I’m currently reading the book Battlegrounds by H.R. McMaster. The book provides a good overview of U.S. relationships with Russia, China, South Asia, the Middle East, Iran, and North Korea. It also has a chapter called “Entering the Arena” in which the author discusses technology such as the internet and the use of social media. He highlights the pros and cons of using the internet, particularly how people and organizations are using it to foment hatred and disinformation. In the chapter, he says, “Citizens should not wait for political leaders or the media to counter cyber-enabled information warfare. Individuals can decide to reject the toxicity and disinformation in the social media ecosystem and reintroduce civility into the discussions important to a thriving democracy.”1
We live in a time where it seems that civility is at its lowest, and social media has a lot to do with this problem. You just need to watch the news and read some of the information on social media platforms in the United States to realize that we, as individuals, need to put some controls on how we use these platforms. The immense amount of information that we are consuming daily will affect our ability to distinguish between true and false narratives. Books such as “The Digital Invasion – How Technology is Shaping You and Your Relationships” by Drs. Archibald D. Hart and Sylvia Hart Frejd can help us understand this environment and provide some tools to manage our daily use.
This is the first book that I read about how technology is affecting our relationships and everything that we do, and I think it is a good introduction to this topic. It covers basic definitions such as what is a digital native (people born after the internet) and digital immigrants (born before the internet). The most interesting to me, Nomophobia, which is the fear of being separated from your cell phone. It covers every addiction that you can imagine and gives recommendations on how to get rid of those addictions. I was very interested in the discussion about how the overuse of technology affects young minds and the brain rest cycle. Overloading the pleasure system gradually raises the bar so that you have to increase the level of stimulation to maintain the pleasure.2 This is how addiction begins. If you disagree, just spend some time watching people scrolling endlessly through Facebook and Instagram. The bottom line is that the use of the internet and social media is not bad, but we need to keep a good balance. We cannot allow visuals and disinformation to change our perspective without first verifying the facts to ensure that the information and narratives that we are consuming are true. This is going to be extremely important as we start a new political cycle in the United States.
Thoughts about leadership, history, and more 