what is Social Media doing to us?

For example, a small study commissioned by Hewlett-Packard looked at the IQ of some of their workers in two situations. At first they tested their IQ when they were not being distracted or interrupted. Then they tested their IQ when they were receiving emails and phone calls. The study found that ‘technological distraction’ – just getting emails

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Yet, the hidden machinations behind everyone’s favorite social media and search platforms are engineered to exploit our primal instincts for validation, status, and mimetic desires (adopting or pursuing preferences and aspirations based on the influence of others rather than our intrinsic motivations), morphing into a manipulative force that feeds... See more

I have often heard it said of social media: ‘when you cannot see the product being advertised, it’s because you are the product.’

Our preferences and opinions become part of the programme, encouraging certain types of thoughts and behaviours in others. The ‘like’ button is integral to the function of social platforms and yet what purpose does it

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For many of us, the pandemic didn’t create new factors that ruined our attention – it supercharged the factors that had already been corroding our attention for years. I saw this when I talked with my godson Adam, who I had taken to Memphis. His attention, which had been deteriorating for some time, was now shattered. He was on his phone almost

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The metrics don’t excite me. I don’t want ‘followers’ — which I often associate with ‘lurkers’. I much prefer readers, connections and engaged subscribers to my work. I know people with 1 million+ Instagram followers and I believe them when they tell me it doesn’t feel as good as you’d think. It’s a very shallow interaction, it doesn’t do much for... See more