Algorithms optimized for engagement shape what we see on social media and can goad us into participation by showing us things that are likely to provoke strong emotional responses. But although we know that all of this is happening in aggregate, it’s hard to know specifically how large technology companies exert their influence over our lives.
Platforms like TikTok and Instagram are engines of distraction and cultural rot. They stand in front of the more difficult but more rewarding aspects of life: deep work, intimate connections with friends and loved ones, focused attention for hobbies with intrinsic rewards. By training users to crave constant novelty and the immediate approval of... See more
Leaving the attention economy doesn’t mean vanishing. It means choosing to matter to fewer people, more deeply. It means owning the means of distribution. It means publishing like a human being instead of a content mill. It means you stop playing to the house odds and start building your own game.
How can we make the web more natural and human-first rather than computers or institutions? How do we wish to interact with the internet beyond "browsing?” How would we shape the internet and our container for inhabiting it (currently, our browsers) if they were our neighborhoods and homes?