Mark Fishman

[Instagram] is a fun product that millions of people seem to love; that is unwholesome in large doses; that makes a sizable minority feel more anxious, more depressed, and worse about their bodies; and that many people struggle to use in moderation.  What does that sound like to you? To me, it sounds like alcohol— a social lubricant that can be... See more

“Rest” also implies that decompression is the ultimate purpose of Shabbat, like a spiritually inflected massage. But if your own personal unwinding is the goal, you are less likely to stick to your commandment to keep Shabbat on days when you feel it’s just too hard, or you’re already centered enough that your prefrontal cortex can stand the... See more

For some knowledge workers, Friday through Monday may come to occupy a murky space between weekday and weekend—a sort of work-play purgatory, where the once-solid walls between work and life become more porous. “Mondays and Tuesday are the fastest-growing days of the week for travel,” Airbnb’s chief executive, Brian Chesky, told me. “More people... See more

We should learn from alcohol, which is studied, labeled, taxed, and restricted. Similar strictures would discourage social-media abuse among teenagers. We should continue to study exactly how and for whom these apps are psychologically ruinous and respond directly to the consensus reached by that research.

If all the uses of GST help you earn more GST, they’re headed for disaster. But once you can spend GST to enhance your status in ways that don’t allow you to earn more, they might just make it. 

The only way everyone keeps making money is if other people keep putting more money into the system, which either requires more people or deeper pockets from existing people.This is the metagame of STEPN: how long can you milk the magic money machine before it all comes crashing down? And can they fix their doom loop before it gets triggered?