I’m reading a very interesting book by Ivo Quartiroli (he’s Italian, though the book was written in English),
it’s called the Digitally Divided Self.
I think many of his views fit perfectly with the philosophy and scope of our recently launched Digital Awareness Project.
I’ll get back on this soon. Meanwhile, I gathered some interesting quotes from the book for you to read and reflect upon:
We don’t realize we have become servomechanisms of IT – precisely because IT has weakened the inner skills of self-understanding.
Uninterrupted conscious attention along with silent time to look into our inner world are exactly what is rendered arduous by the technological society which, to use a term dear to Mauro Magatti (2009), sequesters our attention.
This looks like a reverse inquisition. As the Church would condemn anything which wasn’t compatible with Holy Scripture, now it looks like nothing has value if it is not backed by hard scientific proof and plenty of data. With that premise, there can be no value in any inner, philosophical, or ethical quest. What’s not calculable, statistically coherent or scientifically demonstrable is categorized as mere “opinion” and far from truth. Welcome to Technopoly,
But we can just go offline, right? Again, true – but the Internet tends, like a gas, to expand in time and space. It follows us anywhere, through wireless connections and smartphones. With the immediacy of communication through the Net, there is a reciprocal pressure for answers to be fast.
we try to become free of it again by outsourcing it to a mechanical computer, so we can again look at reality without filters. But the very qualities of the mind which could free us from the illusion – sustained inner concentration, meditation and silence, feeling the body fully – are the first to be sequestered by IT.
Related articles
- The Shallows – Nicholas Carr – I’m about to give up after Chapter 3 (mymindbursts.com)
- Drama on the Internet: Is it Making Us Stupid? (psychologytoday.com)
- The Relentless Invasion of Our Minds (wakingtimes.com)
Bonus (Italian)
Risorse, Economia e Ambiente: Senza potersi fermare 
http://aspoitalia.blogspot.com/
Riceviamo e pubblichiamo questo scritto di Ivo Quartiroli, che amplia un po’ le tematiche dei nostri post, il cui taglio è solitamente tecnico-scientifico e economico (a volte anche psicologico). In esso ci propone la sua visione filosofica …. Allo stesso tempo, mi sembra che gli imperativi contradditori di cui parla Quartitoli siano essenzialmente parte della natura umana, di chiunque non si rassegni passivamente a lasciarsi trasportare dagli eventi. Anche da chi vuole solo egoisticamente …
