Do we really want out?

[you]

Would be interested to hear how they defined 'nothing', as opposed to 'resting' and other minimal non-goal oriented activities.

@shakahislop - that's a rich question. Many have highlighted the shift in idle activities.

I often said the iPhone usurped the cigarette as the dominant idle animation - particularly in urban places.

But isn't passively scrolling the infinite scroll doing nothing? Insofar as it is not doing something other than resorting to habit?

A while ago a psychologist on radio four, in a discussion concerning the ethics of taking photos of atrocities, suggested that taking photos and using social media is a habit - and that when people are in shock and traumatised they revert to habits..... selfies, photos, sharing, texting.... 'do you want a cup of tea?'. Perhaps all arbitrary activities?

 

[you]

Then there is the traction that a clear-purpose re-branding of minimal non-goal oriented activities seems to have. E.g. meditation, now another lifestyle health-admin 'activity/task' that is worked into a busy day.

 

[Murphy]

Life is a tacograph

The depiction of war dead is still a (sort of ) taboo, blasted more into view by the internet. Faces of Death seems aeons ago. WWI cadavers = yes, Syria or Yemen = no chance. What % here have seen an execution video or had one emailed to them by a sickfuck mate or experienced traumatic events? Written into the code of life, except the code is changing

Traumatic reactions vary depending on the individual, circumstances, relational awareness and repetition of events, fight/flight/freeze. Not so sure about boiling kettles

 

[william kent]

But isn't passively scrolling the infinite scroll doing nothing? Insofar as it is not doing something other than resorting to habit?

I think the difference is the amount of information encountered during said habit. The act of smoking and the act of scrolling may be physically comparable, but psychologically they're in different leagues.

 

[william kent]

A while ago a psychologist on radio four, in a discussion concerning the ethics of taking photos of atrocities, suggested that taking photos and using social media is a habit - and that when people are in shock and traumatised they revert to habits..... selfies, photos, sharing, texting.... 'do you want a cup of tea?'. Perhaps all arbitrary activities?

This is a big part of Haneke's last film, Happy End. There's a girl who poisons a pet, poisons her mother and later wheels her grandfather into the sea and blankly views all these things through the camera on her phone.

 

[Clinamenic]

Yeah really doing nothing can be difficult and sublimely rewarding, as opposed to passive and mindless activities. The former is actually much more productive too, in my mind.

 

[you]

"This is a big part of Haneke's last film, Happy End. There's a girl who poisons a pet, poisons her mother and later wheels her grandfather into the sea and blankly views all these things through the camera on her phone."

There is something here. But I wonder if this is, for want of a better phrase, part of a realism narrative. In those ghastly true crime television shows the real horror is often presented as 'and afterwards he [statistically] just went back to his day job'. The disjunct between unimaginable violence and the most familiar and mundane everyday is frequently emphasised.

 

[you]

I think the difference is the amount of information encountered during said habit. The act of smoking and the act of scrolling may be physically comparable, but psychologically they're in different leagues.

'encountered' is a curious word. Ambiguous. Not necessarily active and attentive, but exposed to.

 

[william kent]

'encountered' is a curious word. Ambiguous. Not necessarily active and attentive, but exposed to.

Yeah, exactly. How much of the information you're exposed to online is information you're actually looking for?

 

[you]

I think the difference is the amount of information encountered during said habit. The act of smoking and the act of scrolling may be physically comparable, but psychologically they're in different leagues.

Yes, psychologically they are are in different leagues. The slate hued solitary puffer is engaged with rumination as much as a cerebral break - surely? To digest the day's events, what's for dinner, that rash.... whereas scrolling is mainly exposure to information without necessarily engagement or thought. The information may well be the day's events, but these are disparate and fragmentary - and not arrived at by the subject but by the algorithm.

 

[william kent]

"This is a big part of Haneke's last film, Happy End. There's a girl who poisons a pet, poisons her mother and later wheels her grandfather into the sea and blankly views all these things through the camera on her phone."

There is something here. But I wonder if this is, for want of a better phrase, part of a realism narrative. In those ghastly true crime television shows the real horror is often presented as 'and afterwards he [statistically] just went back to his day job'. The disjunct between unimaginable violence and the most familiar and mundane everyday is frequently emphasised.

There's also the implication that whatever trauma's taken place has happened prior to the film as it's not just a case of her viewing these things through the phone, she initiates and then films them.

 

[william kent]

On the scrolling / internet point, maybe we could think of the internet as the psychological equivalent of an irradiated zone where just occupying it results in contamination.

Virilio had this concept of the pollution of what he called 'gray ecology', the measurement of things like distance and time. The internet could slot into that or maybe have its own coloured ecology.

 

[you]

Well, life is contamination - we could be blue here, but also language (WSB etc), ideas, travel. Contamination isn't necessarily bad.

Regardless, I don't think the thread concerns the Internet, so much as the mode and medium of engagement/exposure. It is this forward slash where the question of 'doing nothing' nestles. Active engagement with Twitter, replying etc is not 'doing nothing' (thought for all practical intents and purposes it is for the individual) versus passive, idle, low blood sugar, habit driven exposure.

 

[william kent]

Well, life is contamination - we could be blue here, but also language (WSB etc), ideas, travel. Contamination isn't necessarily bad.

True, but the irradiated zone analogy implies it's the bad kind of contamination.
No good can come from doing nothing in Fukushima.

 

[Leo]

nice to see you back, @you. been too long.

 

[Mr. Tea]

nice to see you back, @you. been too long.

Missed opportunity for the simplicity of "nice to see @you"

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

A while ago a psychologist on radio four, in a discussion concerning the ethics of taking photos of atrocities, suggested that taking photos and using social media is a habit - and that when people are in shock and traumatised they revert to habits..... selfies, photos, sharing, texting.... 'do you want a cup of tea?'. Perhaps all arbitrary activities?

Limits to this. Spent the past two days basically nursing my dad (cos it seems it's below actual NHS nurses to do so these days) as he died, but never felt like taking any photos. Drank a fuckload of tea though.

 

[Leo]

sorry to hear, @HMGovt, condolences.

 

[HMGovt’s Glorious Return!]

Thanks mate

 

[Murphy]

Condolences HMG, it’s a brutal blow

i know we joust but take care out there