Is Internet-Centrism a Religion?

On the evening of March 3 in 1514, Steven is sitting next to Friar Clay in a Nottingham pub, covering his face with his hands.

"I am losing the will to live", Steven sobs, "Death may be sweeter than life in this world of poverty, injustice and war."

"Do not despair, my friend", Clay says, "for the printing press will change everything."

*******

Let us now fast-forward 500 years and re-enact this hypothetical scene with some tiny modifications.

On the evening of March 3 in 2014, Steven is sitting next to TED-Talker Clay in a Nottingham pub, covering his face with his hands.

"I am losing the will to live", Steven sobs, "Death may be sweeter than life in this world of poverty, injustice and war."

"Do not despair, my friend", Clay says, "for the internet will change everything."

*******

Clay's advice in the first scene sounds ludicrous to us because we know that the printing press did not usher in an era of wealth, justice and peace. Being retrospectators, we realize that the printing press revolutionized how we disseminate information, but even the most efficient dissemination tool is just a means and not the ends.

It is more difficult for us to dismiss Clay's advice in the second scene because it echoes the familiar Silicon Valley slogans which inundate us with such persistence that some of us have begun to believe them. Clay's response is an example of what Evgeny Morozov refers to as "Internet-centrism", the unwavering belief that the Internet is not just an information dissemination tool but that it constitutes the path to salvation for humankind. In his book "To Save Everything, Click Here: The Folly of Technological Solutionism", Morozov suggests that "Internet-centrism" is taking on religion-like qualities:

"If the public debate is any indication, the finality of "the Internet"— the belief that it's the ultimate technology and the ultimate network— has been widely accepted. It's Silicon Valley's own version of the end of history: just as capitalism-driven liberal democracy in Francis Fukuyama's controversial account remains the only game in town, so does the capitalism-driven "Internet." It, the logic goes, is a precious gift from the gods that humanity should never abandon or tinker with. Thus, while "the Internet" might disrupt everything, it itself should never be disrupted. It's here to stay— and we'd better work around it, discover its real nature, accept its features as given, learn its lessons, and refurbish our world accordingly. If it sounds like a religion, it's because it is."

Morozov does not equate mere internet usage with "Internet-centrism". People  routinely use the internet for work or leisure without ascribing mythical powers to it, but it is when the latter occurs that internet usage transforms into "Internet-centrism".


Does Morozov's portrayal of "Internet-centrism" as a religion correspond to our current understanding of religions? "Internet-centrism" does not involve deities, sacred scripture or traditional prayers, but social scientists and scholars of religion do not require deism, scriptures or prayers to categorize a body of beliefs and practices as a religion.

The German theologian Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768-1834) thought that the feeling of "absolute dependence" ("das schlechthinnige Abhängigkeitsgefühl") was one of the defining characteristics of a religion. In a January 2014 Pew Internet survey, 53% of adult internet users in said that it would be "very hard" to give up the internet, whereas only 38% felt this way in 2006.  This does not necessarily meet the Schleiermacher threshold of "absolute dependence" but it indicates a growing perception of dependence among internet users, who are struggling to envision a life without the internet or a life beyond the internet.
Absolute dependence is  not unique to religion, therefore it may be more helpful to turn to religion-specific definitions if we want to understand the religionesque characteristics of Internet-centrism. In his classic essay "Religion as a cultural system" (published in "The Interpretation of Cultures"), the anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1926-2006) defined religion as:

" (1) a system of symbols which acts to (2) establish powerful, persuasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations in men by (3) formulating conceptions of a general order of existence and (4) clothing these conceptions with such an aura of factuality that (5) the moods and motivations seem uniquely realistic."

 Today's Silicon Valley pundits (incidentally a Sanskrit term originally used for learned Hindu scholars well-versed in Vedic scriptures) excel at establishing "powerful, persuasive, and long-lasting moods and motivations" and endowing "conceptions of general order of existence" with an "aura of factuality". Morozov does not specifically reference the Geertz definition of religion, but he provides extensive internet pundit quotes which fit the bill. Here is one such example:

"To be a peer progressive, then, is to live with the conviction that Wikipedia is just the beginning, that we can learn from its success to build new systems that solve problems in education, governance, health, local communities, and countless other regions of human experience." 
—Steven Johnson in "Future Perfect: The Case For Progress In A Networked Age"

One problem with abstract definitions of religion is that they do not encompass the practice of religion and its mythical or supernatural aspects, which are often essential parts of most religions. In "The Religious Experience", the religion scholar Ninian Smart (1927-2001) does not provide a handy definition for religions but instead offers six "dimensions" that are present in most major religions: 1) The Ritual Dimension, 2) The Mythological Dimension, 3) The Doctrinal Dimension, 4) The Ethical Dimension, 5) The Social Dimension and 6) The Experiential Dimension.

How do these dimensions of religion apply to Internet-centrism?

1) The Ritual Dimension: The need to continuously seek connectivity by accessing computers or seeking out wireless connectivity, checking emails or social media updates so frequently that this connectivity exceeds one's pragmatic needs could be considered a ritual of Internet-centrism. If one feels the need to check emails and Facebook or Twitter updates every one to two minutes, despite the fact that it is unlikely one would have received a message that required urgent action, it may be an indicator of the important role that this ritual plays in the life of an Internet-centrist. Worshippers of traditional religions feel uncomfortable if they miss out on regular prayers or lose their rosaries that allow them to commune with their God, and it appears that for some humans, the ritual of Internet-connectivity may play a similar role.

2) The Mythological Dimension: There is the physical internet, which consists of billions of physical components such as computers, servers, routers or cables that are connected to each other. Prophets and pundits of Internet-centrism also describe a mythical "Internet" which goes for beyond the physical internet, because it involves mythical narratives about the power of the internet as a higher force that is shaping human destiny. Just like "Scientism" attributes a certain mystique to real-world science, Internet-centrism adorns the physical internet with a similar mythological dimension.   
Ideas of "cognitive surplus", crowdsourcing knowledge to improve the human condition, internet-based political revolutions that will put an end to injustice, oppression and poverty and other powerful metaphors are used to describe this poorly defined mythical entity that has little to do with the physical internet. The myth of egalitarianism is commonly perpetuated, yet the internet is anything but egalitarian. Social media hubs have millions of followers and certain corporations or organizations are experts at building filters and algorithms to control the information seen by consumers who have minimal power and control over the flow of information.

3) The Doctrinal Dimension: The doctrine of Internet-centrism is the relentless pursuit of sharedom through the internet. The idea is that the more we share, the more we collaborate and the more transparent we are via the internet, the easier it will be for us humans to conquer the challenges that face us. Challenging this basic doctrine that is promoted by Silicon Valley corporations can be perceived as heretical. It is a remarkable testimony to the proselytizing power of the prophets and pundits in Silicon Valley that people were outraged at the government institution NSA for violating our privacy. There was comparatively little concern about the fact that the primary benefactors of the growing culture of sharedom are the for-profit internet corporations that make money off our willingness to sacrifice our privacy.

4) The Ethical Dimension: In many religions, one is asked to follow aspects of a religious doctrine which have no direct ethical context. For example, seeking salvation by praying alone to a god on a mountain-top does not necessarily require adherence to ethical standards. On the other hand, most religions have developed moral imperatives that govern how adherents of a religion interact with fellow believers or non-believers. In Internet-centrism, the doctrinal dimension is conflated with the ethical dimension. Sharedom is not only a doctrinal imperative, it is also a moral imperative. We are told that sharing and collaborating is an ethical duty.
This may be unique to Internet-centrism since the internet (both in its physical or its mythical form) presupposes the existence of fellow beings with whom one can connect. If a catastrophe wiped out all humans but one, who happened to adhere to a traditional religion, she could still pray to a god (ritual), believe in salvation by a supernatural entity (mythological) and abide by the the religious laws (doctrinal). However, if she were an Internet-centrist, all her rituals, beliefs and doctrines would become meaningless.

5) The Social Dimension: Congregating in groups and social interactions are key for many religions, but Internet-centrism provides more tools than any other ideology, cultural movement or religion for us to interact with others. Whether we engage in this social activity by using social media such as Facebook or Twitter, by reading or writing blog posts, or by playing multi-player games online, Internet-centrism encourages us to fulfill our social needs by using the tools of the internet.   

6) The Experiential Dimension: Most religions offer their adherents opportunities for highly personal, spiritual experiences. Internet-centrism avoids any talk of "spirituality", but the idea of a personalized experience is very much a part of Internet-centrism. One of its goals is to provide opportunities for self-actualization. We all may be connected via the internet, but Internet-centrists also want us to believe that this connectivity provides a path for self-actualization. We can modify settings to customize our web browsing experience, we can pick and choose from millions of options of what online courses we want to take, videos we want to watch or music we want to listen to. The sense of connectedness and omnipotentiality is what provides the adherent of Internet-centrism with a feeling of personal empowerment that comes close to a spiritual experience of traditional religions.   

When one reviews the definitions by Schleiermacher or Geertz, or the multi-dimensional analysis by Ninian Smart, it does indeed seem that Morozov is right and that Internet-centrism is taking on many religion-like characteristics. There is probably still a big disconnect between the Silicon valley prophets or pundits who proselytize and the vast majority of internet users who primarily act as "consumers" but do not yet buy into the tenets of Internet-centrism. But it is likely that at least in the short-term, Internet-centrism will continue to grow, especially if Internet-centrist ideas are introduced to children in schools and they grow up believing that these ideas are both essential and sufficient for our intellectual and social wellbeing. Perhaps the pundits of Internet-centrism could discuss the future of this emerging religion with adherents of other faiths at a TEDxInterfaith conference.

Image Credits: Photo of Gutenberg Bible (Creative Commons license, via NYC Wanderer at Flickr)

Sharing Our Sorrow Via Facebook

Geteiltes Leid ist halbes Leid ("Shared sorrow is half the sorrow") is a popular German proverb which refers to the importance of sharing bad news and troubling experiences with others. The therapeutic process of sharing takes on many different forms: we may take comfort in the fact that others have experienced similar forms of sorrow, we are often reassured by the empathy and encouragement we receive from friends, and even the mere process of narrating the details of what is troubling us can be beneficial. Finding an attentive audience that is willing to listen to our troubles is not always easy. In a highly mobile, globalized world, some of our best friends may be located thousands of kilometers away, unable to meet face-to-face. The omnipresence of social media networks may provide a solution. We are now able to stay in touch with hundreds of friends and family members, and commiserate with them. But are people as receptive to sorrow shared via Facebook as they are in face-to-face contacts?

A team of researchers headed by Dr. Andrew High at the University of Iowa recently investigated this question and published their findings in the article "Misery rarely gets company: The influence of emotional bandwidth on supportive communication on Facebook". The researchers created three distinct Facebook profiles of a fictitious person named Sara Thomas who had just experienced a break-up. The three profiles were identical in all respects except for how much information was conveyed about the recent (fictitious) break-up. In their article, High and colleagues use the expression "emotional bandwidth" to describe the extent of emotions conveyed in the Facebook profile.
In the low bandwidth scenario, the profile contained the following status update:

"sad and depressed:("

The medium bandwidth profile included a change in relationship status to "single" in the timeline, in addition to the  low bandwidth profile update "sad and depressed:(".

Finally, the high emotional bandwidth profile not only contained the updates of the low and medium bandwidth profiles, but also included a picture of a crying woman (the other two profiles had no photo, just the standard Facebook shadow image).

The researchers then surveyed 84 undergraduate students (enrolled in communications courses, average age 20, 53% female) and presented them with screenshots of one of the three profiles.


They asked the students to imagine that the person in the profile was a member of their Facebook network. After reviewing the assigned profile, each student completed a questionnaire asking about their willingness to provide support for Sara Thomas using a 9-point scale (1 = strongly disagree; 9 = strongly agree). The survey contained questions that evaluated the willingness to provide emotional support (e.g.  "Express sorrow or regret for her situation") and network support (e.g. "Connect her with people whom she may turn to for help''). In addition to being queried about their willingness to provide distinct forms of support, the students were also asked about their sense of community engendered by Facebook (e.g., "Facebook makes me feel I am a part of a community'') and their preference for online interactions over face-to-face interactions  (e.g., "I prefer communicating with other people online rather than face-to-face'').

High and colleagues hypothesized that the high emotional bandwidth profiles would elicit greater support from the students. In face-to-face interactions, it is quite common for us to provide greater support to a person – friend or stranger – if we see them overtly crying and therefore the researchers' hypothesis was quite reasonable. To their surprise, the researchers found the opposite. The willingness to provide emotional or network support was significantly lower among students who viewed the high emotional bandwidth profile! For example, average emotional support scores were 7.8 among students who saw Sara entering the "sad and depressed:(" update (low bandwidth) but the scores were only 6.5 among students who also saw the image of Sara crying and updating her relationship status to single (high bandwidth). Interestingly, students who preferred online interactions over face-to-face interactions or those who felt that Facebook created a strong sense of community responded positively to the high bandwidth profile.

There are some important limitations of the study. The students were asked to evaluate whether they would provide support to a fictitious person by imagining that she was part of their Facebook friends network. This is a rather artificial situation because actual supportive Facebook interactions occur among people who know each other. It is not easy to envision support for a fictitious person whose profile one sees for the first time. Furthermore, "emotional bandwidth" is a broad concept and it is difficult to draw general conclusions about "emotional bandwidth" from the limited differences between the three profiles. Increasing the sample size of the study subjects as well as creating a broader continuum of emotional bandwidth differences (e.g. including profiles which include pictures of a fictitious Sara Thomas who is not crying, using other status updates, etc.), and also considering scenarios that are not just related to break-ups (e.g. creating profiles of a fictitious grieving person who has lost a loved one) would be useful for an in-depth analysis of "emotional bandwidth".

The study by High and colleagues is an intriguing and important foray into the cyberpsychology of emotional self-disclosure and supportive communication on Facebook. This study raises important questions about how cyberbehavior differs from real world face-to-face behavior, and the even more interesting question of why these behaviors are different. Online interactions omit the dynamic gestures, nuanced intonations and other cues which play a critical role in determining our face-to-face behavior. When we share emotions via Facebook, our communication partners are often spatially and temporally displaced. This allows us to carefully "edit" what we disclose about ourselves, but it also allows our audience to edit their responses, unlike the comparatively spontaneous responses of a person sitting next to us. Facebook invites us to use the "Share" button, but we need to remember that online "sharing" is a sharing between heavily edited and crafted selves that is very different from traditional forms of "sharing".     

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Acknowledgments: An earlier version of this article was first published at 3Quarksdaily. The images from the study profiles were provided by Dr. Andrew High, copyright of the images - Dr. Andrew High. 

Reference: Misery rarely gets company: The influence of emotional bandwidth on supportive communication on Facebook, AC High, A Oeldorf-Hirsch, S Bellur, Computers in Human Behavior (2014) 34, 79-88





High, A., Oeldorf-Hirsch, A., & Bellur, S. (2014). Misery rarely gets company: The influence of emotional bandwidth on supportive communication on Facebook Computers in Human Behavior, 34, 79-88 DOI: 10.1016/j.chb.2014.01.037

Should Doctors ‘Google’ Their Patients?

Beware of what you share. Employers now routinely utilize internet search engines or social network searches to obtain information about job applicants. A survey of 2,184 hiring managers and human resource professionals conducted by the online employment website CareerBuilder.com revealed that 39% use social networking sites to research job candidates. Of the group who used social networks to evaluate job applicants, 43% found content on a social networking site that caused them to not hire a candidate, whereas only 19% found information that that has caused them to hire a candidate.

The top reasons for rejecting a candidate based on information gleaned from social networking sites were provocative or inappropriate photos/information, including information about the job applicants' history of substance abuse. This should not come as a surprise to job applicants in the US. After all, it is not uncommon for employers to invade the privacy of job applicants by conducting extensive background searches, ranging from the applicant's employment history and credit rating to checking up on any history of lawsuits or run-ins with law enforcement agencies. Some employers also require drug testing of job applicants. The internet and social networking websites merely offer employers an additional array of tools to scrutinize their applicants. But how do we feel about digital sleuthing when it comes to relationship that is very different than the employer-applicant relationship – one which is characterized by profound trust, intimacy and respect, such as the relationship between healthcare providers and their patients?


The Hastings Center Report is a peer-reviewed academic bioethics journal which discusses the ethics of "Googling a Patient" in its most recent issue. It first describes a specific case of a twenty-six year old patient who sees a surgeon and requests a prophylactic mastectomy of both breasts. She says that she does not have breast cancer yet, but that her family is at very high risk for cancer. Her mother, sister, aunts, and a cousin have all had breast cancer; a teenage cousin had ovarian cancer at the age of nineteen; and that her brother was treated for esophageal cancer at the age of fifteen. She also says that she herself has suffered from a form of skin cancer (melanoma) at the age of twenty-five and that she wants to undergo the removal of her breasts without further workup because she wants to avoid developing breast cancer. She says that her prior mammogram had already shown abnormalities and she had been told by another surgeon that she needed the mastectomy.

Such prophylactic mastectomies, i.e. removal of both breasts, are indeed performed if young women are considered to be at very high risk for breast cancer based on their genetic profile and family history. The patient's family history – her mother, sister and aunts being diagnosed with breast cancer – are indicative of a very high risk, but other aspects of the history such as her brother developing esophageal cancer at the age of fifteen are rather unusual. The surgeon confers with the patient's primary care physician prior to performing the mastectomy and is puzzled by the fact that the primary care physician cannot confirm many of the claims made by the patient regarding her prior medical history or her family history. The physicians find no evidence of the patient ever having been diagnosed with a melanoma and they also cannot find documentation of the prior workup. The surgeon then asks a genetic counselor to meet with the patient and help resolve the discrepancies. During the evaluation process, the genetic counselor decides to ‘google' the patient.


The genetic counselor finds two Facebook pages that are linked to the patient. One page appears to be a personal profile of the patient, stating that in addition to battling stage four melanoma (a very advanced stage of skin cancer with very low survival rates), she has recently been diagnosed with breast cancer. She also provides a link to a website soliciting donations to attend a summit for young cancer patients. The other Facebook page shows multiple pictures of the patient with a bald head, suggesting that she is undergoing chemotherapy, which is obviously not true according to what the genetic counselor and the surgeon have observed. Once this information is forwarded to the surgeon, he decides to cancel the planned surgery. It is not clear why the patient was intent on having the mastectomy and what she would gain from it, but the obtained information from the Facebook pages and the previously noted discrepancies are reason enough for the surgeon to rebuff the patient's request for the surgery.

Two groups of biomedical ethics experts then weigh in on the case and the broader question of whether or not health care professionals should ‘google' patients. The first group of ethics experts feels that uninvited patient ‘googling' is generally a bad practice for three main reasons:

1. It allows healthcare professionals to withdraw from their patients and start relying on online data and information gleaned from social networking sites instead of interacting with the patient and addressing the key issues head-on.
2. The ‘googling' of patients erodes the trust between the healthcare professional and the patient. Patients might feel a sense of betrayal that the healthcare professional "spied" on them.
3. An internet search or review or social network pages linked to the patient represents an invasion of the privacy of the patient. The patient should have the right to decide what information to disclose and what not to disclose, but by surreptitiously obtaining this information, the healthcare provide circumvents the right to privacy of the patient.

A separate panel of reviewers arrives at a very different conclusion and specifically points to this case as an example where it was imperative to ‘google' the patient. As this panel points out, the genetic counselor used a legal method to search the internet and found information on public Facebook profiles after having found many red flags and inconsistencies in the patient's medical history. By finding the information on Facebook, the surgeon and the counselor were able to prevent a self-injurious, deceptive and possibly fraudulent scheme of the patient to go forward. This panel of experts goes as far as saying that it would have actually been irresponsible to not perform the Google search after all the red flags and inconsistencies were identified.
As with all ethical dilemmas, it is difficult to find the correct answer. The first panel brings up good points that the relationship between a healthcare professional and a patient is characterized by trust and respect of privacy, but I tend to agree with the second panel in the case of this patient. It illustrates that the ‘googling' was able to avert an unnecessary and irreversible surgery. This was not just an indiscriminate ‘googling' or searching of private information on Facebook pages. The action was prompted by very real concerns about contradictory information regarding the patient's medical history. On balance, the benefit of avoiding the unnecessary surgery probably outweighed the risk of harming the trust between the healthcare professional and the patient – one which was already undermined by the patient's deception.

This case is rather unusual because it is probably quite rare that a surgeon or a genetic counselor would find valuable information on a patient by merely searching Google or Facebook for information. The type of information that could be of value to most healthcare providers is not usually disclosed on public sites or social network pages. For example, a cardiologist may be interested in finding out why a patient's cholesterol levels are not decreasing despite being placed on optimal medications and being advised to cut down the dietary intake of cholesterol. The cardiologist may suspect that the patient is not really taking the medications or perhaps eating much more dietary cholesterol than the patient is willing to disclose during the doctor's visits. However, it is unlikely that the patient's Facebook page will chronicle whether or not the patient secretly eats cheese omelets on a daily basis or chooses not to take his cholesterol medications.

On the other hand, other healthcare professionals could find important diagnostic clues when reviewing the Facebook page of a patient. Psychiatrists or psychologists may be able to get a much better sense of a patient's mental health and functioning by reviewing the daily posts and interactions of a patient with friends and family members instead of just having to rely on the brief snapshot when they interview the patient during a 30 minute visit.

The study ""To Google or not to Google: Graduate students' use of the Internet to access personal information about clients." by the psychologists DeLillo and Gale surveyed 854 students enrolled in clinical, counseling, and school psychology doctoral programs in the United States and Canada, asking them how they felt about using Google or social networking websites to learn more about their clients/patients. Interestingly, two-thirds of the psychologists-in-training felt that it was never acceptable or usually not acceptable to use web search engines in order to find additional information about their clients. This feeling was even more pronounced when it came to social networking sites: 76.8% of the students thought that this was never acceptable or usually not acceptable.

However, despite these feelings, 97.8% of the students had searched for at least one client's information using search engines such as Google, whereas 94.4% had searched for at least one client's information using social networking websites. Importantly, 76.8% of the therapists who had conducted the searches for client information on social networking sites also reported that it was either always or usually unacceptable! This suggests a significant dissonance between the ethical perception of the therapists and their actions. Furthermore, more than 80% of the therapists who had conducted the searches said that their clients were aware of the internet and social networking searches they were conducting.

The case study with the patient requesting the mastectomy and the high prevalence of using the internet to perform searches on patients/clients by psychologists highlights the ethical dilemmas that are emerging in our culture of digital sharedom. The internet with its often very public display of individual information may be a powerful tool for certain healthcare professionals, but we also need to develop ethical guidelines for how healthcare professionals should use this tool. For medical procedures and tests, healthcare professionals have to obtain informed consent from their patients, discussing the risks and benefits of the procedure or test. Should healthcare professionals also obtain informed consent from patients before they pry into their social media networks? Or would that defeat the purpose because the patients might change the privacy settings or change the content of their posts, knowing that healthcare professionals might be reviewing them? Should healthcare professionals in specialties such as psychology and psychiatry ‘google' all their patients – just like they now ask questions about substance abuse to all patients – or only if there are certain red flags?

The survey of psychologists-in-training highlights the cognitive dissonance that healthcare professionals may experience: They may reject such searches on their clients or patients in the abstract, but they may still choose to perform the searches, probably because they think it will allow them to provide better care for their clients and patient. Instead of relying of idiosyncratic decisions made by professionals, we have to establish the ethical ground-rules for how healthcare professionals can use search engines or social networking sites when obtaining information about individuals. We may have become so accustomed to invasions of our privacy by government agencies and corporations that we sometimes forget that privacy is instrumental in maintaining our individuality. Especially in relationships that are founded on an extraordinary degree of trust, such as those between healthcare professionals and their patients or clients, we need to ensure that this trust is not eroded by the dark side of sharedom.

Acknowledgements: I would like to thank Ryan Hunt from CareerBuilder for clarifying the survey results. An earlier version of this article was first published on  the 3Quarksdaily blog.

References:

1. Rebecca Volpe, George Blackall, and Michael Green; and Danny George, Maria Baker, and Gordon Kauffman, "Googling a Patient" Hastings Center Report 43, no. 5 (2013): 14-15.
2. DiLillo, David; Gale, Emily B. "To Google or not to Google: Graduate students' use of the Internet to access personal information about clients."Training and Education in Professional Psychology, Vol 5(3), Aug 2011, 160-166. doi: 10.1037/a0024441

Volpe R, Blackall G, & Green M (2013). Case study. Googling a patient. Commentary. The Hastings Center report, 43 (5), 14-5 PMID: 24092585





  DiLillo, D., & Gale, E. (2011). To Google or not to Google: Graduate students' use of the Internet to access personal information about clients. Training and Education in Professional Psychology, 5 (3), 160-166 DOI: 10.1037/a0024441

Whistling Pigs: German Adventures with Google Translate

Bilingual or multilingual friends can be quite annoying. Especially if you’re stuck at a social gathering with the ones who repeatedly mention their language skills and utter phrases such as ”Well, if only you could read this novel in the original, you would have a much more profound understanding of what the author wanted to express…..”. Or the ones who like to cite French, German and Arabic language newspaper articles and then remind you with a thinly veiled pomposity that you may have a very narrow view of the world if you only rely on English-language news.

Via Bert Kaufmann (Creative Commons license)

However, this latter group is becoming more rare, possibly because a formidable foe is taking the wind out of their sails: Google Translate. The excellent book “Is That a Fish In Your Ear” by David Bellos has a chapter entitled “The Adventure of Automated Language-Translation Machines”, which is especially thought-provoking, because it explains some key concepts about Google Translate and the future of automated translation.

If a user enters a text into Google Translate, the linguistic search engine scours the Internet for multilingual texts, ranging from official documents posted by the European Union to articles and books that are available online in bilingual or multilingual versions. Using pattern recognition algorithms and statistical methods, Google Translate matches words and phrases contained in the user-entered text with those found in the large online repository of previously translated texts.

The underlying assumption of Google Translate is that any new text requiring translation contains phrases and word patterns that have been adequately translated in the existing online collection of bilingual or multilingual texts. Anyone who has used Google Translate can appreciate the success of this approach. While old-fashioned automated word-for-word translation often resulted in garbled paragraphs, the pattern recognition method of Google Translate does a rather impressive job of creating intelligible translations within seconds. For better or worse, this tool permits news-addicts to follow international major news stories in real-time as they develop by reading Google Translate’s renditions of local media, without having to wait for translations by bothersome multilingual friends. Google Translate allowed us to receive up-to-date information from the Japanese media as the Fukushima catastrophe in Japan was unfolding, and it also allowed us to read newspaper articles and editorials written in Arabic by journalists in Egypt or Tunisia during the Arab Spring.

I have often tested Google Translate by letting it translate newspaper articles from my native German into English and found the translations to be remarkably accurate. The English translations not only convey the gist of the original German article, but also include lucid and accurate translations of details contained in the original articles. However, most of these German newspaper articles are fairly functional and terse in terms of the vocabulary and phrases that are used. The few times that I’ve entered German essays or editorials written by linguistically gifted authors into Google Translate, the outcomes have been rather comical, especially if the German texts contained idiomatic expressions, puns or proverbs.

This may not come as a big surprise, because the efficacy of Google Translate is heavily dependent on the presence of consistent patterns of translation in the bilingual text repository that it accesses. Figurative expressions and idioms may not be that common in the existing catalogue of Google Translate texts. Even if figurative or idiomatic expressions are present in the Google Translate database, the translators may have used very context-specific methods to translate the expressions. German idioms often reflect historical events or cultural traditions, often reaching back to medieval history. It can be challenging to translate these idioms into a language with a different set of idioms which reflect a distinct history or culture. Some translators may choose to translate an idiom in the German text with a matching idiom in the target language. Other translators, on the other hand, may instead focus on translating the imagery or historical associations evoked by the idiomatic expression. Inspired by Bellos’ book, I decided to choose some of my favorite German idioms and see how Google Translate would translate them into English.

The judgmental staff

• German original: Du kannst doch nicht den Stab über ihn brechen!
• Google Translate: You can not break the rod of him!

The literal translation of the German phrase would be “You cannot break the staff over him!“ and is not too different from the one suggested by Google Translate. However, without the proper historical context, the translation appears to be rather incomprehensible. The German idiom refers to the medieval tradition of a Stab (staff or rod) being a symbol of power, especially in a courtroom. A judge would hold the staff during a trial, but if the defendant was sentenced to death, the judge broke the staff, possibly indicating that the defendant’s fate was now beyond the judge’s hands. The expression is used today if someone pronounces a negative judgment or condemns a fellow person. This expression is used to emphasize the importance of necessary caution before making pre-emptive judgments that may have irreversible consequences. In our contemporary culture and immediate access to online information, we are often tempted to judge the words and actions of fellow humans. I like this German idiom because invoking the image of a judge breaking a staff and pronouncing a death sentence may help promote the ideas of restraint and introspection.

Itchy ideas

• German original: Du hast ihm einen Floh ins Ohr gesetzt.
• Google Translate: You have him put a flea in his ear.

Google does a fine job of providing a literal translation of this German idiom, but it does not necessarily convey its meaning. The idiom is used to describe an idea or thought that we may have heard and are unable to let go. I enjoy the image of the “itching flea” in the ear, because I often obsess about certain ideas and I feel that I cannot easily disassociate from these “itching” thoughts. I have occasionally seen the translation of this German idiom with the English expression “bee in the bonnet”, however, the sensation of “itching” is perhaps a more intimate and painful description of an obsession rather than the buzzing within a hat.

Illicit stupidity

• German original: Er ist dümmer als die Polizei erlaubt.
• Google Translate: He is dumber than the police allowed.

Let us be very upfront about this: It is not (yet) a crime to be stupid in Germany. We currently do not have Colonel Klink-type policemen patrolling the streets and administering IQ-alyzers to weed out potential offenders, even though this idiom may suggest that we do. In everyday parlance, this idiom expresses the frustration resulting from someone’s ignorant behavior or actions.

The joy of stealing horses

• German original: Mit dir kann man Pferde stehlen!
• Google Translate: With you is a good sport!

The literal translation of this German phrase is “I could steal horses with you”, and it denotes great friendship and trust. The punishment for being caught stealing horses in medieval times was quite severe and one would only undertake such a task with a truly trustworthy friend. It also implies that this particular friend is open to exciting adventures, and this may be the reason why Google Translate suggests the “good sport” translation. However, “good sport” misses the core ideas of deep trust and friendship that thieving comrades would need to plan the grand theft of horses. The English expression “thick as thieves” may be a more suitable match.

It comes down to the sausage

• German original: Jetzt geht es um die Wurst!
• Google Translate: Now it comes to sausages!

When describing critical decisions, we Germans do not strive for world domination as some Hollywood movies would like you to believe. The expression literally translates to “Now it comes down to the sausage!” and it conjures up images of our not-so-elegant cuisine which primarily consists of meat and potatoes. During traditional German county fairs and folk festivals, games were held in which young men or boys would compete for the coveted Grand Prize: a large sausage. The allure of this prize created this expression which refers to crucial life-defining moments.

Whistling pigs

• German original: Ich glaube, mein Schwein pfeift!
• Google Translate: I think my rocker!

This German idiom literally translates into “I think my pig is whistling” and is meant to signify tremendous surprise (i.e. “I am really, really surprised!”), because most German pigs do not have a habit of whistling. The Google Translate choice of “rocker” probably refers to the English expression “off my rocker” and is an example of the search engine’s pattern recognition of this German idiomatic expression, which may have been translated using the English language idiom “off my rocker” in some texts. However, “off my rocker” may not be the best choice, because it not only avoids the endearing images of whistling pigs but also because “off my rocker” tends to have a connotation of transient insanity, confusion or craziness, more than a state of marked surprise.

Mysterious Bohemian villages

• German original: Für mich sind das böhmische Dörfer.
• Google Translate: For me, the Bohemian villages.

The literal translation of the German phrase above is “These are Bohemian villages for me” and this German idiom is used to indicate a state of confusion, comparable to the English “This sounds like Greek to me”. This phrase was popularized during the Thirty Year War (1618-1648) which engulfed a large portion of Europe. Bohemia, which is now referred to as the Czech Republic, has always had a long-standing multi-lingual tradition due to the linguistic and ethnic diversity of its citizens. While Czech was the language of the majority population, German became a second official language and was widely spoken in Bohemia. The Bohemian Revolt is considered to be one of the triggers for the Thirty Year War. During this devastating war, armies marched through and destroyed numerous European towns and villages. Large portions of the civilian population were uprooted and forced to settle elsewhere. Amidst this chaos, many German-speaking soldiers or refugees ended up in Bohemian villages which had signs that were printed only in Czech, and thus may have had difficulties deciphering them. This wartime upheaval probably gave birth to the German idiom about mysterious or confusing Bohemian villages.

 The yoke of the yolk

• German original: Das ist nicht das Gelbe vom Ei!
• Google Translate: That’s not exactly brilliant!

Once upon a time, people used to love egg yolks. The egg yolk was considered to be the most nutritious and tastiest part of an egg. The German phrase “Das ist nicht das Gelbe vom Ei!” literally means “This is not the yellow of the egg” and is used as a way to express dissatisfaction, because the essence or the best part (i.e. the egg yolk) is missing. This idiom is still often used in contemporary German, but I wonder whether future generations will retain it. Since the adverse effects of high cholesterol on cardiovascular disease are highly publicized, many of us suppress our desire for cholesterol-rich egg yolks and instead opt for egg white omelets with a side of organic tofu.

Schadenfreude

Schadenfreude is a German word that probably needs no translation since it is commonly used by English speakers. It refers to the Freude (joy or satisfaction) that one feels in light of someone else’s Schaden (damage or misfortune).  It is by no means a purely German emotion. Most people have probably experienced Schadenfreude at some point in their lives, but perhaps it takes German bluntness to give this universal human emotion an actual name. I have to admit that I felt quite a bit of Schadenfreude, when I saw that Google Translate was giving rather inadequate English translations of the German idioms. I think my Schadenfreude about Google Translate’s failings is based on the fact that it does such a good job with most texts that it makes people who take some degree of pride in their bilingual or multilingual skills feel superfluous. When we see that Google Translate struggles with figurative and idiomatic expressions because they elude the statistical pattern recognition algorithms of Google Translate, it allows us to feel that human translation skills aren't obsolete yet.

While Google Translate’s algorithms may be able to perform the grunt work of translation, we still need quite a bit of human creativity to translate puns, jokes, puzzles and idioms. In its present format, Google Translate offers multiple potential translations of phrases and words. The English translations I chose for the German idioms above were among the most suitable options that Google Translate offered, but even these were not able to properly convey the meanings of the idioms. However, Google Translate is still in its infancy. It is very likely that its repository (or that of other pattern recognition based automated translators) will be substantially expanded over the course of the next years as increasing amounts of bilingual literary texts will be available online. Once this repository incorporates a variety of translations of literary texts, it may become more adept at offering appropriate translations of challenging idioms and figurative expressions.

My initial Schadenfreude about Google Translate’s failings is gradually being replaced by a sense of anticipation in regards to the evolution of online translation. We often enjoy reading translations of books, but we have to keep in mind that superb translations usually represent a composite piece of literary art, co-created by the author of the original text and the translator. When I compare multiple translations of an original text, I not only marvel at the creativity of the respective translators but I also appreciate how different translators interpret the original text by way of choosing how to translate the original. Offering a gamut of potential translations for certain phrases may give the reader a much better sense of what the author of the original text may have wanted to convey.

Instead of mainly awaiting the evolution and improvement of automated translators such as Google Translate, one could also consider exploring another possible avenue for online translation: The creation of collaborative translation platforms. Such a translation platform could build on the success of Wikipedia, where individual users are able to edit encyclopedia entries. Challenging literary texts or essays that are rife with idioms, puns and humor would be excellent candidate texts for a collaborative translation. An automated translator such as Google Translate could create a rough draft which would serve as a starting point. The Wikipedia-like platform would then allow multiple bilingual or multilingual users to edit the translations, ideally offering multiple translations of the more challenging expressions and phrases. As with Wikipedia, these collaborative translations would be performed on a volunteer basis. Original texts that are either in the public domain or are freely accessible to the public would be very well suited for such a platform, and the collaborative translations could be made available under a Creative Commons License.  Such an integration of automated translation and collaboration between numerous users would likely create a plethora of translations of beloved literary texts.

This article was originally published on The Next Web

Do We Need Another Information Sharing Platform?

Diagram of a social network from Wikimedia Commons

Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Blogger......We now have numerous ways to share information with each other and many of us already feel overwhelmed by the massive amount of information that we are presented with. When I read that the co-founders of Twitter Evan Williams and Biz Stone are creating a new information sharing platform, I asked myself: Is that really necessary? Aren't we already drowning in information? This new platform is called "Medium" and posting on this new platform is currently only available to selected individuals as it is being tested and developed. Soon, everyone who registers via their Twitter account will be able to post on it. Evan Williams gives us a preview of the nature and goals of "Medium" in an introductory post:

1999 was the year we launched Blogger. Ideas that seemed radical at the time--that anyone, anywhere could and should publish their thoughts to the global Internet audience (for free)--are now taken for granted.

This is definitely true. Anyone who has the sudden urge to publicly share their ideas or feelings can start a blog. Whether there is an audience that will read the blog is a separate question. Williams then writes:

Lots of services have successfully lowered the bar for sharing information, but there's been less progress toward raising the quality of what's produced.

This also is true. When we look at our Twitter feeds, Facebook updates or the millions of blog posts that are generated, it is difficult to claim that the quality of information being exchanged is improving. However, improving the quality of exchanged information seems to be a rather lofty goal and it is not clear that a new platform will necessarily achieve that. "Medium" will apparently rely on two key principles: Rating and Organizing.

 1. Rating:

Williams writes:

Medium is designed to allow people to choose the level of contribution they prefer. We know that most people, most of the time, will simply read and view content, which is fine. If they choose, they can click to indicate whether they think something is good, giving feedback to the creator and increasing the likelihood others will see it.

This will create a hierarchy of information, indicating which information is liked most. This does not seem too dissimilar from the rating that is currently achieved by existing platforms, such as Facebook, which allow one to "like" or "Share" articles, posts or images. Similarly, in Twitter the "Top Tweets" function shows the tweets that are most frequently re-tweeted or favorited.

  2. Organizing

A second key principle is the fact that posts will be organized in collections:

Posting on Medium (not yet open to everyone) is elegant and easy, and you can do so without the burden of becoming a blogger or worrying about developing an audience. All posts are organized into "collections," which are defined by a theme and a template.

Organizing information into collections may indeed be very helpful. When we, for example, look at our Twitter feeds to find information on specific topics, we usually depend on the hashtags or key words included in the tweets. Since a tweet only allows for a total of 140 characters and everyone can create new hashtags in a very subjective and arbitrary manner, it is very challenging to find information on a specific topic. Examples of the limited currently available "Medium" collections can be viewed and include "This Happened To Me" or "Look What I Made".
It is still not clear that "Medium" really represents a revolution in information exchange. One key difference between "Medium" and Twitter seems to be the fact that "medium" users will not be constrained by the 140 character limit. However, a lot of its success will depend on how the information on "Medium" will be organized and how users will be able to navigate the collections. If users will arbitrarily create new collections and generate millions of posts on a daily basis, we might still end up in an information jungle that does not represent the "evolutionary leap" the founders are aiming for. On the other hand, if "Medium" does create a way to organize the posts in collections that can be easily navigated or searched, it is likely to succeed, especially among Twitter users who feel they need more then 140 characters to express themselves.