August 21, 2022 – The world is too small? or Is it?

Welcome to August 2022 edition of the X^thvolume of Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs.

The theme for the X^thvolume of our Carnival of Quality Management Articles and Blogs is inspired from the editorial of the January 2022 special Issue of Prabuddha Bharata (The Awakened India) – Living a Meaningful Life in a Digital World.

For our present episode, we take up the article, When Virtual gets Real: Screening Life in Digital Era by Kanchan Gogate.

Here is an excerpt from the article:

Today life moves so much at our fingertips, literally, that sans social media we feel out of touch, not only of outside world, but with us as well. However, the penetrative and far-reaching technology has caused alarms for its impact on mind, brain, consciousness, and the overall quality of life.

The ‘actual’ problem of the technological era is not just limited to digital addition, but the understating of what it means to live in a time where life is technology-driven.

The Covid-19 pandemic pushed the school-going children as well as working class adults in the service industries to the increased use of internet for their studies and work respectively. In another parallel development, the teens and adults in all age groups also have turned to internet for the use of their leisure time through the streaming media content.

The net result was that these internet users got addicted to the screen of a digital device. On one hand the excessive usage of digital devices drove these people away from the human contact, making them vulnerable to loneliness, escapism, poor sleep quality and even depression but also to cyberbullying and at times to even addition to pornographic sites.

(The virtual reality of) internet technology came up a solution to constraints of location and time, but lack of poise also seems to be creating it into (a reality of) a problematic solution.

Another side effect is what is now known as Google Syndrome, wherein patients google the syndromes and also conclude not only the disease but the treatment well before the official diagnosis. In turn, they also have started distrusting the official diagnosis of a proper doctor.

This can still be termed as tip of the iceberg, with AI, VR technologies increasing digitization and automation coverage of homes, personal and social entertainment and work. Even though AI technologies can be superior and competent to a human brain on several parameters, it does not have the capability of the brain to evoke that consciousness which takes the mind beyond the material process.[1]

How can we understand our true self if we are disconnected even from our functional reality.

The solution lies in the practice of tapas / discipline to recognise that however intelligent or qualified, Time is the only resource that we can never get back once its is lost. The pertinent question that we need to ask ourselves is – is our use of digital technology improving the (real) quality of our life?

We also need to question ourselves – what is the change you want to make in this world?

The way we answer these questions will guide us towards (self)discipline/ swadharma and a meaningful life of contribution – towards the self-first, and then to the society.

Some more readings:

Why the Net Matters: How the Internet Will Save Civilization examines what the advent of the internet means on the timescale of civilizations.
Can we create new senses for humans? – David Eagleman

- THE BRAIN WITH DR. DAVID EAGLEMAN (w.t.), six one-hour episodes that tell the story of the inner workings of the brain and take viewers on a visually spectacular journey into why they feel and think the things they do.

@ TEDxAlamo 10/29/09, Dr. Eagleman gave compelling examples of how reality is a matter of individual perception and how Nature’s adaptions function as “plug ins” for the brain.

David Eagleman, in conversation with Sadguru as they discuss a variety of subjects, ranging from different parts of the mind, the concept of time, quantum mechanics, religion, and meditation.

Mind the Gap Between Perception and Reality | Sean Tiffee | TEDxLSCTomball

We will now turn to our regular section -.

We now watch ASQ TV episode on –

- - Quality Past and Present – Some things change, some remain the same, and some evolve. Quality is no different.

We have taken up one article from Jim L. Smith’s Jim’s Gems:

Tips for success (Part 1 and Part 2) – focus on important actions:

Focus on end goals.
Make crisis an ally
Solicit input
Do not trust non-statistical metrics
Focus on vital metrics
Cost of Poor Quality (CoPQ) must be known
Improvement does not always centre on hard assets
Enhance employee worth
Take action

‘From the Editor’ (of Quality Magazine) – by Darryl Sealand, we have –

Focus More or Less – In science, Focal Point is the point at which rays of light, heat, or sound meet after being reflected. In geology, it is the place inside the Earth’s crust where an earthquake originates. … When applied to the human brain, focus is defined as a centre of activity, attraction, or attention, or a point of concentration. … However, the same amount of fanfare surrounds a somewhat diametrically opposed idea, that of multi-tasking – the opposite of hyper-focus. … A rather famous experiment – called The Invisible Gorilla – attempts to address some aspects of hyper-concentration versus multi-tasking by revealing the numerous ways that our intuitions can deceive us.[2] The authors, Christopher Chabris and Daniel Simons, concluded that the experiment reveals two things, “that we are missing a lot of what goes on around us, and that we have no idea that we are missing so much.” … Some recent studies… suggest that our brains don’t really have the ability to concentrate on many things at once, but some of us are better at turning our concentration quickly from one task to the next and are simply better at organizing the thoughts and attention to be able to “bounce” from one task to another and back again with seemingly more ease than others.