alice smith

The problem goes deeper than this. Increasingly our tech also opens us up to new vectors of anxiety. Regardless of whether you’re working more or less, your nervous system is now plugged into a neurotic and hypersensitive globe-spanning information system that’s constantly pushing unnecessary things into your consciousness.

I don’t think the tools themselves are the problem; it’s how the entirety of human culture has been digested and regurgitated by them.

this is interesting bc with the abundance of info, we are now turning to each other and those who we aspire to to see what they’re consuming to get the 'best' and their personal curations. Additionally, as ppl become more comfortable with wanting to know every detail, it's only a matter of time before we start using the 'following' feature on IG

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My perennial thought will always be, if the internet didn't exist in the state that it did now, we would have so many rich, interesting scenes, because people have to work to share that.

In the last ten years, pattern recognition has become a cultural activity. You see that on the bad end, like QAnon, and on the more fun end with the pervasiveness of trend forecasting.

Digital platforms are largely devoted to making users consume more, faster—think of TikTok’s frenetic “For You” feed or Spotify’s automated playlists. Curators slow down the unending scroll and provide their followers with a way of savoring culture, rather than just inhaling it, developing a sense of appreciation

It’s long past time that we realized these systems are not benefitting culture. Creators and consumers alike are pushed into preset formats that we may ultimately have no organic interest in. By giving in to algorithmic feeds, we are letting tech companies determine our tastes.