Baroness Greenfield opened the debate with a lecture on her research into technology-driven “mind change” and how it shapes the way audiences interact with the performing and visual arts.

GREENFIELD: The “mindset of the future” might be high IQ. People often say, “What are the good things?”—and, yes, you can have a higher IQ because the mental agility that you will be using is the mental agility you will be using in video games. You will be good at efficient information processing. You won’t necessarily understand what you are processing, but you will be efficient at it. [The mindset of the future encompasses] a shorter attention span, a premium on icons not ideas, where sensation is at a premium. You will take more risk, because you have got nothing to lose—almost literally—but you will be low on empathy and needing constant feedback, with a fragile sense of identity and low-grade aggression.

I think they’re the things we need to think about when we think about the arts … This might be the mindset of the audience to come.

As you have heard, I call this “mind change,” because I think the analogies are climate change. Both are global, both are controversial, and both are unprecedented, and I hope I’ve shown you that both are multifaceted. With climate change, you’ll have water shortages, alternative energy, and so on. With mind change, as we call it, you will have issues with social networking, with gaming, and with search engines, all of which are very different.

 

… Isaac Asimov in 1964—a great visionary—wrote, [as] he was predicting life in 2014: “Even so, mankind will suffer badly from the disease of boredom, a disease spreading more widely each year and growing in intensity. This will have serious mental, emotional, and sociological consequences, and I dare say that psychiatry will be far and away the most important medical specialty in 2014. The lucky few who can be involved in creative work of any sort will be the true elite of mankind, for they alone will do more than serve a machine.”

That was written 50 years ago. Now, the word I would gibe at, of course, is “elite,” as I’m sure you would. Why can’t we have everyone—everyone—being involved in some kind of creative work, not necessarily being brilliant painters or sculptors or performers, but just joining up the dots in new ways that make them feel fulfilled—way more than they ever would wearing certain trainers—and also being not just fulfilled but having a strong sense of identity and, therefore, of who they are and, ideally, of benefit to society. 

Eiko Otake describes how she creates art in an era of changing audiences.

I do not like to cater. I like to make myself available. So, I used to perform largely in theaters, where I created work with my partner Koma or with other collaborators. And you have a manner in theaters: the beginning, the middle, the end, the proscenium, dark places.

But now, I am much more interested in doing my solo projects, putting my body into the public places. And in a sense, people could see I’m catering to the larger public by appearing in those places … But I’m not catering to the change in populations. I’m being available, they can take me, they can see me, I’m not saying people have to see me for one hour to get the value. I’m “open-ending” myself. Three minutes of me, one hour of me – I can’t make a judgement which is better. It’s my commitment to make myself available, and it’s my commitment to study who they are, and I do very much do physical—what you were saying—body, eye-to-eye, one-to-one … I want to hit one person at a time.

Dr. Ottmann discusses the role of art and “disruptions of the mind.”

I am not concerned about disruptions of the mind perhaps because modern art has been in the business of disrupting minds for more than 150 years. The essence of art does not change with technology … What is art? So I want to give you another quote. This is I think the most profound quotation, the most profound definition of what art is, and it was written in 1898 by Leo Tolstoy. He wrote, “In order correctly to define art, it is necessary, first of all, to cease to consider it a means to pleasure, and to consider it as one of the conditions of human life.”

So he grasped, in my opinion, perfectly what the essence of art is. The essence of art really is the fact that we are all attracted to science, philosophy, religion, and art because we are seeking answers to the ultimate questions that we can never answer … “the riddle of life.” These are questions where the answers are outside of our event horizons, where we can never find answers. But we can try to construct an ethical foundation to help us give meaning to our lives and to come closer to some understanding of who we are, why we are here, and what we ought to do.

And I think art, of all of these disciplines, comes closer to providing this form of meaning, and in that sense, it can change, it can be very disruptive, but that is not its essence. The essence is not to be disruptive, the essence is not to entertain, or to please; the essence really is to make you slow down, [to] make you think and reflect on your life.

Can technology usage be managed?

ZICHERMANN: You just can’t expect people in 2016, especially this younger generation, to conform to that “old timey” idea of putting down that device for the length of time of your performance without some help. That problem – where you keep looking at your phone – now qualifies as a bona fide addiction. It’s a real problem.

 

GREENFIELD: … No one would want to preach at someone, to say, “you’re unworthy; you mustn’t do this or that.” I, for one, would be horrified if phones were allowed in theatres and cinemas; it’s bad enough on the trains, bad enough in the airports, or most places where people are having really boring conversations ...

I think it’s a real challenge—of course you don’t want to shame people or make them feel guilty or preach at them. I think it goes further back to education … People, somehow, need to get in touch again with the notion that for certain activities, you go to certain places.

 

ZICHERMANN: Well, I think that in the meantime, though – while they’re getting in touch with that— the organizations that depend on that undivided attention will lose. So, we did a bunch of work gamifying some Broadway shows and one of the interesting things we found out in the research was that a lot of younger people stay away from performances because of this question of whether or not they are going to like it; and if they don’t like it, can they leave in the middle of it; and if they don’t like it, can they check their phone.

I, for one, am in the camp that believes this is a problem serious enough that I’ve started a new startup devoted to helping people overcome their technology addiction, which is called Onward. I know that sounds weird for someone who does what I do for a living to turn around and go another direction, but I think it has gotten to a point where there is such a giant wall of demand from the economy to get people to look at their phones.

I mean, just consider: when you are asking people to not look at their phones for that two-hour period of time, every other company on earth is attempting to buzz their phones. Literally every business on earth would like for them to look at their phones. Not some. Every single one. … Seriously. Here’s the thing: you are really asking to hold back the dam.

 

GREENFIELD: No, Gabe, you are using the wrong words, words like “old timey” and “hold back the dam.” And I don’t think it has to be like that. Why can’t we use words like empowerment for people, give them back a sense of identity, individuality, strength of character, confidence. And that comes with education.

... I think there are three things that are really important, and it’s so sad that I have flag these as special, because, in the past, we took them for granted. First, eating together from time to time, where you are sharing food and you are actually having conversation. Second, reading stories to small children who can’t read very well, so they get a sense of bonding, attention span, and imagination. Third, physically getting outside and burning off the calories and staving off obesity and actually stimulating all five senses and learning basic skills like hopping, skipping, and jumping, which the current generation cannot do. We’re facing also a time in the UK … where for adolescents there has been a sharp increase in depression and anxiety that’s gone on for the last 10 years. These are issues that we really have to face.

Mr. O’Brien considers how technology can expand the definition of art.

O’BRIEN: Should art and culture now be catering for an unprecedented mindset or attempting to transform it? I think attempting to transform it, absolutely because that’s what art does.

On an individual level – from moment to moment throughout time – transforming our sense of who we are in context to the world around us has always been the role of [art]. It’s been at the core of our impulse to make art, to make meaning, to make sense of things through all these different types of platforms and tools. Some of it’s playful, some of it’s traumatic, some of it’s comedic …

In a moment of unprecedented mindset change, artists are going to play a key role, they have to play a key role, in helping us understand who we are now. It’s changing much more quickly now – I totally agree with that premise. It’s not the first time we’ve had an unprecedented change but it’s certainly one of the biggest that has ever taken place, and we’re right in the middle of it, so it’s hard to see ourselves in the forest …

How will art and culture develop a stronger sense of individual identity, reflective thought, and the ability to make connections? First by being open about what we think art is and where it happens. And I think it can be happening on a handheld; it can be happening in a video game. I’m reminded, in 2010, we were trying to decide whether or not video games could be considered as art. Is that something that the NEA should get involved in? Now, it seems like a naïve question, but back then, it really was: “I don’t know.” And I remember reading a New York Times article review – a serious critical review – of “Red Dead Redemption” [from] Rockstar Games, the same people that created “Grand Theft Auto,” which we had heard terrible things about. And the reviewer said that in 1,100 articles, this was the first time he would call anything a “tour de force.” And that engaging in this Western confronted moral dilemma – messy kinds of things that you controlled putting yourself into and out of – big-time moral questions that go all the way back to Greek tragedy … Is it harmful? Is it helpful? It depends on how it’s designed and how well it’s made. The primary excitement around the first big blockbuster film more or less amounted to “a train moves!” So we’ve gone a long way since then.

… I think we need to always be mindful of how the arts and cultural sectors should be serving people, not the other way around. It can be really easy to start looking at what we’re doing now in regards to how we survive, and how we create new consumers. As it relates to me and my 12-year-old, I’m much more interested in how the arts and cultural sector of the mid-21st century will help deepen his meaning in life. I’m much more interested in that than in whether he develops various habits that will sustain the sector.

Is there a “right” amount of digital technology?

O’BRIEN: … I don’t disagree really with anything in terms of the research of the potential harm of too much technology. I will say that I’ve been noticing and seeing that there also are other people who are looking at research – especially with children on moderate amounts of time – and it actually having, in some cases, some benefits … in terms of attention, decision making. ... Oxford had one [study] in 2014 as well that looked at 5,000 kids engaging in technology and in a limited amount of time: one hour, it’s beneficial; two hours, no gain, no loss; more than that gets to be a problem.

The reason that I bring that up is that I think the kinds of things that [Baroness Greenfield] was bringing up are particularly at risk for addicted types of behavior. And I think the thing that keeps us – or keeps our kids – safe from that is parent intervention.

So there’s one thing that we can be thinking about … if everybody has access to this technology – not everybody does, but when they do – are we monitoring it? So, that’s where you get in to single-parent homes or two-parent-working homes not being able to actually get your kid off after a certain amount of time. That can be a real issue, and I think there’s a large-scale agreement on [that] …

GREENFIELD: Virtually every parent I speak to seems to be concerned because of the rise in psychiatric problems. I would question whether everyone is indeed only doing one hour a day, or even two hours [of screen time]. I agree with you certainly that it is an issue of parenting, and it is pretty tough on parents when the kid is in their room on the computer. How do you police them?

… I don’t want to sound hard on parents: parents are working hard, putting in long hours, they might be stressed out, making ends meet—and if the child is quiet and on the computer, they are not talking to strangers, they’re not putting themselves in physical danger … There are some parents who can [closely monitor their child’s screen time], and there are some kids who are only online one or two hours a day, [but] we cannot just take that as a norm.

 

O’BRIEN: Someone much better than me to set the table on what the potential positive impacts are [of technology on the brain] would be Clive Thompson who wrote Smarter Than You Think. From a journalistic standpoint, he lists a lot of these studies and his whole premise is that technology is actually improving our minds in ways that we can also track. So I believe him to be making that argument better than I could. The thing about parenting is that—for me, parenting versus when I was parented—technology is drawing me into intervene more than my parents ever felt a need to. I don’t remember them really getting involved in my evenings that much, where we do insert ourselves …

 

GREENFIELD: I think the really important question there—and it’s a very easy phrase, but one that must be probed—when you say “improving your mind,” do you want to define to me what and improvement of the mind would be?

 

O’BRIEN: I have looked at the things you have talked about and I don’t necessarily want to say they are not valid. But I think, as you know, there are tons of research that is happening on [technology’s impact on the brain] right now, and it doesn’t all agree. Some of it is looking at attention spans, it’s looking at decision making, it’s looking at the ability to make associations, which is a big one …

When you talked about atrophied neurons, you can also look at what is being repurposed, and how else is it going to be used. So in that sense, my layman’s way of looking at this, is that we or these kids are practicing a kind of quick association. And when I look at the goldfish [attention spans that exceed those of humans], I don’t know whether it is good or bad. Did they pick it up quicker? I don’t know.