Imagine, for a moment, that the English mathematician, engineer and inventor Charles Babbage (1791-1871) had pursued his vision and created a fully functional personal computer. Imagine, also, that instead of silicon Babbage had done it with brass, steel and leather. Insane? Romantic?

Steampunk is the name of a movement. It’s not new. It’s lineage goes back at least 30 years and even beyond to HG Wells and Jules Verne. William Gibson and Bruce Sterling are probably linked in too. So what is it?

The idea is essentially a fixation with Victorian technology. A romantic mix of steam, metal, gears and mechanical engineering. But it’s not what it is but what it represents that fascinates me.

The reason that Steampunk is interesting is that it is highly relevant to our times. It is a response to the realities of modern life, especially the fact that parts of our lives are out of control. It is a counter-trend to the fact that life, especially in developed nations, is atomised, fast-paced, over-loaded with information, choice and needless innovation.

For example, a Kindle gives no clue as to whence it came. It is a perfect product so complex that aliens might as well have created it in a distant galaxy. We have no idea how it really works and cannot fix it when it breaks. Steampunk is to consumer electronics what Punk music was to Disco music. It makes the hidden visible. You can play with it, fool around with it, subvert it, hack it and touch it. Most of all anyone can do it.

That’s what I think is missing nowadays. We want to understand how things work but most of all we want to touch things and use our hands as well as our brains.

According to the New York Times, American teens* sent or received an average of 2,272 text messages per month last year. Assuming 8 hours of sleep that’s 142 messages every day. This is an almost continuous flow of information. But why are people so addicted to this flow and what are some of the potential consequences?

To the first point I would suggest that two forces are at play. The first force is herd behaviour. People do these things because everyone else does them. To not participate would be to invite ridicule or isolation. The second force is that people like to be in the loop. We feel involved with other people and our connection soothes feelings of insecurity or separation. It also plays to basic voyeuristic and exhibitionist impulses.

As for potential consequences it’s a long list**. For example, physicians say that over-connectedness is leading to anxiety and sleep deprivation. It is also, ironically, leading to feelings of aloneness. A study in the US, for instance, found that 25% of Americans felt that they had no close friends to share their problems with. A decade ago this figure was 10%.

However, the consequence that concerns me the most is connected to the thought that our attention is finite. You cannot keep adding information and expect people to cope. They can’t. One coping mechanism for a world with too much to see and do is multi-tasking. But studies have shown that multi-tasking is largely a myth. Moreover, those individuals that consider themselves the best at juggling more than one activity at once are actually amongst the worst.

Over-connectedness also leads to distraction. The average office worker now spends just 11 minutes doing something before they get distracted and it takes then a further 25 minutes to return to their original task – if they return at all. This is clearly an issue because some things need our undivided attention. It is also an issue because when people get distracted they make mistakes.

Finally there is what cultural theorist Fredric Jameson has called culturally induced schizophrenia. The point here is that our inability to ignore or exclude irrelevant information means that we are failing to impose a structured narrative upon our life experiences.

In schizophrenia, when the ego becomes unstable or dissolves it leaves only disconnected and superficial sensations. When I switch my phone off for extended periods people think I’m mad. Perhaps it is they that are going mad, courtesy of over-connectedness?
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*Just to be clear, it’s unfair to imply that teens are the only ones doing this. Adult addiction to email and text often exceeds that of teens.

** Again, to be clear, there are many positive aspects to all this but this post is about some of the negative aspects that are often forgoten.