I remember comedian Caleb Hearon and many other internet commentators stating from being on our phones so much we all tend to develop the same personalities. This in turn makes it much easier for advertisers to sell us something. We find community and engagement in the things we purchase. We have made it easier for advertisers to commodify our minds.
I've noticed this too. It feels like everyone around me is saying the same few popular phrases, myself included, and it makes me worry. Consuming all the same stuff online really is leading to a flattening of our individuality.
I've never been on tik tok. No reason to. I rarely go on YouTube unless I'm watching a report or video I've been specifically sent. I delete most emails, unless they concern what I've spent or bought. My contacts on Facebook I skim through, and reply when I feel like it. Mostly authors, political, trade union, or friends. Occasionally someone who made me laugh. I do have contacts on Medium and get news from them, plus JStor and Hyperallergic emails, which I enjoy, (or delete if boring), and for some reason people follow me. Now this I can't explain, as I rarely post except when I share from another's post or an email or news item that I think is worth seeing. I ignore the occasional 'I like your post/description, and I'd like to be your friend' that crop up, as that never works, and I agree with you that what we need is outside gatherings, away from social media or networks on paper or screen, where we can talk face to face, and actually meet up. My grandson visits and is glued to his smartphone, just 16. I'm told that is normal. Unfortunately.
As I'm 77 and not very mobile, travel is difficult. But what you are saying is fact. We have to change before we become subservient completely, and indifferent to our fate.
A while ago I deleted both FB & Instagram. I wanted to take a few pennies away from Zuck. The issue now is that has caused me to loose contact with my friends overseas, as Messenger was really my only way to keep up with them. I'm not really sure how to remedy that, but I absolutely will not rejoin those apps. Lately I have been making attempts to join groups of people knitting and crocheting. Hopefully I will find a group I feel welcome in.
Once again so thoughtful and well put. It is maddening trying to understand that this is no longer the social media place of connection but rather disconnection. I feel it on Substack too unfortunately. Just total burn out.
This is a really important point and one that's easy to lose track of. I think there's a direct inverse relationship between how happy and jovial the commercial seems to how sad the gambling app is. Here in CT the gambling app commercials could be confused for Disneyworld. All the device based pacification and convenience makes working so much more annoying, and those you work with all so much more annoyed that you come home and can't wait to get back to the pacifier. Myself very much included. AI will only exacerbate it, an infinitely patient and interested audience? Yes please. Too bad it's not real, the interest is unfounded in another human which scratches the itch but, as anyone who's had poison ivy knows, scratching doesn't make it any better, in fact it makes it worse.
Every time I see a TikTok clip one of my son’s show me, I come out of it measurably dumber than before. Not in a metaphorical sense either, something in my brain feels shaved off. It’s not just that it’s reductive, trite or banal, it’s that it’s engineered to make you mistake stupor for thought. Like slot machines pretending to be philosophy.
What I keep circling back to is this: if the house always wins in these digital casinos, how do we train ourselves to notice when we’ve been converted into chips? Is there a threshold where the banality tips from numbing into actively dangerous, or are we already there?
"spent hours on my couch buried in my phone that I wish I’d spent out in the world." I've been doing this! I only recently realized I've been trying to escape and numb myself. Thanks for your insight as always!
I remember comedian Caleb Hearon and many other internet commentators stating from being on our phones so much we all tend to develop the same personalities. This in turn makes it much easier for advertisers to sell us something. We find community and engagement in the things we purchase. We have made it easier for advertisers to commodify our minds.
I've noticed this too. It feels like everyone around me is saying the same few popular phrases, myself included, and it makes me worry. Consuming all the same stuff online really is leading to a flattening of our individuality.
I've never been on tik tok. No reason to. I rarely go on YouTube unless I'm watching a report or video I've been specifically sent. I delete most emails, unless they concern what I've spent or bought. My contacts on Facebook I skim through, and reply when I feel like it. Mostly authors, political, trade union, or friends. Occasionally someone who made me laugh. I do have contacts on Medium and get news from them, plus JStor and Hyperallergic emails, which I enjoy, (or delete if boring), and for some reason people follow me. Now this I can't explain, as I rarely post except when I share from another's post or an email or news item that I think is worth seeing. I ignore the occasional 'I like your post/description, and I'd like to be your friend' that crop up, as that never works, and I agree with you that what we need is outside gatherings, away from social media or networks on paper or screen, where we can talk face to face, and actually meet up. My grandson visits and is glued to his smartphone, just 16. I'm told that is normal. Unfortunately.
As I'm 77 and not very mobile, travel is difficult. But what you are saying is fact. We have to change before we become subservient completely, and indifferent to our fate.
A while ago I deleted both FB & Instagram. I wanted to take a few pennies away from Zuck. The issue now is that has caused me to loose contact with my friends overseas, as Messenger was really my only way to keep up with them. I'm not really sure how to remedy that, but I absolutely will not rejoin those apps. Lately I have been making attempts to join groups of people knitting and crocheting. Hopefully I will find a group I feel welcome in.
you’re so right—social media is very literally mimicking casinos, right down to slot machines being used as the model for certain mechanisms built into social media platforms: https://ihpi.umich.edu/news/social-media-copies-gambling-methods-create-psychological-cravings
Once again so thoughtful and well put. It is maddening trying to understand that this is no longer the social media place of connection but rather disconnection. I feel it on Substack too unfortunately. Just total burn out.
This is a really important point and one that's easy to lose track of. I think there's a direct inverse relationship between how happy and jovial the commercial seems to how sad the gambling app is. Here in CT the gambling app commercials could be confused for Disneyworld. All the device based pacification and convenience makes working so much more annoying, and those you work with all so much more annoyed that you come home and can't wait to get back to the pacifier. Myself very much included. AI will only exacerbate it, an infinitely patient and interested audience? Yes please. Too bad it's not real, the interest is unfounded in another human which scratches the itch but, as anyone who's had poison ivy knows, scratching doesn't make it any better, in fact it makes it worse.
Every time I see a TikTok clip one of my son’s show me, I come out of it measurably dumber than before. Not in a metaphorical sense either, something in my brain feels shaved off. It’s not just that it’s reductive, trite or banal, it’s that it’s engineered to make you mistake stupor for thought. Like slot machines pretending to be philosophy.
What I keep circling back to is this: if the house always wins in these digital casinos, how do we train ourselves to notice when we’ve been converted into chips? Is there a threshold where the banality tips from numbing into actively dangerous, or are we already there?
"spent hours on my couch buried in my phone that I wish I’d spent out in the world." I've been doing this! I only recently realized I've been trying to escape and numb myself. Thanks for your insight as always!