From Screens to Streams (continued)


to explore MTV far more often than Heart Mountain. Taking for granted what you are born with is obviously not unique to me. Nor is seeking out replacements for direct experience through television, the internet, gaming, etc., which have become perva- sive in our society and, with the exception of the internet, were common ways to replace experience in my youth (I did a fair share of mountain biking, hiking, and kayaking in my middle and high school years, but not nearly as much as I could have or wish I would have). It could be argued that human beings are genetically predis-


posed to seek enter- tainment, at least that which conveys a story; the ability to transport oneself to distant lands and imagine oneself in an infinite number of alternative settings has been a compelling part of human history via oral stories and the writ- ten word for thousands of years. Only relatively recently, however, has it become a nearly unavoidable aspect of our cultural landscape, available 24 hours a day and 7 days a week by means of innumerable glowing screens. Our so- ciety generally and our youth specifically spend an enormous amount of time ìplugged inî to vari- ous types of entertainment media. The inexorable progression of technologi- cal innovation has led to the production of a multitude of gad- gets that provide constant channels to maintain one’s connection to digital content; we’re voluntarily (and often involuntarily) inundating ourselves with images, videos, links, buttons, logos, and just about anything and everything else imaginable. And all too commonly, our youth are “discovering” their own backyard, its geography, cultural history, ecology and biodiversity, through pixels on a screen rather than boots in the mud, if they learn about it at all. There are now so many ways to replace actual experience


with virtual experience it is becoming increasingly difficult to tell the difference. Video games, Second Life, GoogleEarth, Facebook, and many more electronic media all provide avenues for replacing physical reality with a digital substitute, abstract- ing relationships and, perhaps arguably, contributing to feelings of alienation and detachment in an age of unending connectiv- ity. From a look around it is starting to seem as if digital devices


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that maintain that connectivity are viewed by their owners less as tools for productivity or communication than necessary prosthetics of the new digital self. We are, quite frankly, cultur- ally enslaved to them. While this isnít necessarily problematic in itself, there is now unassailable evidence that we are living in an age of ecological crisis for which we will need to retool the ways in which we view technology and it’s social, economic, cultural and ecological significance. The days of driving technological in- novation predominantly for entertainment media, unsustainable forms of energy production, or simply conspicuous consump- tion will need to come to a close. We need a new technology, or at least a new perspective on the role of technology in our lives, one that embraces ecolog- ical principles and aims to more effectively align human society with sus- tainable forms of living and working. To do this, we will need a new gen- eration of technologically and environmentally literate citizens for whom technological innovation is viewed as a powerful way to collaborate, com- municate, and democrati- cally solve the ecological problems we now face. Technology must cease to be an end in itself and become a means to confront the enormous environmental problems future generations will


In an age where a child can travel all over the world with Google Earth and YouTube, why would she explore the but- terflies in her backyard? In fact, she isn’t.


face. We must find a way to direct our collective, and vast, technological lit- eracy toward ecologically sustainable and socially equitable solutions to our


environmental problems, while continuing to explore emerging technological innovations in promising and environmentally sound fields, such as green energy and biomimicry. In order to direct our technological prowess to address our


environmental problems, we must have an environmentally lit- erate society, one that understands the consequences of failing to address the tremendous environmental challenges that confront us globally. To that end, media has been instrumental in com- municating the issues, from the likely repercussions of global climate change, as portrayed in the films “An Inconvenient Truth” and “The 11th Hour”, to media-heavy, environmentally focused expeditions, such as “Summit on the Summit” and “The Plastiki”. These latter so-called “eco-adventure” spectacles have attempted to leverage the profound pedagogical opportunities of media technology to bring awareness to environmental issues, in this case clean and accessible water and plastics in the ocean


(continued on page 24) www.clearingmagazine.org/online CLEARING 2010


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