the techno-social environment
It’s the social system technology is embedded in that matters
the techno-social environment
This current manifestation of the internet and consumer technology is insidiously powerful because of the way that it can mimic these loops that evolved for other things and were necessary for our survival. They’re now essentially being co-opted by a sort of fake system. The tech systems have gotten so good at mimicking these ancient reward
... See moreMichael Easter • Scarcity Brain
“To say that any technology or extension of man creates a new environment is a much better way of saying the medium is the message. Moreover this environment is always invisible and its content is always the old technology.”
3 Reversal
Much of what we do is immediately authenticated as we do it, stored as data, classified or scored on some sort of scale, and deployed in real time to modulate some outcome of interest – usually, the behaviour of a person, or a machine, or an organisation.
The sovereign individual and the paradox of the digital age | Aeon Essays
But it is not clear whether such systems – even if they work as advertised – can solve the problem of reliable knowledge in a balkanised public sphere. Just as commercial incentives led to fake content and filter-bubbles, LLMs likely face the same pressures in a world of sharply diminishing returns. Because the firms training them desperately need... See more
The sovereign individual and the paradox of the digital age | Aeon Essays
The timeline is no longer a source of information or social presence, but more of a mood-regulation device, endlessly replenishing itself with just enough novelty to suppress the anxiety of stopping. Scrolling has become a form of ambient dissociation, half-conscious, half-compulsive, closer to scratching an itch than seeking anything in... See more
The Last Days Of Social Media | NOEMA
What defines orality as a cognitive and cultural trait is not vocal performance, but its opposition to literacy, which forms the dichotomy “environmental/tribal immersion vs. detachment.” Similar to the condition of primary orality, digital media enable environmental immersion.
Andrey Mir • The Digital Reversal. Thread-saga of Media Evolution
the database experience frames the encounter with narratives so that we experience narratives as just so many entries in a database of information.
L. M. Sacasas • Narrative Collapse
Digital technology is capitalism in hyperdrive, injecting its logic of consumption and promotion, of monetization and efficiency, into every waking minute. - Franzen
Bits of information provide neither meaning nor orientation. They do not congeal into a narrative. They are purely additive. From a certain point onward, they no longer inform — they deform. They can even darken the world. This puts them in opposition to truth. Truth illuminates the world, while information lives off the attraction of surprise,... See more