Technology and Psychology

Technology can mess us up psychologically.

Did you know that there really wasn’t ADHD before TV.  TV was available around the 1920’s and 30’s.  The first time they used stimulants to treat ADHD was 1937.  Don’t get me wrong, I will watch tv, and I am well aware that it has an affect on my attention span.

I am sure there are tons of effects of technology on the way we think and live – but I am really interested in the psychology of the dvr.  I mean, not only does tv condition us to have shorter attention spans, we can now control what we watch completely.  We don’t have to sit through commercials that are engineered at just the right span of time as to maximize the attention span of the viewers.  We can skip all of that.  We can rewind live tv if we missed it – because we don’t know how to pay attention any more.

I’ve heard people talk about wanting to “dvr” live radio.  We can easily go back and control it all.  DVR psychology.

Also, interestingly enough – I typically write my post first and then I look it up to see if it exists.  I guess if I did it the other way, that I wouldn’t have the desire to write it because it has already been written about.  But alas, nothing is new under the sun.

I wonder what that says about me?  Don’t answer that.

Schola

The word school comes from the Latin word schola and the Greek word schole. In the Greek – it this idea of “to have” or “to hold,” so literally, it’s time held for yourself.  It’s leisure time – intentional time for life insight, time spent for learning about yourself.

The first time I read about this was in a Henri Nouwen book (I don’t remember which one), but he made the point that schola means – free time or as in the previous paragraph “leisure.”  Plato and Aristotle would have use the term schole as time set aside for learning.  It wasn’t for idleness like we think of leisure today.  It was set aside for learning and discussion.  Aristotle wrote: We work in order to be at leisure. Aristotle would have use the word – schole for activities such as philosophy, aesthetic delectation, and religious worship (I got it from a website of some guy that wished that Ari would have left off worship).

Ascholia – to work.  So school was suppose to be the opposite of work.  Actually, ascholia had to do with the lack of leisure – which in this case was work or business.

I work at a school – at a college.  My students would probably not talk about their schooling as leisure time.  Right now, they are probably reading this blog – when they should be studying and it’s already past 10.  Actually, they should be a sleep because it’s that time, but they’re studying and it’s definitely not leisure.

How far we have come from schola as leisure – time set aside for learning about one’s self and worship – to school being something that stresses us out.

Dasha

It is a Hebrew word – meaning “bring forth.”  Other definitions include: to sprout, shoot, grow green.

I listened to a talk about it.  It’s this idea that all of creation – everything created – has within it the ability to create and “bring forth.”  Apple trees have the ability to create more apple trees.  Weeds have the ability to dasha – or bring forth more weeds.  Most animals can dasha – bring forth offspring.  Mama goats can dasha baby goats and likewise, people have the ability to bring forth and create more people.

The talk that I listened to described the ability for humans to create – not just other humans, but to create other things.  That you and I were born with the ability and capability to dasha – art and music and ideas and words.  You can create – not out of nothing – but you can create out of something.  You can take things that you’ve learned and create new ideas and new things from them.  You can take creation – that which was called good – and create other things.  You can take a guitar and create a new melody line or a new chord sequence and create something new and never heard before – or at least never heard before in that way.

You can dasha – bring forth new creations be it words, music, paintings, drawings or photographs.  It’s your God given capability.

I’m not a Hebrew scholar by any stretch of the imagination, and if you are a Hebrew scholar please help me to understand it better.  We were created to create – to bring forth new things out of something.  What a cool concept to be able to create and bring forth.