21–30 of 458 posts
The problem isn't as much that social media is addictive. The issue is that people aren't happy with their other options of what to do. If you have a draining job and don't have energy to put into a hobby, or you don't have lots of friends to hang out with, you're much more likely to waste time on something addictive.
My attention has collapsed in recent times, but it's not because of mobiles. It's because I have three young kids. You literally have to keep your eye on them at all times so you stop them killing themselves. Also, going from 8 hrs of sleep a night + 1 hr of intensive sport a day to 4-5 hrs of sleep a night and 1 hr of sport a year is an absolute mind killer. When I was younger I could never imagine going into manage…
There is a veritable war going on for your attention, and the battlefields are your eyeballs, your ears and ultimately your brain. Psychologists have been enlisted, as they are in every war to try to win it for 'their side', be it one of the big silos or some dying TV or newspaper era behemoth, there is no reasonable way in which you can withstand that kind of frontal onslaught. The only way to really deal with this…
The entire way the old media reports on the new media is unironical scaremongering about how the internet is hacking the fear response of your amygdala. They should instead be positive and publish articles like "Here are 10 youtube channels that go into more depth that the master program of any university".
Wouldn't it be great if all youtube did was just store and replay videos? But it doesn't, it's an engagement and advertising dollars slot machine.
There is a veritable war going on for your attention, and the battlefields are your eyeballs, your ears and ultimately your brain. Psychologists have been enlisted, as they are in every war to try to win it for 'their side', be it one of the big silos or some dying TV or newspaper era behemoth, there is no reasonable way in which you can withstand that kind of frontal onslaught. The only way to really deal with this…
"The only winning move is not to play." War Games (1983) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MpmGXeAtWUw
There is a veritable war going on for your attention, and the battlefields are your eyeballs, your ears and ultimately your brain. Psychologists have been enlisted, as they are in every war to try to win it for 'their side', be it one of the big silos or some dying TV or newspaper era behemoth, there is no reasonable way in which you can withstand that kind of frontal onslaught. The only way to really deal with this…
I personally think there have always been distractions, maybe what’s different now is how some people get positive validation from their social media interactions, certainly an author would. A lot of people don’t though.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
"The only winning move is not to play." War Games (1983) https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MpmGXeAtWUw
I don't think that the context of that fragment really applies here.
I don't think this is the most accurate analogy.
The most attention draining parts of the web/internet are some kind of social platform. I needn't list them, you know what they are... they are not analogous to air. Perhaps they seem that way when you've fully integrated them into your life, but they are not.
Keep your phone, your laptop, and keep the tools you need to create and work. But whatsface and spacechat are not part of that toolkit, those types of platforms are psychological crack cocaine.
Taking a full break from all tech can be good, but when you return to it, make sure you delete those accounts or uninstall those apps. Don't worry about friends, the ones that count will be happy to communicate with you through less toxic channels - the rest aren't really your friends anyway.
There is a veritable war going on for your attention, and the battlefields are your eyeballs, your ears and ultimately your brain. Psychologists have been enlisted, as they are in every war to try to win it for 'their side', be it one of the big silos or some dying TV or newspaper era behemoth, there is no reasonable way in which you can withstand that kind of frontal onslaught. The only way to really deal with this…
The entire way the old media reports on the new media is unironical scaremongering about how the internet is hacking the fear response of your amygdala. They should instead be positive and publish articles like "Here are 10 youtube channels that go into more depth that the master program of any university".
Other than occasional captured lectures, everything 'educational' on YouTube seems to me to be optimising for that TED-style sense of wonder / happy familiarisation with the content, which is poorly associated with learning outcomes.
There is a veritable war going on for your attention, and the battlefields are your eyeballs, your ears and ultimately your brain. Psychologists have been enlisted, as they are in every war to try to win it for 'their side', be it one of the big silos or some dying TV or newspaper era behemoth, there is no reasonable way in which you can withstand that kind of frontal onslaught. The only way to really deal with this…
The entire way the old media reports on the new media is unironical scaremongering about how the internet is hacking the fear response of your amygdala. They should instead be positive and publish articles like "Here are 10 youtube channels that go into more depth that the master program of any university".
I also think it's funny to describe "old media reporting on new media as scaremongering" when scaremongering in the form of conspiracy theory and false expertise in new media (social media) is arguably its greatest flaw. What facebook et al have empowered in terms of fear and control is truly breathtaking. I don't think the insulated tech community of hacker news can truly appreciate how many people in the West have been led to fully distrust science and academia. How many reject medical science and climate science. How many have been manipulated into thinking collapse and violence are imminent and have engineered their entire lives around that belief, from moving to far away rural areas and stockpiling weapons and supplies. The breadth of the scaremongering and thoughtcontrol that social media enables is unparalleled in our history.
But sure, the problem is "old media".
This for me is key, these sorts of problems cannot just be solved on an individual level. They are systemic. "Individual abstinence is “not the solution, for the same reason that wearing a gas mask for two days a week outside isn’t the answer to pollution. It might, for a short period of time, keep certain effects at bay, but it’s not sustainable, and it doesn’t address the systemic issues.” He said that our attentio…
To me, it's also a problem of "Moloch does it". Scott Alexander describes it well and gives a handful of great examples in Part I of his Meditations on Moloch.[1]
[0] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2021-10-01/why-social-...
[1] https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/TxcRbCYHaeL59aY7E/meditation...