Humane Technology – Max Stossel @ The Emanuel Speaker Series

Noah Klein – Year 11

In Year 11, for Jewish Studies, every student is able to take part in a multitude of different courses. Many of the cohort, including myself, chose The Speaker Series. The Speaker Series is a program where approximately once a week a different speaker comes to the School to talk to the Year 11 students about a variety of different issues to do with Judaism. We have had speeches ranging all the way from Jewish ethics in life or death situations given by Rabbi Elton from the Great Synagogue, to Kashrut in the 21^st century from Rabbi Kamins, to Greg Fisher who came to talk to us about his experiences being a Jewish, gay, ex-convict who has turned his life around. Clearly, we’ve had quite the range of speakers, to say the least!

This week our speaker was a man named Max Stossel, who came to speak to the year about how we use our technology. This speech struck a chord with me and it got me deeply thinking about the issues he raised. Mr Stossel explained to us a lot of information I was unaware of such as when we tap on a website or app on our device, there is an algorithm designed to keep us looking at that website for longer. 

Just one more episode, just one more video, just one more minute…

He explained that whilst mobile devices can be used for a useful tool for learning, often they just become distractions that take us out of the real world. He mentioned the fact that it takes about 23 minutes for someone to completely regain focus on a task they have been distracted by! Simply glancing at our phone on our desk can completely distract us.

This speech really made me rethink the amount I use my phone and specifically social media websites. After the talk, when I got home, I decided to make a few small but effective changes that Mr Stossel recommended.

Firstly, I changed my notification settings – I have turned off all notifications that don’t come from a real human being trying to reach me. Whilst receiving less notifications during the day, it means the only time I check my phone is if another person is actually trying to contact me. Secondly, I have also started removing my phone from my workspace. It used to sit on my desk, tempting me to pick it up and check it every half an hour or so, however, now after moving out of my room when I work, I am not at all distracted by it.

Whilst Mr Stossel didn’t relate this topic back to Judaism specifically in his speech, we can extract what he said and find the parallels to Judaism. Shabbat gives us a perfect opportunity to switch off our devices completely and focus on the more important things in life, like friends and family. We are lucky to be privileged enough to have such nice valuables like mobile phones, but occasionally, such as on Shabbat, we should leave the devices alone and ‘just be’.

I urge you to look online at some of Mr Stossel’s work and to maybe try some of the tactics I listed too (http://humanetech.com/take-control/www.maxstossel.com). Mr Stossel, who was brought to Sydney from the US by the JCA for their fundraising campaign, is an accomplished poet and filmmaker and was a fantastic example of a speaker that can have a large influence and impact on Emanuel School students, like it did on me.