On July 30, 2016
Artsforum Coins a Phrase: Behold the ‘Hand-Held Self-Affirmation Device’
© By John Arkelian
Our (negative) review of the new movie “Nerve” coins a phrase for
Keeping One Eye on What Really Matters – Illustration © 2016 by Linda Arkelian.
those ubiquitous telecom devices into which so many faces intently gaze – as though transfixed – these days. Here’s an excerpt: “Any movie that revolves around people’s pathetic addiction to their ‘hand-held self-affirmation devices,’ if we may pause to coin a phrase, better known as so-called ‘smart-phones,’ isn’t worth the celluloid it’s printed on (or, nowadays, the digital space it occupies)…. This film consists of boring electronic toys in the hands of fools, nothing more, with plenty of fruit-themed electronic product placement. Skip it, and, for heaven’s sake, put your confounded idiot box away!”
There you have it, an apt moniker for the trivial gadgets that have inexplicably addicted young and old the world over: “Hand-Held Self-Affirmation Devices” (or ‘HH-SADs’). And here you thought they were for phoning, texting, and looking up all manner of fatuous trivia online. No sir, their appeal transcends mere telecom service: They mesmerize the unwary with the trite and the inane, triggering an unearned rush of endorfins, right on cue, each and every time we get an incoming text or email. The omnipresent ‘HH-SAD’ ostensibly promotes and expedites more “communicating;” but most of it is of the most superficial sort. A virtual, if globally dispersed, Tower of Babel. (Or babble.) A headlong rush to the lowest common denominator.
In a theater? In a car? Walking down a busy city sidewalk? Sitting at a dinner table with friends or family? No time or place seems to be the wrong time or place for these portable light-and-sound cued response stimulators. Where we go, they go. Users need to get their fix – and often. But, mayhap this man’s garish glare is your warm comforting glow, a subconscious visual prompt to infancy, when each of us was the center of someone’s attention, the apple of someone’s eye. Now that eye is an insensate bundle of circuits and ‘apps.’ And that electronic eye never sleeps, never averts its gaze. It’s a jealous lover, too, for it expects us never to avert our gaze from its own unblinking eye. But it’s a pretty poor (not to mention insidious) substitute for looking into the face of another (physically present) person, reflecting on the state of the world, holding the powerful accountable, or simply seeing, hearing, and responding to the physical world around us.
Pretending to better connect us, instead, these devices disconnect us, offering virtual connections in place of the real ones they’ve stolen, wrapping us in glowing cocoons of self-preoccupied obliviousness. They offer false self-affirmation to the many, drawing our gaze to the Pool of Narcissus and binding it there (“And in the Darkness bind them”), reducing us to an unthinking captive audience trapped in self-absorption of the most banal kind. Pavlov’s dogs, anyone? It’s cheap, it’s easy, it’s pervasive, and it’s well-nigh universally popular. No coercion necessary for this little trick: On the contrary, people line-up to be caught in this variety of amber. Gotta get the newest model, the latest apps. Those who need our votes (and later our quiescence) buy our affections cheap, displaying their supposed common touch with so-called ‘selfies.’ And why not, the lure of the Self is strong. By accident (or by design?), these HH-SADs have the effect of stupefying, isolating, and, maybe, by increments enslaving the unwary.
John Arkelian is an award-winning author and journalist with a background in international and constitutional law, criminal prosecutions, and diplomacy.
Linda Arkelian is a dancer, choreographer, filmmaker, actress, artist, and teacher.
Copyright © 2016 by John Arkelian
Illustration © 2016 by Linda Arkelian
Illustrator’s Note: This picture combines an impression of the Buddha with imagery depicting meditation, ‘levitation,’ the yoga pose known as the lotus, a waterfall, legs forming the symbol for infinity, sly references to ‘tuning in’ to ‘higher waves’ (represented by the wi-fi power bars), and, of course, a smart-phone – all in the counter-intuitive context of meditation that’s intended to settle the mind and rid it of distractions. Rumor has it that yoga students will take class with their cell phones near their yoga mat – and that’s a real a no-no. Keeping one eye on what really matters, indeed.