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The Shire, Middle Earth, nr Oxford, UK

Thursday, noon-ish GMT

Hello Reader,
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Across the West, academic achievement by young students had been rising… until 2013. Since then, grades have declined, and continued to go down.

Why?

Some say that 2013 was when smartphones entered the classroom.

Our children may have seemed less bored, but their attention was distracted.

No, ‘distracted’ is too mild a word. Manipulated is a better word. Algorithms began to teach our children what was important.

Now, when I look at teenagers I meet on my local urban trail here in the Shire, they are not looking up to nature, to the sky, or to me. They are always looking down at their smartphones.

And they don’t look happy.

I like to run early in the morning. I notice the sometimes-glorious sunrises, or the setting moon. Young pedestrian commuters, notice none of these daily glories but are looking down at their screens.

When we are absorbed by what algorithms offer us as ‘important’ and their ’truth’ about reality, is that freedom? Is it freedom when it excludes everything else?

When we find a movie, a TV Show, or a book to become utterly absorbing, we often describe it as captivating. Yes, we can become captured by an absorbing pursuit. Later, it can become a lifestyle, an everyday habit. If that has happened to us, we may discover, like a prisoner lifting their eyes to see light coming through the window of their cell, that we have lost some freedom. Perhaps we realise that now we can hardly remember the sky.

I wonder if a better question might be,

Vision Pro or Built-in Blindness?

Apple has just launched its Vision Pro product. Many herald it as the next step-change in personal technology. Watch this short video (1:01).
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Are you excited?

Or are you, as I am, left somewhat troubled? Is this likely to take manipulation of our attention to a whole new level?

Sometimes the biggest breakthroughs in history have been when someone, who had not been missing something everyone else missed, asked further questions, such as:

“What is amiss about what is going on here?”

“Where is the true freedom for us?”

We recover our sight. It can be liberating.
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See Something that Was Missing in Recent History

Here’s a story of a couple who helped others see a path to life-saving freedom. It was in a pre-digital culture, but it is a parable for all of us, and in this case… saved countless lives.

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This video (5:33) is from my Map Room library. (I am giving the Map Room a spring cleaning. I will make it available shortly, so watch this space.)

For now, though, if you are reading this on your smartphone, try this: put it on silent and put it down for an hour or two, and look for what you might have missed.

Your Rambler-in-the-Shire,