41–50 of 333 posts
I can tell, usually within a few minutes of meeting them, who’s really into social media. There’s a little bit of frenetic emotional dysregulation, and then they say the weirdest stuff to me. I don’t think you could have made a similar argument about heavy trash tv watchers. They may have had less to talk about, you may have found them less interesting, but it didn’t literally alter their personalities. We have a big…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
My point is exactly that comparing some variation within 20 years with to a 1000 year period makes little sense. Sure, our collective literacy might be decreasing now, but perhaps it was a bit too high to begin with? Leaders of a country are not the majority. The article makes quite a few of these categorical mistakes. AI also allows for a lot more learning. Using ChatGPT to read and better understand Moby Dick works…
AI seems to be a good tool for people who are already good at learning and critical thinking to use to accelerate their learning. Research on broader populations so far is not so hopeful, with most people using it to avoid learning. This is unsurprising to me, since people are often quite resistant to learning. As to your point, literacy rates have been declining since the 80s. 40, going on 50 years is plenty of time…
Hm, comparing developments spanning from the 12th century up to now with stuff that is happening in the last decade. Just give social media about 5 or 6 centuries to develop, and then check back to see if the arguments of this article are sound. Edit: sorry for being so dismissive, but I just can't stand rhetoric that says something about "us" and "we". There were seriously stupid people back when we supposedly had l…
I used to think the same way, that people have always overreacted to new technology. But over time I’ve started to feel there’s at least a bit of truth to some of those moral panics, and it's not correct to dismiss all. I remember laughing at an old article about “calcu-holism,” basically the idea of becoming too dependent on calculators. At the time it sounded ridiculous, but looking back, the point wasn’t that bad.…
Most books are useless and boring. Some books have good concept but drags things needlessly.
I still read a good amount everyday but not a 300 page book where the core content is 2 page.
However, a great book is still interesting and being "completely engrossed" is still possible.
It is the book content quality (compared to other things in society) that dropped.
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You just listed "inventions" that emerged across a 6,000 year timeframe.
For all we know social media will emerge across another 6,000 year timeframe. I think we're going in circles :)
Is he not aware that Mr. Jobs has been dead for over a decade?
> hiding my smartphone from myself. I have shoved my smartphone behind wardrobes and under beds. I have shut it up in cupboards. > One particularly desperate ... strategy I developed was to kick my phone haphazardly across the room so it would lodge under some unknown piece of furniture So over privileged people buy $1500 iphones, only to kick them across room, to hide? I do not think reading yet another master piece…
Hm, comparing developments spanning from the 12th century up to now with stuff that is happening in the last decade. Just give social media about 5 or 6 centuries to develop, and then check back to see if the arguments of this article are sound. Edit: sorry for being so dismissive, but I just can't stand rhetoric that says something about "us" and "we". There were seriously stupid people back when we supposedly had l…
If you haven't had the distinct displeasure of being around an iPad kid, I envy you.
There's anecdote that aligns with experience, that aligns with studies. And frankly, it seems silly to me that we need science to empirically prove something we can all witness with our own brains. That said, whichever method you submit to: they all bear witness to the same conclusion:
Social media (especially the brainless forms like TikTok) is incredibly damaging.
> Having written extensively about how no one reads books anymore, he decided to turn the subject into a book, The New Dark Ages, published this week. That’ll teach them. Jokes aside, reading something doesn’t mean it’s valuable. I think people read more than ever. Subtitles, captions, social media posts, source code. Most of it is jank. > people in positions of power and influence are now notably ignorant about hist…
You are correct and yet it's a straw man. At no point did the author advocate for everyone knowing everything.
He IS advocating that everyone know something. A position that is increasingly, comically, tragically untrue.
The not-reading part is seriously starting to sound like lamenting the death of the epos. Yeah, there is a real loss of an art form there but also most books are padded to death and should have been articles at most, maybe even tweets. The reason we read less long form prose is because we have more information-dense, relevant, and personalized forms of communication and knowledge transfer available to us. If you take…
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It's better with properly published titles but even those writers are increasingly using AI and leaks into their works.
Out of curiosity what book did you get burned on?
At his point I think that one has to assume that almost every author is using AI to some extent. And even if they don't, their editors will apply changes, no doubt using ChatGPT and other tools.