Screenlifting

Screenlifting might be a real thing. Surely some people do look at other people’s cell phones, laptops, and tablets without invitation to do so. But is it a problem?  I’ve never heard anyone complain about another person looking at her screen. I’d be interested in hearing from those who have heard someone say, “God, his eyes were all over my Facebook account, looking my up and down my updates.”

For fun, though, let’s examine some different screenlifting situations.

When a stranger views your phone or laptop, your response should probably be uncomplicated. You’ll never see each other again, so unless it was some private financial information they saw, who cares? Because they don’t know you, any personal information will be out of context, less embarrassing, less likely to be understood.

People you see regularly but don’t know well, such as some co-workers, neighbors, or fellow church members, exert a lot of influence. You strive to maintain a certain reputation among them, you compete with them for promotions, seek help or alliances with them, and so forth. They are probably the people you least want to see your screen without your knowledge for fear of it being misinterpreted or taken out of context. At the same time, overt efforts to conceal a screen might foment suspicion that you harbor a lot of secrets.

People close to you such as life partners, family, good friends, should be able to see your screens without worry. It’s reasonable to hide a message about a birthday gift you want to be a surprise, or if you are working on institutionalizing that person due to an unsafe mental illness. But otherwise, if you try to keep other secrets from these individuals, you might need to re-examine your entire relationship.

If you find someone peering at your screen, let it be a door to explore yourself and another person instead of a nest to hatch hasty, ill informed judgments. Are you upset or pleased that a person is looking at your content? Would you rather the person look at you, instead of what you are looking at? Would you rather people pay you no attention, or do you only want attention on your exact terms? If you are worried about exposing your bank account numbers, what are you doing checking your balance in line at Chipolte anyway?

Such situations are ideal to explore how much space or privacy you require. All of that leads to questions about what you expect of others. And if you know your expectations, do you make others clearly aware of them? We should all know those answers about ourselves, and even more important, we why think that way.

In general I would suggest we treat this visual intrusion with more curiosity than anything. When someone looks at you or your screen, you may well discover that person does not have your best interest in mind. But don’t assume it. Not long ago, when someone felt his personal space or honor being challenged by a stare, it was common to say, “What are you looking at?” If we continue to keep interacting with our phones instead of each other, though, that question might become a new, innocent way to just start a conversation.

Bubble Freedom

With every preference you choose on your phone, tablet, or laptop your life becomes a little easier, the world more centered around you. The customized bubble you design supplies you with just the right mix of ideas and entertainment plus access to the actual necessities of life. And since you can stay in your bubble and still Face-time friends and family, why burst it? It’s only isolating if you neglect to think and care about other people around you, and that can easily describe some people completely disconnected from technology. In fact, I would say it happened to people for centuries before we ever had text alerts and social media.

Why some people do not think or care as much about others as well as, others, is huge question for another day. But it seems safe to say that while our technology did not create the condition of uncaring ignorance, it certainly makes it easier for those conditions to form.

By filling your screen with this post I hope you gain some new ways to consider this issue. Participastory strives to inspire more thoughtful interaction and awareness between people. Part of that must include discovering how to integrate technology into life without reducing our humanity (and ideally enhancing it). Screens aren’t going away. Limiting our time in front of them may work for some, but for many it requires too much discipline, or even a different job. So perhaps a good first step for a lot of people to break free of their bubble is just to start looking at other peoples’ screens. They are right there in front of you in check out lines, beside you in meetings, in coffee shops. Why not?

At first glance you might think this was just a dreadfully long set up for a joke. Well, congratulations, you got it! It was a joke, sort of. I write sort of, because consciously deciding to acquaint yourself with another person by reading what’s on her laptop screen might be more efficient and interesting than the initial small talk so many of us engage in. Sure, it currently violates a lot of social norms around privacy. But our norms may change rapidly as technology becomes increasingly woven into our every day life. We already show pictures from our phones to people, and share articles, forward emails. Who is to say if the convenience of technology will make us so lazy that someday we just say, here I don’t know what you’ll like or not so just look through it yourself. Except, we won’t bother to use words, but some sort of hologram-projected emoji of our feelings. But for now, looking at others’ screens seems a violation, so much so that I have adopted the term suggestive of petty retail theft, “screenlifting”.

But as in all interpersonal interactions, if you see someone checking out your screen, or do it to someone else, there is an opportunity to learn more about that person. What could be more anti bubble than exploring other humans? Some of you may decide to engage this person immediately. “What are you looking at?” That’s a defensive, confrontational phrase that has been around a long time. It doesn’t necessarily have to apply to a person looking at another person, but I only recommend it if uttered in a calm, curious manner. In my next post I’ll discuss what you might consider about the screenlifting experience before you act.

 

Judge and Be Judged

Before certain misguided individuals take my call to start judging people too seriously, here are some important caveats. In order to judge someone, you must be willing to be judged. That just reflects a condition of our existence, because people are often judged for their judgments. But it is my intention that no one use this system who doesn’t wish to participate in being evaluated by it. No one can stop you from using the Care/Aware Index if you intend to avoid being assessed by it, but your deceitful behaviors will be obvious, especially to trained practitioners. Since using the CAI requires you to assert your opinion of another, the more you use it, the more exposed your thoughts become.

The ultimate goal of making these assessments of others is to understand oneself and each other. Some seek this information for Continue reading “Judge and Be Judged”

Intro to the Care/Aware Index

I am not a social scientist, nor philosopher, but I play one in the blogosphere. And in that capacity I suggest that humanity has the ability now to solve many of its most of its threatening social problems. Simplistic explanations for violence and famine such as Evil, or the difficulty in getting disparate groups to agree, are just not productive. But, my simplistic explanation might be – many social problems are caused by people who aren’t aware or don’t care about others around them.

Think about poverty, crime, intolerance, war… We now understand much of what causes or contributes to all these issues.  We extract Continue reading “Intro to the Care/Aware Index”