the techno-social environment
It’s the social system technology is embedded in that matters
the techno-social environment
We are depleted by the pace and structure of contemporary life, particularly by how spatial and temporal boundaries that provided modest respites from the demands others could place on us have been eroded by the capacities of digital technology. Now we are always on and always available, our freneticism masquerading as flexibility. We are also... See more
L. M. Sacasas • What You Get Is the World
Significance is subjectivity married to collectivity.
Factoid and crowdsourced truth: The reversal of truth into significance
Attention is contagious. What forms of it, as individuals and as a society, do we want to cultivate? What kinds of mediums would that cultivation require?
Ezra Klein • I Didn’t Want It to Be True, but the Medium Really Is the Message
If professional editors serve as gatekeepers, determining the importance of various stories before publication, the Internet opens the gates, deciding on the significance of content after it’s published. Hence, it’s not just a collective editor—it’s what I call the Viral Editor. Anyone can post anything, including rubbish. But people then vote with... See more
Andrey Mir • The Viral Inquisitor
platforms as assignment editors
The media and society can be understood as conversations - Jeff Jarvis
As I used to observe with some frequency, the arc of digital culture bends toward exhaustion.
What I mean by this is simple: when we think of the way our days are structured, the kinds of activities most readily on offer, the mode of relating to the world we are encouraged to adopt, etc.—in each case we are more likely to find ourselves spent... See more
What I mean by this is simple: when we think of the way our days are structured, the kinds of activities most readily on offer, the mode of relating to the world we are encouraged to adopt, etc.—in each case we are more likely to find ourselves spent... See more
L. M. Sacasas • What You Get Is the World
Every new medium creates a new environment. As we adapt to the environment, it shapes our perceptions and thoughts, our relationships with others, even our sense of self.
Nicholas Carr • Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart
Postman: Technological change is ecological…One significant change generates total change.
“Each medium creates a new orientation for thought, expression, and sensibility.”
We chase numbers and icons because they’re always available, and the chase is often so immersive that it keeps us from seeing where it leads, which is often far away from what we actually want. This can lead to what the evolutionary psychologist Diana Fleischman calls “counterfeit fitness”: the constant, momentary “wins” that come with playing... See more
Gurwinder • Why Everything Is Becoming a Game
Believing that AI will save time is like being a person in the late 1800s seeing their first car and thinking “oh how easy it’ll be to get to the meadow now!” People back then didn’t imagine that by the 1960s we’d be stuck in traffic jams for hours in mega-cities. Now apply this to AI. If we fast-forward a decade, it will have recalibrated the... See more