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Some of you are digital subscribers of The Alpena News and are reading this column on your cell phone. Imagine that! You can read your hometown newspaper while you are out of the county or country! Technology is truly something!
This week, I Facetimed a friend in Australia. Not only did I get to see her face, but I was able to show her my new cherrywood kitchen floors from a tree I repurposed after the ice storm of 2025. Technology truly has its upside. But there is a downside to technology that is becoming more evident.
Put your seatbelt on; this may be a rocky road, and I do not mean ice cream. Let's admit our addiction, whether it is checking your work email or checking our phones for the ". . ." as we stare at the screen, waiting for a person to reply to our message. One survey found that Americans check their phones 96 times a day--about once every 10 minutes.
Device addiction is real. Parents toss their child a tablet so they can take a bubble bath or have some quiet on a long road trip.
We have become a culture of creature comforts, endless consumption, and immediate gratification. Friends, the pursuit of comfort isn't new--only the technology is.
While I was working on my master's in counseling, before the internet was invented, I needed to counsel people with various needs and addictions in order to complete my counseling degree. The first referral I received was to help a young woman with "depression." We established a good rapport, and she came back the next week. That day, she told me that she worked on the telephone at night. I thought it was like my first job in college, where I was the switchboard operator on the night shift from 11:00 p.m. to 7:00 a.m. Nope. She explained to me that she was a 1-900 sex-phone operator.
I did not know that phones could have sex.
She explained to her sheltered therapist that people would pay to talk to her about sexual things. Late-night commercials promoted 1-900 phone numbers that offered an anonymous way to talk to a live person about sexual things.
I learned something that day that has stayed with me ever since. I remember thinking, "This doesn't sound like depression." And I thought, "Wow, there are so many more levels to this."
The technology has changed, but our desire for escape and immediate gratification has not.
While boarding my plane at the Alpena airport, I had the privilege of meeting a data scientist, Ciaran Gruffeille, who was visiting his girlfriend, Heather, here in Northeast Michigan. This was ironic because I was on the phone with a friend who had just asked me questions about algorithms, and I told him about the article I wanted to write. Within the hour, I was having a conversation with someone who knew how data science works. He said that every device is connected, and algorithms do not run on the device; they run on the services of the company whose platform you are using. The devices capture our usage and then send it to a "central brain," which then sends back recommendations. The central brain tracks everything you do on the platform. For example, YouTube can use your search and watch history, account activity, and location information to personalize what it recommends to you.
He further explained that algorithms have a long memory that follows you, including how you evolve over time. For example, Spotify follows your listening history and playlists over time. It collects information about how you use the service--including your streaming history, playlists,
searches, and the date and time of your activity--and uses that information to understand your interests and preferences.
Think about it! You are, in essence, designing your own stalker with every click. Yes, "you may also like" is the type of algorithm that, after following your usage, can predict that you may like other content based on your data. And they make recommendations. When you like a suggestion, they reinforce the links that made the suggestion. They learn what you do not like just as easily. The algorithms are constantly learning!
Maybe the Hollies understood something we are only now beginning to appreciate.
The Hollies' Just One Look was a popular song in the 1960s.
"Just one look."
The impact of modern technology that we have at our very fingertips makes those three words so much weightier.
That one look can be a recipe for addiction. What you choose to feed will grow faster than my great-grandma's sourdough starter.
Scripture says in Proverbs that "Death and Destruction are never satisfied, and neither are human eyes" (Proverbs 27:20, NIV) and forewarns us that, above all else, we should guard our hearts, for out of them flow the issues of life.