digital media ecology

the ease of exchanging digital speech has shifted the focus of mass communication from reflections to reflexes, from substance to attitude. Social media demand that everyone relate to others, to their ideas, to their troubles and achievements—indeed, to their very existence.

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

The development of digital technology like this has made spectacle increasingly privatized and solitary. I think it's hard not to conclude that there is a relationship between the rise of solitude in modern life and this process of ever more specific individuation of our attention. The central source of our diversion in the attention age has grown

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The constant scrolling tells us that nothing is worth remembering, nothing is worth reflection, nothing is worth production because the act of consumption is simpler.

But the ease of exchanging digital speech has shifted the focus of communication from reflections to reflexes, from substance to attitude.

the way that our world – digitally mediated, utterly consumed by capitalism – makes communication about morality very easy but makes actual moral living very hard.

Where we had once been free to be ourselves online, we were now chained to ourselves on­line, and this made us self-conscious. Platforms that promised connection began inducing mass alienation.