The massive behavioral conditioning we’ve all been undergoing since the advent of ubiquitous electronic communications technology has changed us radically. But this dramatic, if not epochal, change is underappreciated. It’s underappreciated because we’re living in it as it happens, like frogs in cold water that slowly gets heated up without the

... See more

In a 2024 essay, the jazz critic and music historian Ted Gioia described this pattern as “dopamine culture,” the idea that our online life has been engineered to induce stimulation above all else. “Its most striking feature is the absence of Culture (with a capital C) or even mindless entertainment—both get replaced by compulsive activity,” he... See more