Idleism

The dulling of an era.

With more consumption of TikTok, you find your brain begins to replace facts, figures, and important cognitive skills with nothing but the endless ruminating of dances and made-up songs you’ve spent your day digesting — yes, you have begun stage one of brain fog.

Or what about a calendar that was simply, as one reader imagined, oriented around protecting time, instead of filling it? What would an un-calendar be?

“People go to church for the same reasons they go to a tavern: to stupefy themselves, to forget their misery, to imagine themselves, for a few minutes anyway, free and happy.”

The internet doesn’t have to demand our presence the way it currently does. It shouldn’t be something we have to look at all time. If it wasn’t, maybe we’d finally be free to hang out. The first time I ever heard about Facebook, back in 2004, was from someone proudly declaring that she had just spent four hours using it. At the time, it was... See more

“The villain here is not necessarily the internet, or even the idea of social media,” she writes. “It is the invasive logic of  commercial  social media, and its financial incentive to keep us in a profitable state of anxiety, envy, and distraction.” The business model of platforms like this — which rely on advertising and clicks and “engagement”

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To feel creatively and intellectually alive, you have to stop mindlessly consuming the Internet and start mindfully curating it.