America and the Great Jedi Mind Trick

Once upon a time (don’t you love stories that start like that?!?) there was a vicious fox chasing a poor, defenseless little bunny rabbit. Fortunately, the bunny was faster and he made it to the safety of his warren in the ground before the fox could catch him.

Now, foxes are clever little devils, and this one was no exception. Rather than lurk around the rabbit’s hole waiting to be led on another chase, the fox found a documentary about friendly little fox cubs on YouTube, set it up on his phone, and left the video playing on a loop outside the rabbit’s hole. Day after day the rabbit saw the same video over and over, constantly being told that foxes are cute, cuddly and friendly, and after a week or so he decided that he had the wrong idea about the fox. He wasn’t chasing him because he wanted to eat him, he was chasing him because he wanted to be friends.

Cheerfully the bunny came running out of his den, calling for the fox. The fox, of course, came running, and immediately ate the cute and friendly little bunny.

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If you are a regular reader, you know that I have a passion for cultural anthropology, trying to understand and explain why people do the things that they do. I am especially enthralled with why people consistently believe things that aren’t true and act against their own best interests based on those flawed beliefs. I have a pretty good broad understanding of the phenomenon, but narrowing it down to simple terms is more difficult.

American journalist Jonathan Haidt was a guest on Real Time with Bill Maher a couple of weeks ago, and as part of the discussion about his latest article in The Atlantic, he and Bill discussed recent statistics about cell phones use and children. Since the proliferation of the smart phone, with research dating back to 2015, the numbers are staggering. “They impede learning, stunt relationships, and lessen belonging. They should be banned,” Haidt’s study found – read the entire study here!

Hmmm. What could we possibly do about this problem? Duh. Like Haidt said, we can ban cell phones in schools. Why don’t we? Well, I have a friend who is the principal of a 6-A high school in Texas who was happy to offer his insight.

“We do ban cell phones,” he said. “The school district has a ‘no cell phones’ policy which is on the district website. Our school has a no cell phones policy which is on our school website. I tell the teachers every year in August that this is the policy and we will back them 100% when they choose to enforce it in their classrooms.”

So why do kids in many classrooms have their phones out during class?

“Teachers don’t enforce the policy,” he said flatly.

A quick survey of some teacher friends gave me the reason for that. Simply put, the pushback from the students and their parents is too great to make it worth the fight.

We know why students push back; cell phones are extremely addictive and nearly all of us have this addiction to some degree. Why are the parents pushing back?? This, too, is simple, and it goes back to our little furry friend.

Repetitive marketing is pervasive, invasive and it’s effective. Even if you have cut the cable, you are inundated by specially targeted advertising which can easily tap into societal anxieties tied to personally identifiable data. Social media knows if you’re a parent, it knows the age of your kids, it knows where you live and it knows the issues facing the community where you live. If this is a new concept to you, have you ever seen something come up on Google related to a show you’ve been watching or a conversation you had? Yeah. Bingo! Our phones are listening.

We have been conditioned to believe every child in this country is under imminent threat of abduction, school shooting or, you know, alligator attack. The only way we can keep them safe is by making sure they have expensive cell phones to carry around with screens that break immediately. This is encouraged by the marketing folks behind the cell phones (MUST have iPhone 23 NOW!) and the peripheral companies that feast on the expendable income of our children. Cell phone cases, pop sockets, chargers – all very flimsily made, easily broken, immediately obsolete and, collectively, expensive to replace.

The Force can have a strong influence on the weak minded.

Pervasive repetition is the Earth equivalent of waving your hand and using the Jedi mind trick on the unsuspecting population. Like the bunny at the beginning of our story, if we see and hear the same thing often enough, we start to believe it, even if the “it” is irrational or exploitive. The best way I have found to combat this, apart from unplugging from anything and everything that runs commercials, is to constantly ask myself who benefits the most from what I’m hearing. What’s the source? What’s the motivation? Where’s the profit point? These days most of the “information” we receive is being supported by a corporation with skin in the game. Seeking to identify those sources and their motivations would have saved our fluffy little friend, and it can help save our children, as well.

-B