Noise is the new soundtrack of your life

Visitors take photos in front of the sculpture installation 'Absorbed by Light', designed by Gala May Lucas and made by Karoline Hinz, in Yucatan, Mexico. Artur Widak (Artur Widak / NurPhoto / Contact)

Information overload turns what really matters into disturbing noise.

When there are too many signals, collapse is looming.

The noise is often thought to have to do with spam, annoying trolls, and the endless stream of comments and likes.

But there are too many times when important emails also go unread.

In this frenetic digital age, the classic engineering distinction between signal and noise is becoming arbitrary.

The limits are fluid, in the same way that we live the supposed real life as an interruption of what reaches us at all hours through social networks.

Parents, colleagues and friends are now signal and noise at the same time.

The dialectic of attraction and distraction remains unresolved and turns into a vicious circle.

“According to communication theory, noise distorts the message and obfuscates its clarity,” says Amsterdam-based noise theorist Martina Raponi.

“However, that interpretation of noise confounds the fundamental idea that noise is itself an information carrier, and that it helps create the signal we pay attention to.

In other words, noise is a necessary

in the process of extracting information”.

From the point of view of the senses, Raponi indicates that we cannot avoid paying attention to him;

“No matter how weak or how strong it is.

One derivative is the

, the catchy tune that sticks in our heads and haunts us endlessly after we've heard it.

The emotional and affective valence of noise or

it is crucial to capture the attention of the listener”.

A decade ago, Howard Rheingold proposed using "garbage detection" as a technique to remedy "filter failure," but few understood its importance.

According to the liberal market, this is nothing more than the fruit of the rivalry between brands that compete for our attention.

But now we know that it is not.

Exhaustion and indifference are what turn the signals on the screen into white noise.

As the screen scrolls, bits of information begin to blur.

So, we look up and put the phone aside.

In this post-covid era and with the war in Ukraine, the issue of social networks is no longer a central issue.

The hoaxes are no longer news: they are simply there.

The noise is the message.

Subliminal techniques alter the mental state of billions of people.

After a decade of alternative scholarship and even more fringe “criticism of the internet,” the diagnosis is suddenly clear to all of us.

The crowds finally understand how platform capitalism works, but they do nothing about it.

Waiting for Brussels is the new waiting for Godot.

Since there will be no antitrust laws to break up tech monopolies, political censorship (in the manner of Russia and China) seems like the easiest option.

With centralized platforms as the only option, everyone learning on their own seems like the only way out.

(autonomy, a self-help guide).

Rasch points out a paradox: technology companies undermine our autonomy, our freedom of choice and our individual possibilities of action, at the same time that they praise these values.

We already know what happens when platform giants are asked to provide us with technological solutions to “addiction” problems that they themselves have deliberately created.

Technosocial noise is in our heads, in our fingers, it controls our eyes and excites our nerves.

Eliminating noise is considered a personal matter, a moral responsibility that falls on the individual, on the user, and that can be solved with meditation (Harari), with digital detox applications, turning off notifications or establishing days without mobile.

The original notion of cybernetics, formulated by Oswald Wiener in the early 1940s, asserts that the future can be better predicted if noise is removed.

In Western "frictionless" ideology, this is embodied in the ideal of optimization, the cult of prolonging life and compressing time to accommodate all possible experiences.

In this context, the Other ultimately becomes noise, an obstacle to be removed after it has been consumed.

Aside from a rapidly aging group of electronic sound artists, who enjoys noise?

This is a tricky question.

Noise is everywhere and is even used as a resource.

Distraction is not the enemy.

Losing concentration is generally seen as temporary relief, a protective gesture, and justified flight.

False information continues to claim our attention, if only for a fraction of a second.

Noise is no longer a cultural subgenre that awakens our senses.

It is a general state.

An example is the Indian investor Vibhu Vats, for whom noise is the norm: “Human nature does not like silence.

That is intended for ascetics, saints and hermits.

Noise is the spice of life.

If it is removed, life would be healthy but boring.

Let's not ignore the noise.

With Rasch we come to the conclusion that taking on noise means forgetting identity and authenticity, putting on inconsequential masks.

Break the tame mentality of “following” the social herd, but continue to live up to the values ​​of your idols.

This is what Mieke Gerritzen, another Dutch writer, writes about in

.

(help yourself: the rise of self-design).

Gerritzen is a designer trying to carve out a personal niche for herself in the ocean of social media influences.

But remember that only collective action can claim—and defend—personal autonomy, Rasch concludes.

So, in the frank and direct way of the Dutch, let's continue to accept the unacceptable.

Geert Lovink

(Amsterdam, 1959) is a media and Internet analyst, and the author of 'Sad by Design' (Consonni, 2019).

Translation by

Sign up for the weekly Ideas newsletter