“The more I see adults use a smartphone in public, the more I’m convinced it’s just an adult pacifier,” tweeted Scott McClallen ’18 on Mar. 31.
McClallen currently works as a reporter for The Center Square where he covers Michigan and Minnesota governments.
McClallen’s 2021 debut book, “Twisted Tech,” is a heavily researched work discussing our current age of technology. Exploring the relationships between technology, privacy, and the politics of social media, McClallen simplifies the often convoluted pool of information about tech.
If you’re wary about consuming another piece of content about the Big Bad Internet, fear not. McClallen claims he’s a “techno-optimist,” and “Twisted Tech” reads as such.
“Twisted Tech” is broken up into three sections. The first discusses different facets of the internet, such as who controls the internet, the argument of “I have nothing to hide” when it comes to surveillance, and the concept of banning users based on speech. The second section analyzes the effects of all of these aspects on our nation and global relations. The third gives us a glimmer of hope at the end of the tunnel, as McClallen provides hopeful takes on the future of tech.
Like many, McClallen was stunned by the amount of screen time he was actually spending per day before he wrote “Twisted Tech.” While a handful of those hours could be filed away under the excuse of work, he ultimately knew that a change had to be made.
“The time tracker aspect of it hit me so hard because I was lying to myself,” McClallen said. “I thought I didn’t have time to read books, to write a book, to go to the gym and be healthy—but I did. I was just spending all that time online. I was consuming instead of producing.”
“Twisted Tech” highlights that the balance between consumption and production is more off-kilter than ever. The speed of consumption has accelerated exponentially as content has become more expertly packaged. Whether that’s through TikTok videos that are less than a minute or Instagram posts that fly by during a doom-scroll, the scales have been thrown off balance.
McClallen said his target readers are people who are unhappy with how much time they spend on the internet, which is who he was before his screen-time shock.
“Now every morning, I wake up at four or five just so I can have time to think,” McClallen said. “I think that it’s really improved the value of my writing. Instead of writing off-the-cuff, very quick stories, I can think deeply.”
McClallen’s book focuses on this concept of distance. Whether that be the distance between you and the screen, between you and strangers on the internet, or you and the big companies that run the internet, he places a massive emphasis on creating space. Distance is created through self-discipline and taking ownership of yourself and your actions. Even though some generations are more media-literate than others, these are still active struggles.
“I crowdfunded this book,” McClallen said. “My crowd funders were an incredibly broad audience, running from 12-year-olds to people in their 70s. There’s so much that happened in history in that time, so I wanted to make an easily accessible book to talk about tech and the effect it has on our lives.”
“Twisted Tech” offers a nuanced perspective on the internet and its iron grip on our lives. McClallen approaches delicate topics with a level head and an arsenal of research that examines the overlapping effects of the internet’s role in every aspect of society.
“In the past, if you look at polling numbers, Americans have always thought of tech companies as inherently good,” McClallen said. “But a lot of things have come out, especially in the past few years, that have grave implications.”
The skeptical shift in attitude towards tech might highlight a brighter future than what we are seeing now. The first step to approaching the beast of tech is knowing how it works and how it controls us.
Find McClallen here