digital media ecology
The immersive, turbulent, mediatized flow.
It’s the social system technology is embedded in that matters.
digital media ecology
Technological change is neither additive nor subtractive. It is ecological. I mean “ecological” in the same sense as the word is used by environmental scientists. One significant change generates total change.
Neil Postman • Technopoly
... See moreEven as recently as the 1990s, most people interacted with only their relatives, co-workers, and friends each day, plus maybe their local news anchor on TV. Now, though, those same Paleolithic brains are being bombarded with the thoughts of hundreds of strangers every hour. Modern communication in all its forms has put us in contact with more minds
... See moreIn medieval communities…Fama was the mark of authority and reliability that attaches to a piece of information, new, gossip, and to the teller, to the subject, and to those who spread it. Fama represented reputation. It was the best means anyone had to judge truth and truth tellers apart from falsity and fantasy, from gossip and liars. It is to
On judging others reputations for reliability and diligently protecting ones own. Who do you trust and why? For what kinds of information? On what basis?
An electorate that has lost the capacity for long-form thought will be more tribal, less rational, largely uninterested in facts or even matters of historical record, moved more by vibes than cogent argument and open to fantastical ideas and bizarre conspiracy theories. If that sounds familiar, it may be a sign of how far down this path the West... See more
Opinion | Thinking Is Becoming a Luxury Good
Fragmented attention serves platforms better than focused attention because fragmented users scroll more, click more, engage more, and stay online longer. Platforms discovered that shorter bursts of content keep people engaged more effectively than longer, deeper content. They built systems that reward and train fragmented attention.
This created a... See more
This created a... See more
What Scrolling Did to Reading
Art plays a unique and crucial role in working out “what ... we might want when we’re not under surveillance.” While we can never be entirely free of surveillance of some kind or another (and not always from the usual suspects), that doesn’t mean we don’t have a real need to create spaces or forms wherein we can temporarily suspend its grip, and... See more