life on the internet

Humans have realized it's more efficient to actually compete for status in these virtual worlds than it is in real life, and that's especially true for young people

The internet of today, designed to make you a permanent input, does more than just steal time from you; it erodes your agency and substitutes internet-awareness for self-awareness. Those are the three things—time, agency, and self-awareness—that we use to construct our identities. Without them, sense of self weakens, identity destabilizes, and the

... See more

In real life, you can walk around living life and be visible to other people. But you can’t just walk around and be visible on the internet—for anyone to see you, you have to act. You have to communicate in order to maintain an internet presence. And, because the internet’s central platforms are built around personal profiles, it can seem—first at

... See more

the point of life is other people. I agree with David Rudnick’s diagnosis that we’ve moved from “digital dualism,“ falsely asserting the Internet was “not real life,” to what he calls “digital prime,” realizing the Internet is perhaps the most space we have. But this means there will be a new insistence that URL serve IRL—not replace it.