"My favourite story about Einstein is... a reporter was interviewing him. At the end of the interview, the reporter asked him, 'Mr Einstein, if I have any follow-up questions, can I contact you?' And Einstein went over to his bookshelf, pulled out a phone book and looked up 'Einstein'. The reporter was stunned and said, 'You're the smartest man in the 20th century. How can you not remember your own telephone number?' And he said, 'Why fill my mind with such useless information if I know where I can find it?'
The conversation with Tiffany Shlain has reached the point of how technology is not all-bad. It's a topic that fascinates her - one of several, as it turns out - but all drawing back to a single theme: for better or worse, we are becoming increasingly connected. Shlain has her theories on this - one is that every time we interact with a wired device, we get a shot of Oxytocin, also dubbed the 'love hormone' thanks to its role in orgasms. Apparently, we receive a tiny dose when sending or receiving a message, and Shlain believes it's because we connect with someone at that moment.
"The constant throughout civilization is our desire to connect," she explains. Although such a link between Oxytocin and a need to check your e-mail is still largely hypothetical, our desire to connect with someone else requires much less scrutiny. And there is no greater facilitator of connections than modern technology.
To Russia with hope
Shlain is no stranger to technology. She was born in 1970, and as a budding teen, she was one of the first kids to get an Apple Mac. Clearly no underachiever, the daughter of a famed surgeon and author would co-write a paper musing about a future where students everywhere are connected by software. The essay won her a trip to the Soviet Union, as well as a sobering slap to her naivety when face-to-face with the poverty of 20th century Russia. This appears to have initiated a shift in her priorities, but not determination. Shlain, still intent on a better world, switched to filmmaking to help express her desire for change.
Oddly enough, she'd rise to prominence because of technology. One of the founders of the groundbreaking Webby awards, Shlain has, at the very least, been one of the modern Internet's cheerleaders, awed by its incredible power. She founded the Webbies after a somewhat disastrous foray into documentaries and found herself in the explosion of the Internet during the late 90s and early 21st century. A few years ago, she left the awards behind to pursue other interests, including a marriage to robotics pioneer Ken Goldberg.
While still a poor student at a poorly equipped film faculty, Shlain discovered the advantages of using stock footage, old clips and animated shorts, re-contextualising them through a new presentation. When she returned to her filmmaking roots, establishing the Moxie Institute, this mash-up style would serve her well in her first full-length feature, Connected.
Establishing a connection
Connected is surprisingly personal - so much so that one could argue it proves its argument for connectedness simply through its presentation. It is, in part, the story about Shlain's relationship with her father, the late Leonard Shlain. The man was an interesting thinker and clearly a profound influence on his daughter. Through the film, she deals with the news, journey and tragic outcome of her father's diagnosis of a brain tumour. It is moving and perhaps a bit overwrought, as such personal things are.
But it proves to be a potent vehicle for the film's point. After a gaily and energetic title sequence, Connected posits its larger question: what is the outcome of all this new connected culture, created by technology?
It's been proven throughout history that innovation occurs when you get the most perspectives around a problem.
The film then embarks on an interesting argument, mixing the personal drama with a broader hypothesis. It favours the positive outlook that embraces the potential of a future due to - not despite of - technology. One inspiration is Matt Ridley's book The Rational Optimist, which, in part, argues our species' advantage, even over the Neanderthals, is the ability to mix concepts - ideas having sex, as he provocatively put it. This drives technology, which, in turn, drives more mixing of ideas.
"The real exciting part is going to happen when everyone who wants to be online is," Shlain says. "It's been proven throughout history that innovation occurs when you get the most perspectives around a problem." That sounds great, until you consider that the best examples of such collaborations are during times of war. But Shlain feels the heightened levels of connectivity that exist today could override such extreme measures.
"I do think we are evolving with a greater understanding of what connects us than what divides us," she counters. It's hard to dispute that idea if you accept that giving people access to the information highway is a priority, something Shlain puts to action working with the A Human Right group.
"Technology is an extension of us. It's an extension of our desire to connect. We're creating this technology that's causing us to connect more and the technology makes us want to collaborate and trust more."
I worry that we're online too much and that we need to create boundaries.
This is the inspiration of the Moxie Institute and its series of short films, all made by embracing Shlain's Cloud Filmmaking Manifesto. The first, A Declaration of Interdependence, was made from clips submitted by people across the world, all using the same script. It has, impressively, been translated by volunteers into over 65 languages. Released under the banner of the Let It Ripple project, several more are in the pipeline. Brain Power, which compares the nurture of an infant's brain to that of the still-young Internet, is currently in post-production.
Don't tune out
There are some doubts, but not towards the idea that getting everyone onboard is the right thing to do. Instead, Shlain has concerns about the effects of constant connectivity. Connected opens with her speaking to the camera, recalling how she snuck a look at her phone in the restroom while meeting an old friend for drinks.
"I worry about all the connectedness," she admits during our interview. "I worry that we're online too much and that we need to create boundaries." It seems a bit disingenuous, calling for one thing and then warning against a wholesale embrace. Shlain concedes that it's a hard problem to solve. Her family has taken to unplugging their gadgets for one day a week, a Luddite sabbath of sorts.
"There are points where we need to decide which aspects of technology enrich our lives and which don't." She cites television, a medium once thought destined to rot our brains, yet here we are, smart as ever. Some might snidely counter with reality television, but Shlain's point is fair: eventually, a technology starts dancing to our tune. Today's connectedness will be shaped according to our needs.
Boundaries or not, all this being in touch could be for the better and in a way never imagined before. Maybe Einstein's refusal to learn his phone number had a tiny role to play in discovering that magical relationship between energy and mass. Maybe not. It is certainly fashionable to hold back on hope. Matt Ridley likes this quote from Woody Allen: "We stand today at a crossroads: one path leads to despair and utter hopelessness, the other to total extinction. Let us pray that we have the wisdom to choose correctly."
For a species everyone expects to annihilate itself, we've proven quite adept at staying alive and getting better. Shlain and other proponents of a more positive future don't consider this a small feat. Instead, it's a sign of our true potential, now enhanced by a connected world.
First published in the November 2012 issue of ITWeb Brainstorm magazine.
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