ChatGPT, Hasidic Jews, and the way of tech
A round-up of how we’re thinking about tech, and the limits we place on it
My view of social media is this: fifty years from now, maybe even twenty-five or ten, we will look back on the moment we are in, or maybe just escaping from—the moment of Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, Gab, etc.—as a period of collective madness. It was not seem possible to our grandchildren that we spent hours and hours a day looking at screens filled with trivia, stupidity, and, worst of all, abuse, including abuse of the person looking. It will seem like an exercise in pointless masochism. An S&M dungeon with no erotic payoff. It will be inexplicable. And when they hear that we had a president who communicated primarily through social media, they will shake their heads and say things like, “Wait, why am I supposed to listen to my elders?”
We can’t do take-backsies on the last 20 years of idiocy, but at least there are signs that the fever may be breaking. Two bills now in Congress take steps to protect children from social media (which, make no mistake, is addictive by design, increases anxiety, worsens educational outcomes, and happens to spread murderous hate of the kind that leads to mass murder at synagogues).
One bill, proposed by senators1 Richard Blumenthal and Marcia Blackburn, “aims to put in place stricter settings by allowing children and parents to disable addictive features, enable privacy settings and opt out of algorithmic recommendations. It requires tech companies to conduct an annual independent audit to analyze the risks to minors and see if they are working to reduce it,” according to the Connecticut Mirror.
All of which is fine, but doesn’t go far enough.
Another bill, according to USA Today, “bans children younger than 13 from using social media platforms and requires parental consent for those between the ages of 13 and 17.” Apparently many social media platforms “already prohibit users under 13 because of the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act, otherwise known as COPPA. However, it's not strictly enforced,” and this bill would up enforcement.
So those are baby steps. Neither bill, of course, does anything to stop consenting adults from wasting their lives on Instagram or Twitter. For that, we have to mend our own, grown-up ways.
It may be happening already. I was talking to a thirty-ish guy yesterday, someone who grew up with social media (which I did not), and he said the sheen is gone, that being on Instagram or Twitter now reminds him of a store where all the shelves have been cleaned out (which is a lovely metaphor). The good stuff is gone, and now there are just some sad people picking over the remainders.
But this can’t happen fast enough. And fortunately, there are people really pushing us back to the future (as a child of the ’80s has to put it). College student Emily Lembke has founded the LOG OFF movement, to urge young people to log off. (I think I ought to interview her.) Some schools are taking real steps to ban smartphones (why don’t they all?) I have written about that. And many religious communities have done great work keeping harmful technology at bay.
Take the Skverer Hasids. These are very, very religious Jews, who live outside New York City, follow a rabbinic dynasty, and, according to one very good memoir, do not take kindly to those who leave. There is no part of me that thinks I would make a good Skverer Hasid, or that I would thrive in that community. I think there is a lot they get wrong. But there is also stuff they get right. For example, while the rest of us dither about the harms of artificial intelligence, and credulous pundits even opine that maybe this is the technology the education sector needs, the Skverers just banned AI.
According to Jewish Telegraphic Agency:
In a declaration issued Thursday and stressing the danger of “the open internet without any filter,” more than a dozen rabbis from the Skver Hasidic movement prohibited the use of artificial intelligence, specifically citing the technology firm OpenAI.
The blanket ban on artificial intelligence is the latest instance of haredi Orthodox authorities forbidding or restricting their followers from using cutting-edge digital technology. For years, haredi rabbis have warned their communities of the moral dangers associated with internet usage, and some have instructed their followers to place filters on their phones and other devices that prevent users from accessing a wide range of the internet.
While the rest of us keep hoping that our children will use their iPhones “responsibly,” and wring our hands helplessly as their phones make them anxious or depressed, or are used by bullies to torment them, the Skverers have kept phones out of their children’s hands and figured out ways to make phones less addictive to adults.
Yes, their primary goal may be to screen out sinful trappings of the modern world. And again, I am not interested in living in a community as controlled and restrictive as New Square, N.Y. Most of the novels I read here, I couldn’t read there; heck, most of the stuff I write would get me in trouble there. But that shouldn’t stop me from saying that there are things they get right that my more secular world does not.
I mean, every time I read about Singapore, I think how much I don’t want to live there. But they have us beat on climate policy. There is wisdom everywhere, and we have to have the humility to recognize it. Right now, I am intrigued by any culture, subculture, or group that is fighting tech addiction and the reign of social media. (This is a great moment to recommend, yet again, David Sax’s The Revenge of Analog, one of the best books ever.)
If you know of people fighting this good fight, let me know at markoppenheimer@substack.com. Also, I have a few public talks coming up—go over to markoppenheimer.com to see my speaking schedule. And email me if you’d like me to come speak to your school, shul, or institution.
And now, just for fun . . .
Here’s a nifty screen grab from our terrific hyperlocal, nonprofit newspaper in my town. Read to the end for a good laugh:
If you think “senators” should be upper-case “Senators” here, we have to have a good, long talk.