What risk are we radically underestimating as a species? What are we overestimating?I think we’ve still underestimated the harms of scrolling. I am careful to say “scrolling” because I don’t think social media is itself a bad thing, nor do I think screens are uniformly bad. I think it’s specifically the act of scrolling, which forces us to ingest, process, and respond to an insane firehose of ideas. I don’t think all this micro-context switching is good for us; we’re collectively destroying our attention. Most people know the feeling when they’ve scrolled too much and it makes them feel kind of exhausted and bad, yet for some reason, suggesting that something should be done about this behavior – I’m still agnostic as to what – makes people upset and defensive. I think being perpetually distracted as a species is a very bad thing, and it has downstream effects on everything else

What risk are we radically underestimating as a species? What are we overestimating?

I think we’ve still underestimated the harms of scrolling. I am careful to say “scrolling” because I don’t think social media is itself a bad thing, nor do I think screens are uniformly bad. I think it’s specifically the act of scrolling, which forces us to ingest, process, and respond to an insane firehose of ideas. I don’t think all this micro-context switching is good for us; we’re collectively destroying our attention. Most people know the feeling when they’ve scrolled too much and it makes them feel kind of exhausted and bad, yet for some reason, suggesting that something should be done about this behavior – I’m still agnostic as to what – makes people upset and defensive. I think being perpetually distracted as a species is a very bad thing, and it has downstream effects on everything else

Nadia Asparouhova • Nadia Asparouhova on antimemetics, nuclear mysticism, and scrolling

Saved by sari and

RelatedCollections

In a 2017 interview, Ev Williams (the founder of Twitter), said something that has stuck with me since: “the trouble with algorithms, is that it rewards extremes. Say you’re driving down the road and see a car crash. Of course you look. Everyone looks. The internet interprets behavior like this to mean everyone is asking for car crashes, so it trie... See more

sari azout • My Favorite Questions

Many things in modernity are brain dead, but I can’t think of anything worse than the short form dystopias of TikTok and Instagram. They’re materially making people dumber, breeding addict behavior (particularly in the young) and ultimately ruining the lives of normies. It’s depressing to think about the countless kids who might have started garage... See more

Adam Singer • TikTok and Instagram are intellectual poison

Like New York, the internet never arrests its massive sprawl. Instead, it exists as complex adaptive system that renders senses overworked and synapses under-rested.To open any app is to wade into frenzied maelstrom whipped by gale-force winds. Whether requests, reminders, or retweets, waves and winds alike pummel your attention as you try your bes... See more

Tom White • Curate the Internet, Comprehend the World: Introducing Startupy

If you asked me what the true danger about social media is, I’d say it’s much more subtle. It’s the problem of time—and becoming stuck in the present. It’s the relentless pressure of reverse chron.

Clive Thompson • Social media is keeping us stuck in the moment

We experience the externalities of the attention economy in little drips, so we tend to describe them with words of mild bemusement like “annoying” or “distracting.” But this is a grave misreading of their nature. In the short term, distractions can keep us from doing the things we want to do. In the longer term, however, they can accumulate and ke... See more

Jenny Odell • How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

You might also be aware that all this is delivered by means of “persuasive design”—an umbrella term for an armory of psychological techniques borrowed directly from the designers of casino slot machines, for the express purpose of encouraging compulsive behavior. One example among hundreds is the ubiquitous drag-down-to-refresh gesture, which keeps... See more

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Present-mindedness is our biggest danger. Forget all the handwringing about our social habits; I doubt technology is turning us into much bigger narcissists than we already were. And politically, tech has had many wonderful effects—particularly when long-ignored voices have learned how to connect and persuade online

Clive Thompson • Social media is keeping us stuck in the moment

We should not, in other words, imagine that the ability to focus intently or to give one’s sustained attention to some matter was the ordinary state of affairs before the arrival of digital technologies or even television beforehand. But this does not mean that new technologies are of no consequence.

sari azout • My Favorite Questions

Adam Singer • TikTok and Instagram are intellectual poison

Tom White • Curate the Internet, Comprehend the World: Introducing Startupy

Clive Thompson • Social media is keeping us stuck in the moment

Jenny Odell • How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals

Clive Thompson • Social media is keeping us stuck in the moment

theconvivialsociety.substack.com • Attending to the World