dreaming of a better internet
sari and
dreaming of a better internet
There are lots of layoffs, lots of budget cuts, lots of scary articles about how little books are selling, or whatever. I’d argue, however, that we’re in a moment of recalibration. A lot of the digital world isn’t working, not just as it pertains to media. The Internet writ large isn’t as fun as it used to be. Yet there is, I think, an awareness of... See more
"We choose to build a second brain because it lets us garden our thinking over days, months, and years. Where social media is compulsive, tools for thought are reflective. Where social media is here and now, tools for thought dwell in the long now. Tools for thought slowly build compounding momentum through low, slow feedback loops that point us in
... See moreBut the bigger loss of human agency comes from the billions of people that use these apps. These deep learning AIs are designed to maximize the time we all spend on these apps. While you are reading this memo, you are probably jonesing to switch over to Instagram or TikTok. It turns out when an app company doesn't care about content and asks an AI ... See more
Jonah Peretti • The Anti-SNARF Manifesto
The news stories and journalism that break through aren’t the most important stories, but rather the stories that can be shaped into SNARF.
The trouble with the internet, Mr. Williams says, 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 tries to supply them.
‘The Internet Is Broken’: @ev Is Trying to Salvage It (Published 2017)
The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World a book by Max Fisher
Max Fisher • 3 highlights
bookshop.org
As late as 2011, journalists and technologists were praising social media’s emancipatory power in light of the role of Facebook and Twitter in the Arab Spring revolts. But, as has been noted many times, after the U.S. presidential election in 2016, such optimism increasingly appeared naïve and misguided. Now Facebook and Twitter are seen as corrosi... See more
L. M. Sacasas • The Analog City and the Digital City
fuel to the fire