Changes we choose

IT’S EASY to assume that things are as they’ve always been. This of course is not the case and recently I discovered that the rate of economic growth during the UK’s industrial revolution, one of my native land’s most significant upheavals, rarely exceeded 1 per cent.  Nowadays, in order for a country’s economy to be admired economic growth needs to be at least double this number, which is to say that a growth rate of what was once a time of enormous upheaval has now become commonplace and mediocre.

This has a significant upside. From a state where it would take two generations or more for what was once simply imagination to become reality we are now in situation where what was unthinkable in our early lives is realised well before the reaper comes to call. I remember with fondness when I was young and my father brought a laser home from his work – we invited all the children in the neighbourhood around to see it in action. Some were so excited that they made repeat visits; readers can try to imagine the depth of their indifference should a similar offer be made today. I am less enamored with my recollection with my first experience of accessing the internet: where others saw opportunity I saw a page that crashed immediately and instinctively knew that it would come to nothing.

Change in modern life is nowhere more prominent than that brought by information technology.  So significant are the transformations visited that it often feels as if we’re involved in a project no less important than that of redefining what it is to be human. I exaggerate, and, at the risk of looking foolish a second time, some technologies – Twitter for instance – are over-hyped but someone cryogenically frozen in 1995 and thawed in 2009 would need to be equipped with a mobile phone and a broadband connection in order to function. How else would they use the maps application on their iPhone to guide themselves to New Year parties?

But the benefits of new technologies should also be viewed in the context of what is lost. The demise of some things, say camera film, troubles none but aficionados, the rigid or sentimental of outlook, but changes can be more significant. There is concern that, with an email arriving every three minutes, the modern workforce is permanently distracted and their days fragmented.  Universal mobile phone usage means that silence, always a precious commodity, is all but extinct and with this has disappeared a chance for reflection and self-awareness. The Blackberry’s email technology and near-universal wi-fi coverage means that the boundary between work and recreation is blurred as never before.  Our population feels if it is constantly behind, but yet never deserving of a rest.

This situation is, I suspect, only going to get worse – or better depending on your point of view. Whilst this technology is undoubtedly transformational, a skill we have yet to learn is when to switch it off. But with many of us getting days off at Christmas and New Year, this holiday season would be a good time to start. Power down your television, mobile phone, MP3 player and laptop computer, find a comfortable chair – preferably in the sunlight and nowhere near your recently purchased ebook of ‘1001 Places to visit before you die’). Now, close your eyes.

Then when you open them again send us an email, tweet or text and let us know how you got on.

Dr Stephen Ginn MD is a psychiatrist and writer living in London. He blogs at Frontier Psychiatrist