad:

"It didn't take long for me to encounter the dark side of this revolutionary device: it's too good. It's too easy. Too accessible. Both too fast and too long-lasting. Certainly there are some kinks, but nothing monumental. For the most part, it does everything I could want. Which, as it turns out, is a problem...The brilliance of the iPad is that it's the anytime-anywhere computer. On the subway. In the hall waiting for the elevator. In a car on the way to the airport. Any free moment becomes a potential iPad moment."

I'm with Bregman up to this point. If you own an iPad or know someone who does, you know that iPad owners tend to cart the damn thing around everywhere, and use it whenever it is remotely feasible. You also probably know that you/they use it at moments that border on socially inappropriate—for instance, when you/they have a friend over for drinks. Maybe I'm just old-school before my time, but ignoring a guest so you can play Angry Birds or pore over a box score strikes me as somewhat rude.

Bregman's next bit of reasoning strikes me as a little less precise:

"It sounds like I was super-productive. Every extra minute, I was either producing or consuming. But something is lost in the busyness. Something too valuable to lose. Boredom. Being bored is a precious thing, a state of mind we should pursue. Once boredom sets in, our minds begin to wander, looking for something exciting, something interesting to land on. And that's where creativity arises. My best ideas come to me when I am unproductive...These "wasted" moments, moments not filled with anything in particular, are vital...To lose those moments, to replace them with tasks and efficiency, is a mistake. What's worse is that we don't just lose them. We actively throw them away."

I get what he's going for here, but I think he misses the mark. For one thing, 'boredom' doesn't accurately describe the state of mind that he's describing. Boredom is what you feel when you're surfing aimlessly around the internet looking for funny pictures, or flipping through an old issue of Time at the dentist's without reading any of it, or staring at your watch while waiting to meet someone. Bregman really values contemplation, which boredom sometimes--but certainly doesn't always--produces.

And really, I don't think that the problem with the iPad is that it makes you "super-productive." It's possible that Bregman is that rarest of computer user who is constantly focused and directed while on his machine. More likely, he's like the rest of us, who spend a good deal of their computer time not getting anything done at all. And that time extra time you spend on your iPad doing computer bullshit is time not spent doing other things, be they contemplative or otherwise. I don't own an iPad, and it's entirely possible that I spend all the time that I'd waste on my iPad on other, more conventional types of bullshit. But at least my bullshit portfolio is diversified!

Bregman's brother raises a common response to this line of reasoning:

"That's not a problem with the iPad," my brother Anthony — who I feel compelled to mention is currently producing a movie called My Idiot Brother — pointed out. "It's a problem with you. Just don't use it as much." Guilty as charged. It is a problem with me. I can't not use it if it's there. And, unfortunately, it's always there. So I returned it. Problem solved."

Thing is, it's not just a problem with Bregman. It's a problem with most people! iPad owners, iPhone owners, and even some people with regular old laptops have a hard time unplugging themselves. These devices are addictive—here's a British scientist arguing that e-mail and slot machines trigger the same mental reward mechanisms. 

Not everyone is as hopelessly tied to their gizmos as Kord Campbell, the Silicon Valley dweeb who was profiled so unflatteringly in this New York Times piece about tech addiction. But that same "dopamine squirt" affects us all.