Zones of Silence: How to switch off in 2024 - Katherine Roberts

The UK government is currently pushing ahead with a policy to give staff the right to switch off outside normal working hours. Whether you agree with this policy or not, I believe it addresses a much bigger issue that is slowly but surely imprisoning us all in a virtual world of artificial intelligence. There is a general assumption, especially among the internet generation, that we are all online 24/7, ready to dance to someone else's tune at a moment's notice, with no real life of our own. Whether we are having 'fun' online, or we're there for 'work' - and I use those terms loosely, since they are not separate entities - we are still in danger of becoming slaves to the machine.

Jaron Lanier's 2018 book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now explains in frighteningly clear terms the ways in which these platforms are manipulating our behaviour and changing us as human beings. When you consider he published this book before the covid pandemic forced everyone online during lockdowns for more hours than is surely healthy, things start to look a bit weird. And that was before AI (also discussed in Lanier's book) got scarily 'intelligent' and began to take over our world.

Ten Arguments for Deleting
Your Social Media Accounts Right Now

I too have worked in coding, back in the early days when computers filled whole buildings and it was easier to understand what the machines were doing and how the code worked, or didn't... I quietly fixed the so-called 'Millennium Bug' in the code used by the company I worked for at the time a couple of years before it would have impacted their business. It was ridiculously easy, the product of a lazy programmer who hadn't considered the program might still be in use at the turn of the century. These days, however, I use powerful social media platforms and various free apps like everyone else with no idea of the code behind them. I merely skim-read the online terms and conditions for their use, and have only a vague idea of what they are doing to my experience of being alive. When I come up for air, I am aware I have wasted several hours there and worry about how to remain truly creative in our virtual, pack-mentality age. In his book, Lanier presents strong arguments for limiting time spent on social media, if not completely ditching your accounts right now. He discusses the difference between a Lone Wolf and the Pack, and what happens when people band together online in various groups, for good or ill. I suspect some of those results can already be seen in the real world, although the long term effects on our children who grew up during the covid lockdowns are still not known.

But we are not doomed quite yet. In her novel Lifeform Three, Roz Morris imagines a future where countryside is so rare that one of the last remaining country estates is now a theme park tended by 'bods' (robots), where Intrepid Guests (us) come in their driverless cars clutching their 'Pebbles' (smartphones) to marvel at rare lifeforms such as horses (lifeform 3 of the title), cows, sheep, birds, butterflies, and so on. The future often turns out even stranger than an author's imagination but, if anything, Roz's book feels more contemporary today than when she wrote it. As soon as Intrepid Guests enter the park, the bods line up to welcome them with targeted songs advertising all the things the Guests are interested in, scraped from lists on their Pebbles in much the same way online advertising works today. Thankfully, however, Roz's park also contains a Zone of Silence where their Pebbles will not work - a major source of complaint for the Intrepid Guests, because there is no signal in that place.

Lifeform Three by Roz Morris

I questioned Roz about this off-grid sanctuary during an interview she generously provided for this blog in 2022:

In your Lost Lands, there is a glade called the Zone of Silence where visitors' phones do not work and birds in the park go to roost. You comment in the book that this Zone is a place "away from the drench of information and snitch of surveillance", and yet Intrepid Guests often complain about it having no reception for their phones... I wonder how you view such 'silent zones' in our current world?

Roz: My whole life, away from my computer or my car, is a zone of silence. I have a phone, but it’s a very simple one that can only do calls and texts. No internet. Not because I don’t love the internet - I do. But when I go out I don’t want to be wired to it. Generally when I go out, I’m going for a run or to ride my horse, and I want to be completely with the trees and woods, and with the horse.

I totally get that. And so, it seems, do some of the people who designed the very stuff that drenches us with information and snitches us with surveillance 24/7. Try to find Jaron Lanier on social media (the real Jaron Lanier, not a fake account), and you'll see what I mean. When the people who understand the code refuse to play their own game, there must be good reason. 

If I may attempt some Lone Wolf critical thinking here, I fear things are going to get worse for lifeforms like us, before they get better. In fact, I doubt very much that even those of you who have read this far will be able to bring yourselves to delete any of your social media accounts... and I am no exception. I did once manage to delete Facebook, and didn't particularly miss it at the time, but since mainstream publishers required me to sign a contract to maintain my social media presence as an author, I've re-activated my account and currently maintain a public Facebook page for my book news. I also use Messenger more than I really should do to keep in touch with friends, while being fully aware that the content of all these messages is rich fodder for whatever AI is snitching on us and drenching us in information, targeted advertising, and lord knows what else 24/7. Twitter proved useful for a while, although it has since mutated into X so maybe I wouldn't miss that? But what about Blogger? I've spent several hours researching and composing this post that, if our blog's viewing statistics are correct, only about three real people will ever read to the end (thank you, Real People!!!), although various AIs have no doubt already scraped it to regurgitate my words at some point in response to a question on whether someone should fight for their right to switch off from work, or delete their social media accounts right now. The answer to that, as Lanier says in his book, is 'yes'. After all, life is short for us lifeforms. Do we really want to spend our limited years on this earth entirely online, talking to strangers we've never met, possible fake accounts, and an increasing number of human-sounding AIs? You might think because you can carry your smartphone around with you wherever you go, you're free... but are you, really? How much of that time are you spending staring at its little screen, while ignoring the real world and real people around you?

We are not AIs that never sleep. We are not robots, programmed like Roz's bods to shut down at night until we are needed again. Our bodies are designed for sleep that is not interrupted by a pinging phone, or by various RF pulses from the smart devices in our home talking to other smart devices across town. Sleep is how lifeforms like us rest and heal, and dreams are how we process the world and spark our creativity. With the advent of the internet-of-things and the rise of AIs in place of human beings, it will become more and more important for real people to have the ability to switch off, both mentally and physically, at least for a while. If willpower is a problem, there are various apps available that block social media accounts for chosen periods to help you stay focused. But even if you insist on your right to switch off from work, and resist the safety of the Pack to become a proud Lone Wolf, you'll still be trapped in a virtual world feeding the machine. Lanier argues that to be truly independent we need to become more like cats (i.e. clever but difficult to train) and "fight to speak to each other outside of the persuasion labyrinth"... in other words, have real conversations with real people, offline.

So where are the Zones of Silence in 2024? How do you personally switch off? Answers on a postcard, please!

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Katherine Roberts writes fantasy and historical fiction for young readers. Her fantasy novel Spellfall (now available as a budget audiobook narrated by AI) was first published by Chicken House in 2000 and features a parallel world called Earthaven where mobile phones do not work, unicorns roam, and spells grow on giant trees. In other words, a fantasy Zone of Silence! She has since published a sequel, Spell Spring.

SPELLFALL (paperback)
Spellfall (audiobook)