If the interface is a brain chip or a phone or whatever, it doesn't matter.
Because while "the newspaper" was always considered respectable...that's ignoring the endless mounds of gossip magazines, fashion magazines, lifestyle...basically every category which has now moved to Instagram and YouTube. People went somewhere and it was expected that there'd be magazines and newspapers to read.
We did have, say, "portable entertainment". music players were kinda similar to this too, but yeah there is a massive difference.
We didn't dip in and out of personalized media feeds throughout the day, getting bombarded with what's happening right this minute with our family, friends, city, state, nation, celebrities, industries, hobbies, etc... everything was slower, people seemed more methodical and present.
Which means that the world's most powerful algorithms have a strong incentive to optimize both of those variables. Great for the people in control of the algorithms and content networks, not so good for the people who are suddenly exposed to a very powerful "drug" that they were not prepared to keep at bay.
There is also an important difference in kind - internet connected devices are bidirectional, which allows bad actors to implement addictive patterns that aren’t possible with one-directional media.
A big part of McLuhan’s idea of “the medium is the message” is that consuming the same content via two different mediums is not the same.
This was also the last days of interesting Popular Mechanics and Scientific American.
I have to vehemently disagree with this one. Since the advent of Twitter, news has become "who is first" over "who is most accurate", and it has become a cancer on all of mankind. The quality was so much better it's almost difficult to describe to someone who is under the age of 30.
I can't even imagine something like Watergate happening today, and if it did it would have had nowhere near the impact because half the US population would've been seeing Russian misinformation on Twitter convincing them it was all a "deep state conspiracy" and they'd believe it.
May I add... Television!
I hope the article is right and I'm wrong, but it feels a little bit like another "the solution to tech's problems is more tech"-argument
More like seven hours per day: https://www.bankmycell.com/blog/average-screen-time-on-iphon...
As long as phone screens continue to be perfect for handheld entertainment and phone apps continue to be designed for infinite thoughtless consumption, then the answer will remain "yes".
I 1000% blame social media companies for intentionally designing their apps and the content presented on them to drive engagement and taking advantage of psychology that makes people want to scroll while they are driving, for example.
I'm not a smartphone user, so I ask out of curiosity:
Do people really have no agency anymore? No self-discipline?
I've read this statement that it's "the machine's fault" in numerous versions but I'm puzzled by it. If you don't like the screen, why don't you just turn it off, or toss it in the bin?
What I do hope for which does not yet exist is the ability to use voice GPT at selective moments with a finger tap of an ear bud.
I have noticed a growing divide between those who have phones in their hands and those who have phones by proximity. I have some friends who take a day or two to text me back because I simply don't use their phone.
I can see the point with technologies that integrate directly into the surrounding environment, like using Google Lens to look up information about a real object, or translate printed text, and so on. But the LLM will still be a text generator either way - is it just about being able to dictate a request out loud and have the reply be read back?
As for the type of interface, having a screen requires eyeball attention that I rather have on the task at hand. This would remove the "device in hand" that a commpad/smartphone/tablet requires.
Me @ Kitchen: tap earbud & speak "read my favorite apple pie recipe list of ingredients" as I inventory the pantry.
I do love the analogy of a donut which becomes heavier as you reach closer to overconsumption, though. A while back I got tired of all the noise on youtube and installed an extension called "unhook tube" which makes all the recommended videos in the sidebar just disappear. I wonder if there'd be a way to impliment an extension for instagram/facebook and the other 'scrollers', where the longer you use it, the more difficult it becomes to scroll, and the longer it takes for posts to load. It'd be like the benefit of having a fickle water heater, in that it keeps you from staying in the shower too long once the water gets too cold. In terms of facilitating moderation, this seems like the easiest solution.
I am lucky that I have mostly made a living doing things in the real world and in "virtual spaces". I have the resources to do the things I enjoy without much commercial involvement. It is getting harder to do this in real life. When I need some bolts to build something Homedepot (I have a very dim view of homedepot) prices are insane. The nearest good fastener store is over and hour away. Online sources are amazing but now I have to wade through online empty calories to deal with real life shit.
More options in every area would be helpful but we cannot expect corporations or government to help. They make money making real life difficult and selling us online content when we are to tired to do anything else. I despair sometimes but the real world is incredible and ... well whatever. Maybe one day ...
It's relatively expensive and a little janky but it's insane how much more time I feel I have in my day. My work has improved (if my commit-calendars are any indication), and I no longer spend time in bed scrolling when I sleep / wake up.
Many people try "Sober October" - I've just completed "Dumbphone December" and I don't think I'll be going back.
As an example education (at least for me, I'm 54yo) we are told to study something interesting, follow dreams, get good at something academic. Then access to every tool and resource taken away and we are told to go make a living. No fancy tools or studios, the time and environment to do something interesting is taken away. It is replaced with drudgery and cheap entertainment. Think Disney, Hollywood movies, pro sports/gambling, other prepackaged activities, and cellphones.
Government, large/medium corporations, startups have zero incentive to help. Enough people get through the education system to fill what jobs are needed and the rest can [modern equivalent to flipping burgers] and look at their phones.
Excuse my writing. The education system did not work out for me and my family works with our hands. I enjoy working with my hands. I am one of the lucky ones. I tried mainstream and it is miserable. I am glad for the tech industry and the internet and the like. We need to do better for those that are not working for management in what is essentially the company town. It will be a better more enjoyable world if we can.
Makespaces? More funding and expanded mandates for public libraries. Extending what education means and how long people can be involved. I don't know what.
Social media is no longer cool.
I don't really know what people are doing to be addicted to their phones? maybe you're just addicted to social media? find other hobbies...
Edit: removed unnecessary, kinda rude, wording.
But also, the wording is definitely deliberate - the post is published by a company that's developed an iPhone app to combat this "addiction". So there's definitely some marketing angle involved here.
Presumably, this is some primal sitting-round-the-fire type impulse.
During my ventures into public space it is impossible not to notice this "knowledge", and that so much as to even note the character of it.
I would personally use another word. Perhaps "pastime", "mindless entertainment", that sort of thing. What I observe is generally people browsing through photo stacks, video stacks, audio tracks, or comment stacks. Always browsing, never resting, as if even the concept of reflection is non-existant. So how, I must ask rhetorically, should any "knowledge" enter into the scene?
I never, ever see anything resembling "knowledge work" except for those fellow commuters who use their laptops. Or the extreme minority who read non-fiction books (those are not observed every week -- not even every month -- as students who are the only class of people who are both numerous and have to read non-fiction now read this stuff off-screen on their laptop in stead).
