VAM 236 | Your Smart Phone Is Making You Worse At Acting – How to Fight Back
Welcome to episode 236 of the Voice Acting Mastery podcast with yours truly, Crispin Freeman!
As always, you can listen to the podcast using the player above, or download the mp3 using the link at the bottom of this blog post. The podcast is also available via the iTunes Store online. Just follow this link to view the podcast in iTunes:
http://www.voiceactingmastery.com/podcast
Your smart phone is making you worse at acting. Truly. Now, before you click away thinking you already know that social media is rotting your brain, or because you think this episode is irrelevant to you, let me ask you this: Are you anxious about acting, or anxious in general? Do you feel more comfortable texting or commenting online but have trouble relating to people in person or in real time via video chat or a phone call? Do you struggle with unscripted circumstances in day-to-day life, or with analyzing acting scripts for emotional subtext? Does the idea of participating in in-person improv classes fill you with dread? Do you feel stuck as an actor because you’re not getting the response you want from your audience or from employers? Do you get frustrated with the process of actually improving your acting skills because it seems harder than it should be? Do you spend more time passively watching content online than you do actively analyzing scenes in media, participating in acting classes or workout groups, or submitting auditions for actual acting jobs?
If you answered yes to any of the above, your smart phone is making you worse at acting, and I realize that this opinion is going to sound controversial or just plain unhelpful to many. After all, a smart phone does seem to be almost a necessity in order to navigate today’s technologically focused world. A smart phone not only provides instant verbal and textual communication through a number of different avenues, it also provides physical guidance through GPS location data, the ability to capture pictures, video and audio, as well as running any number of useful apps that can help you check the weather, observe traffic, book plane flights, manage your finances, or even find romance!
Having all of this functionality crammed into a slim, battery powered device that you can easily put in your pocket, may seem like an indisputable convenience, and I agree. However, what is rarely considered is the psychological effect this technology can have on the user. The benefits are obvious on the surface, but the potential disadvantages are subtler and often take longer to make their presence felt. And unfortunately for us actors, these disadvantages are even worse for our profession specifically.
I’d like to take this episode to help explain the top three drawbacks of smart phone use and how they can hurt your ability to act. Then, I’ll tell you what we as actors can do about these drawbacks so we can take control of our own mental and emotional wellbeing and get on with the business of acting. I’ll be referencing the work of Marshall McLuhan, a philosopher and university professor, whose insights on media and technology were not only groundbreaking when he articulated them back in the 1960s and 70s, but are still applicable today. He coined the term, The Medium is the Message, which was his way of expressing that the true impact of any technology is not what content it may deliver, but rather, he believed that its very existence in our lives has an effect on our psyche because of how we are required to interact with it.
Hopefully by applying some of his concepts, and combining them with my own personal experiences, I can help you renegotiate your relationship to your smart phone so you can still take advantage of the benefits it has to offer, without it impinging on your ability to grow as an actor. Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to throw out your phone! But it’s high time we learn how to start controlling it, rather than allowing it to control us!
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