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In December 2012 I posted a blog, reflecting on my experience with Facebook and other social media under the title of Is the Web Driving Us Mad? Where I wrote:
“The other day, I “Successfully” de-activated my Facebook account. I say “Successfully”, because Facebook does not make it easy to say good bye, even though I was just trying a short-term separation and not a divorce! At least for now. {Since then, I have now permanently deleted myself from Facebook}
You know, given human weaknesses to addiction, that is any form of addiction, I thought I was watching me and watching you to see if you were watching me, a bit too much: Watching who likes or unlike whatever I post there. As if one click here or there is enough for me to know how good or bad I am doing!
My mind was going “digital” and I was becoming “virtual”: And I said to myself, Hey Kamran, watch where you are going man!
I thought I needed a time out, a time for some reflection and soul-searching. I do not know if you, too, are facing the same or not.”…
That was December 2012. Today I was very saddened to learn about the untimely death of the respected sociologist, Clifford Nass, who had conducted pioneering research into how humans interact with technology and found that it was robbing us of the ability to concentrate, analyse or even feel empathy.
Clifford was born on April 3 1958 and died on November 2 2013, from an apparent heart attack whilst on a hiking holiday. At the time of his death Clifford was a sociology professor at Stanford University.
Today I read his obitury in The Telgraph and due to its significant relevance to what I had written last year, I have copied it below for your reflection.
Clifford Nass - Obituary
Clifford Nass was a sociologist who argued that digital multitasking makes us less sociable, less efficient and less clever
Clifford Nass, who has died aged 55, was an American academic whose observations on the ways people interact with computers and other digital devices revealed much about modern social and working life.
His findings dealt an old-fashioned hammer-blow to the idea that the proliferation of screens at every turn — be they PCs, laptops, tablets, televisions or even satnavs — is necessarily a “good thing”.
In particular Nass singled out the ubiquitous smartphone, which encourages users to multitask by juggling different “apps” while Tweeting, making or receiving calls, checking emails, monitoring social media, playing games and surfing the internet all at once. “It is not physiologically healthy for you,” he declared, “because [humans] are not built to do a multitude of tasks at one time. Your phone makes you feel like you have to respond, which then increases your stress and harms your cognitive thinking.”
A sociology professor at Stanford University, Nass conducted pioneering research into how humans interact with technology and found that it was robbing us of the ability to concentrate, analyse or even feel empathy. He diagnosed young people of the Twitter era as suffering from “emotion atrophy” as a result of insufficient face-to-face “practice in observing and experiencing true emotions”.
Far from making people sharper, jumping around from emailing to texting to posting on social media can scramble the brain, Nass concluded. “People who multitask all the time show worse thinking abilities in every dimension that we know of.”
In the course of a quarter of a century of studying people’s attempts to keep pace with constantly changing technology, Nass found that people who are regularly bombarded with several streams of electronic information do not pay attention, control their memory, or switch from one job to another as well as those who prefer to complete one task at a time.
Nor did he find that multitasking made us more efficient. In a study in 2009 Nass and his colleagues tested the notion that people who frequently juggled computer, phone or television screens, displayed some special skill at filtering out irrelevant information, or efficiently switched between tasks .
But he was shocked by the results: “It turns out multitaskers are terrible at every aspect of multitasking. They’re terrible at ignoring irrelevant information; they’re terrible at keeping information in their head nicely and neatly organised; and they’re terrible at switching from one task to another.” Curiously, Nass himself was an exception to the rule. A colleague described him as the greatest multitasker in the world. Contrary to his own research, “it only made him smarter”.
Nass’s research confirmed what every parent of a certain age has long suspected: that the modern appetite for more and more screen time can shorten attention spans and impair concentration. Last year, at an event organised by Stanford’s Centre for Advanced Study in the Behavioural Sciences, Nass pointed to research showing that teenage girls who spent endless hours watching videos and multitasking with digital devices tended to be less successful with social and emotional development than their counterparts who spent more time interacting face-to-face with friends, even if they too were also heavy users of media.
“We’ve got to make face-to-face time sacred,” he concluded, “and we have to bring back the saying we used to hear all the time, and now never hear: 'Look at me when I talk to you’.”
Clifford Ivar Nass was born on April 3 1958 in Teaneck, New Jersey, and graduated in Mathematics at Princeton in 1981 before joining the computer firm Intel, where he worked on the development of the 286 processing chip. He became increasingly interested in sociology, and particularly people’s interaction with technology. In 1986 he joined the staff at Stanford and was later appointed professor of communication.
His early research explored the idea that humans relate to technological devices socially, and treat computers as if they were people. Users, he found, felt flattered when they were praised by computerised voices. As new media proliferated, he noted how addicts preferred to retreat to the comfort of texting rather than deal with potential emotional connection (and conflict) with those in the same room. He was startled when a student explained why she was texting her boyfriend down the hall. “It’s more efficient,” she told him.
Nass founded the university’s Communication Between Humans and Interactive Media Lab, and was co-director of Stanford’s Centre for Automotive Research into communication within and between the cars of the future. His work on the computerised voices of satellite navigation systems demonstrated that most people prefer to take directions from a male synthetic voice. He noted that in the late 1990s BMW had to recall its 5 Series cars in Germany when men complained that the “voice” was female.
In his spare time he was also an accomplished magician.
Clifford Nass, who died of an apparent heart attack on a hiking holiday, was divorced. His partner, Barbara Pugliese, and his son survive him.
Clifford Nass, born April 3 1958, died November 2 2013
See the original source:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/10433894/Clifford-Nass-Obituary.html?fb
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Excerpt from Unconditional Love - An Unlimited Way of Being
"There is a paradigm shift underway upon the earth and in its wake we shall know a new reality. The days of discord and negative expression are rapidly dissolving despite the appearance otherwise. In their place, we are coming to know and experience a love of such unbelievable magnitude as to scarcely recognize the old ways of living through fear and doubt. The polarization of negative and positive forces, and their respective expressions, are blending and balancing into a new awareness of unconditional love.
Throughout the ages many have sought or assumed an afterlife of perfection and termed this reality a form of heaven. Individuals of every period have been exploring the meaning and purpose of life hoping this illumination will release them from the difficulties seemingly encountered here. Some civilizations have even come forth in an attempt to perfect their existence to reach this type of destiny. Yet, all the while we have chased after an external heaven or sense of personal redemption; we have forgotten the truth within our being.
Heaven has never been a place or condition outside us. In the continuous pursuit to reach some glorious attainment, we miss the glory and beauty of the moment. This present moment has always been the destiny and reward for a life lived in love. Every Master Teacher of any age or civilization spoke this truth. Still, for the limited human, the reality of such a simple possibility is often elusive and confusing.
In our ever evolving journey we have been in a game of separation. This illusion has its premise in that we can disconnect our consciousness from the Source of life. Although we assume this possibility to make it work, we can never be separate from creation since it exists everywhere around and in us. We constantly create our reality with the power of our thoughts and feelings according to where we focus our attention.
We draw the wondrous loving qualities to us by our attention and contemplation upon our higher nature and Higher Self. Our true understanding of this limitless universal energy is through our expression and use of these qualities. To focus on love without using love is only a partial experience of life. To focus and allow love in every moment is to know life as an unlimited experience. ...
… It is time to let go of the old ways and habits of living life and begin expressing our higher potential. Unconditional love has always been an option available to us even though we have usually chosen to ignore it. We are at a point in our evolution when the mass conscious awareness allows us to take a quantum leap in this loving expression. This is occurring because we are remembering the mechanics of creation and therefore, have no reason to maintain the illusion of separation.
The entire universe always operates with unconditional love. The planets, stars, and life forms of other worlds and dimensions all abide by this understanding. The light and love within the atom is the same energy that sustains galaxies along with you and me. It is the cohesive element that keeps the spiral of life ever expanding and going higher and this connection to all life is love.
Heaven manifests on earth when you choose peace, harmony, and joy as your only expression. Using integrity, grace, compassion, honesty and generosity, you make a difference in this world and each quality of unconditional love goes forth and expands everything throughout infinity. It is your self-conscious direction that sends it on its journey and brings heaven into focus right here and now.
Turn to your heart and listen intently to the voice of your own love. It cannot and never will lead you in error. Choose love of your own free will and you will know what love is. Ignore it and you continue upon a path of limitation. The power is yours to command, so choose wisely.
It is time for those that love to help those that seek love. This service to life is the cornerstone of all existence. We simply turn to life through our Higher Self and accept the light and love that we already are. In return for this wonderful energy, we share it unceasingly to those around us. We expand according to our desire and willingness and the pace is ours to decide. The quicker we accept love however, the faster we experience it in our world."
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Cultivating a living wisdom for our time
"OUR JOURNEY is TO THE ROSE-GARDEN OF UNION”-Rumi
Whilst researching for a research project on Spirituality, I came across a wonderful old book, “WISDOM OF THE EAST-THE PERSIAN MYSTICS: JALALU'D-DIN RUMI”
The book was written BY F. HADLAND DAVIS, and was published by JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, London, in 1912.
I am not scholar of Sufism, Rumi, Hafez, or indeed Persian mysticism, by any stretch of imagination. However, as an interested student of spirituality and mysticism, I have really enjoyed reading this book, and this is why I so much wish to share it with you.- Click here to read the book online
Now, I would also very much like to share with you another book. A book about Hafez, the 14th century Persian poet, whom like Rumi is the philosopher of love, a seeker of wisdom who became a poet of genius, a lover of truth, who has transcended the ages. I discover this book a few years ago. I have read it again and again: A truly inspirational book.
The book is called “Spiritual Wisdom of Haféz: Teachings of the Philosopher of Love”. It was written by HALEH POURAFZAL (1956–2002) who was the daughter of Abdol-Hossein Pourafzal, a lifelong student of Persian linguistics and direct descendant of the creator of the contemporary Farsi prose form. Haleh grew up tuned to the spirit of the great poet during her childhood in Tehran, where her father would perform daily recitations of Haféz’s poetry. She drew upon her father’s expertise in developing her own interpretations of the poet’s verse. From the moment Haleh introduced her husband, ROGER MONTGOMERY, to the poetry of Haféz, they shared a deep love and respect for his work. It was in the spirit of gaining a greater understanding of this great poet, sage, and philosopher that this book was born.
Spiritual Wisdom of Haféz: Teachings of the Philosopher of Love
“Haféz has no peer.” Goethe
“Haféz fears nothing. He sees too far; he sees throughout; such is the only man I wish to see or be.” Ralph Waldo Emerson
“The unity of spirit and mind is the legacy of Haféz." Nietzsche
'For six hundred years the Persian poet Haféz has been read, recited, quoted, and loved by millions of people in his homeland and throughout the world. In Haféz: Teachings of the Philosopher of Love new contemporary translations by one of the leading scholars of Haféz connect this traditional spiritual and philosophical wisdom to a modern vision of the world. The book includes over thirty complete poems by Haféz, accompanied by commentary from the authors on the meanings and contexts of the poetry and philosophies of this spiritual teacher. Authors Haleh Pourafzal and Roger Montgomery show how the visionary poet Haféz--whose work inspired Goethe, Nietzsche, and Ralph Waldo Emerson--can serve as an ideal source of inner renewal in our often troubled world, as well as a bridge between the West and Middle East, two cultures in desperate need of mutual empathy.'
Spiritual Wisdom of Haféz: Teachings of the Philosopher of Love
http://www.amazon.com/Spiritual-Wisdom-Hafez-Teachings-Philosopher/dp/0892816678
*(A note from Kamran)
After reading the book, in late 2004 I wrote an email to Haleh Pourafzal, thanking her for this most wonderful book. I did not hear back for a while. Then, I had a reply, not from Haleh, but from her husband, Roger, telling me that Haleh had succumbed to cancer and had passed away in 2002. Roger and I kept our dialogue going. I then told Roger about our forthcoming GCGI Conference to be held in Nairobi and Kericho, Kenya in 2005. Roger told me about their fond memories of Kenya. He came to our conference, presented a paper on Hafez. It was one of the most beautiful moments for me, when we all remembered Haleh and her love of Hafez.