digital addiction
The swan in the lake is more than an Instagram photo prop, it’s a tool for you to imagine the consciousness of another being. What’s it like to be a swan? The person who sees the swan as a compositional elements through a grid of thirds might miss this thought experiment.
In Florida and out of my routines, I found myself on a TikTok binge last night. I saw something weirder than the pimple, blackhead, cyst videos—now, apparently people are gluing beans on their skin, calling them ticks, showing their arm infested with 100-200 things, to then pick them off one-by-one. If you click into the comments, you instantly
... See moreChecked my email again … 10 times in 4 hours, or every 25 minutes. This feels average, yet it’s also insane … how could I check it once a day? Would be interesting to have a “single shot” app. Basically, you’re allowed to use the thing ONCE, so when and how you check something matters.
To drugify something means to either improve quantity, simplify access, increase potency, or introduce novelty. The Apple Vision Pro succeeds with all 4: more screens, instantly spawnable, at the best resolution you’ve ever seen, levitating in places where screens have never gone before. The AVP is aesthetic heroin (/morphine?).
People assume that generative AI will lead to a tsunami of garbage content. I think the opposite problem is more interesting: what if you were drowning in amazing content? What if you’re so inspired and overwhelmed by awe that it’s stressful and addicting and life disorienting?
The fractured mind wants endless bits and it strips you of your executive function. Protect the reserves of intent.
I unpinned notification apps: email, Slack, iMessage, WhatsApp.
Israel strikes Iran. A compulsion to doom scroll, but watching myself as I do it. There’s worry, but also a scanning for both clarity and novelty. The main problem is that the same factoids are being repeated over and over; it’s quite hard to obtain new and developing information. What’s happened in the last 30 minutes? It’s a weird paradox; you
... See moreRobots, hucksters, dope, and slang-parrots translates:
technological automation;
marketing, sales, influencers, etc.;
incentives that promote addiction, and;
mindlessness around language.