Digital Inferno

Digital Inferno: Using Technology Consciously in Your Life and Work: 101 Ways to Survive and Thrive in a Hyperconnected World

How many times do you check something on the internet and find that you are merely drifting aimlessly from one link to another? If you cannot not answer the phone when it rings; if you spend hours a week on social media if you read your texts instead of kissing your loved one goodnight; if you don’t give your kids proper attention and instead have to prioritize new responses to your tweet… this book is for you.

The digital world is spreading like an inferno—a swirling hot storm of change, possibility, addiction, passion, manipulation, creativity, and abuse. It demands our attention and encourages us to be always on for its constant updates and feedback. It is exciting but can also overwhelm us. Moreover, it is developing more quickly than our ability to deal with it in a healthy way.

To adherents of digital living and working, any criticism is uncool, a sign of being out of touch—a luddite.

Refreshingly, Digital Inferno is neither simple indictment nor unqualified endorsement. Rather, it’s about holding your own in the digital realm—adapting in a healthy way to the new reality. It offers a conscious path that allows us to derive the benefits we need while also managing the dangers. Packed with a wealth of practical advice, Digital Inferno describes numerous methods that enable us to step back from constant digital activity and virtual living, allowing more space and time to pay attention to the real world. Included are exercises to overcome fatigue arising from digital technology and to develop skills that enable us to remain awake and aware. Crucially, we can master the digital realm and abstain from contact, and when necessary, also freely immerse ourselves when we choose to.

We don’t need to shun new technology, but we do need to understand its challenges, problems, and limitations. This book provides tools we can all use to meet the future consciously.

C O N T E N T S:

Introduction

PART ONE

1. The Problem and the Challenge

PART TWO

2. “Placement” — the Key to Freedom in the Digital Inferno
3. Staying Awake, Keeping Conscious at the Computer Table
4. Gaining Mastery over the Mobile Phone
5. Speaking on the Phone
6. Digital Dancing in Short Sentences and Sound-bites
7. Following Through in the Digital Inferno: The Case of Facebook Noncommitment
8. Losing the Thread
9. Looking at Pixelated Images: A Deal with a Devil?
10. Talking to Yourself
11. The Attack on Memory — Dancing Back into Sacred Remembering
12. Digital Gesturing and the Smiley
13. Staying Safe and Secure in the Digital Inferno
14. Reclaiming the Whole Narrative
15. Parenting the Digital Inferno
16. Welcome to the Internet of Things — the Future
17. Going Back Consciously into the Digital Realm — Enjoying the Dance

Bibliography
Glossary

About the Author

PAUL LEVY is a writer, facilitator and founder of digital publication Fringe Review. He is a Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Research in Innovation Management (CENTRIM) at the University of Brighton in the UK, and co-author of several books on innovation, technology and change, including E:Quality and Technosophy. Paul was Head of Interaction at the Digital Workplace Group, and has worked with the digital realm for over thirty years, using technology in the fields of business training and organizational theater. He lives with his family in Brighton, England.