Outsourcing Homeostasis
The emotional cost of technological improvements
As we begin to incorporate more and more technology into every facet of our lives, what ramifications may we face? Will we reach a point where what it means to be human begins to change as more and more tech is implemented, even integrated, into our life? According to C.G.P. Grey, our phones may already have legal precedence for being considered an extension of ourselves.
I am not one who fears progress — technological included — but am I one who likes to wade into the water rather than jump in head first. Throughout human history we have latched on to new technologies, new treatments, and new trends without considering known or discussing unknown ramification.
In my own field of psychology and counseling, we have seen horrors displayed as medical marvels (i.e., asylums and lobotomies) in their time. Our ever swaying opinions (both medical and social) about nicotine — and all of its varied delivery methods — are another fine example of how we have lauded nicotine in the medical community and had #1 doctor recommended brands and tobacco smoking in every form of media for all ages only to “find out” that smoking literally kills people. This eventually transitioned into present day wherein we are beginning to see the not-so-long-term effects of vaping — the so-called safer alternative to smoking cigarettes.
The point within all of this is that we must admit that we have a complicated relationship with our present gratification and our concerns about the future. And why not? That is me in the future’s problem, not mine…
So how does this relate to technology and our title about outsourcing homeostasis?
What is Homeostasis?
Simply put, homeostasis is an organisms drive to keep its internal world balanced within its external world. Humans, ourselves being organisms, must maintain homeostasis as much as the next organism.
Life — all of it — maintains the drive towards homeostasis at the microscopic, cellular level and continues on to the macroscopic, individual organism level. Furthermore, humanity as a whole must strive for homeostasis as a species within a the broader ecosystem of earth — and maybe the solar system? (I’m looking at you, SpaceX…)
My focus here is on the macroscopic, organisms level: myself, you, all the other individuals who may read this, and our interactions with each other. While our bodies maintain homeostasis at the cellular level, our homeostasis as humans does not consist solely within the cellular level, however, because we are far more complex creatures that this. We must maintain homeostasis at the physiological, psychological, social, emotional, economic, etc. levels.
What is remarkable about this, is that as a species we have done this tremendously well — no matter how much, or often, or deeply the void stares back at us, we have been able to adapt, advance, and achieve more than any other species. We could not have done this without our ability to maintain homeostasis at the high levels at which we do.
Trauma: A Brief View
I once asked a professor how people from 5,000 years ago processed trauma when — as far as we know — there were no counselors or psychiatrists. This engendered a great conversation that left us both with more questions than answers. However, one of the most powerful points that she made was that humanity in the past was better in some ways at maintaining some of the homeostatic patterns that we no longer prioritize as individuals and as communities.
When someone undergoes trauma, a LOT of things happen to their brains, their sleep patterns, their bodies, their sense of self, their sense of who they are in relation to others. In the past, humans were more communal than we are now — and community is healing. When trauma hijacks your brain it disrupts your sleep pattern — and sleep is healing. In the past, we essentially had no option but to follow the natural rhythms of the Earth and sleep when the sun was down and rise when it beckoned us awake. When trauma occurs, our sense of self can become distorted. In the past (very generally speaking), our sense of self was often embedded within a community and our individual strength was built up by those within our community.
In terms our ability to regulate, we have been able to do so throughout our entire human heritage because we had to. But what if we no longer have to because something else can do this for us? And what are the long term ramifications?
Outsourcing to Where?
First, I am very thankful for Ashley Abramson’s article “Our Brains are Stuck in The Stone Age” that I stumbled upon while I was writing this. In her article, she focuses on ways in which “evolutionary mismatch” impacts our eating and behavioral habits — mostly, why we freaking love sugar so much and stress eat it constantly (I say while eating chocolate…). It was in this article that I finally found the fancy phrase, evolutionary mismatch, to finally help me wrap my mind around what I was try to say. So go read her article after reading this one, its way better.
Evolutionary Mismatch occurs because our technology, culture, and surroundings have changed far quicker than our brains could ever match pace.
The concern is about how we as humans, with ever adapting and still evolving brains, are being shaped by the technology we ourselves create. For most of the population, technology of the current caliber entered into their lives slowly — giving us relative time to adapt. But adapting in this sense means something a lot different than a brain adapting to its environment. I am in my mid-twenties so I have had the iconic Nokia brick cell phone, a flip phone, and a smart phone. I got to ease into this environment.
For children growing up now, they are immediately interacting with a digital environment afforded to them by smart devices of every kind: watches, phones, tablets, gaming devices, etc.. In terms of social interaction, more specifically parent-child bonding, one recent study has shown a positive link between technological interruptions on the part of the parent and child tantrums/behavioral outbursts. Positive here meaning that there is an influence on tantrums by parental technology use.
So, even from the earliest points of out children’s lives their brains are being shaped by technology — and this is just secondary effects of parental technology use. In a trauma training I took a few years back, the speaker said that parents are the external emotional regulators for children until they learn to regulate on their own. They learn their ability to regulate by watching and learning from their parents (who hopefully learned it from their parents who learned it as well). But what happens when the parents never teach/model this for their children?
In terms of adult use of technology and its impact on our lives, there have been numerous studies showing impacts technology has on mental health. One study has shown links between screen time and depression. One of the contributing factors to this is there sedentary nature of consuming content in binge fashion. Another drawback to our technological connection the world is that comparison has become a plague.
My wife and I throw the phrase “comparison is the thief of joy” a lot in our lives because we need to be reminded that comparing ourselves to the successes of others is the quickest was to feel inadequate. Our “connection” with “Instagram Influencers”, social-media-self-help-gurus, and travel writers creating content in Maui can leave us feeling more disconnected and depressed than we intended when we followed them. And it is no fault of their own, just the fault of our “apish” brains seeking to compare us to the other “pack.”
This over connection on the internet can create a disconnection in reality— from others and from ourselves. In a bit of technological irony, we have begun to use the same technology that pulls us apart from others to help treat emotional distress, connect more with ourselves via mindfulness, or connect with others thought innumerable social media apps and sites.
Your smart watch can tell you to get up and be active after sitting for too long — but you can just as easily swipe the notification away and check your Instagram.
Your dating app can “connect” you with thousands of singles in your area — none of whom you have to actually meet in order to learn enough about them to know if you are a match.
Your smartphone can talk you though a mindfulness meditation and 5 serene minutes later infuriate you because of a hot take on Twitter your former high school classmate blasted out to all the world.
The very same devices responsible for feeding into our most of our dissociative habits, is beckoning us further and deeper in to make itself the source of our homeostatic patterns: how we monitor our sleep, what we eat, our social lives, our mindfulness practices, etc.
What will we begin to lose as we begin to outsource more and more to technology?
The Cost of Outsourcing
Technology has increasingly allowed us to “life hack,” schedule our time, stay connected online to friends and family across the world, track exercise (or lack thereof) patterns, and many other activities and aspects of life but where, if at all, should lines be drawn?
The fear, and maybe just my own, is that the more we outsource our bodily regulation and homeostasis to technology, the further and further we will become disconnected from our sense of self. Our brains were designed/evolved (let’s not get into that here) to tell us what it needs, to tell us when something is awry, and to be the mediator between our bodies and our environment.
So the question is: how will the explosive advance of technology (continue) to impact us on fundamental levels if we are neurologically not prepared for the changes?
As virtual and augmented reality continue to rapidly improve and permeate our reality, how will we be able to know what is really real — the age old question of philosophers and neuroscientists alike?
As bio-metric feedback devices we keep on our person at all times continue to notify us of changes, will we unlearn our natural rhythms?
Obviously, pretty much anything can be okay in moderation and with monitoring. Going forward, will our ability to moderate be possible or even practical as technology becomes more and more involved in daily life? If we are not asking questions of ourselves, we may quickly lose ourselves into the technology we ourselves are creating.
