4 ms·

The most frightening thing about these new consumption patterns is that you miss large but subtle aspects of life, the depth, magic and fantasy that bubbles up

The most frightening thing about these new consumption patterns is that you miss large but subtle aspects of life, the depth, magic and fantasy that bubbles up as weird emergence in the quiet moments before you sleep, when you wake up, exploring alone etc. I'm hooked as an adult and can already see that i've become addicted to superficiality but the battle is getting increasingly harder as tech hooks deeper and deeper into our neurology. There was a wave of books 10 years ago, "The end of absence" one them, exploring the themes of being the last generation to have experienced both before and the after 24/7 media consumption. In one way it's echoing historical cycles like Thoreau talking about noisy trains in the distance distracting his poetry from his wood cabin in 1854 - but in other ways the distraction has become so exponential i seriously fear a generation will have problems with concentration, imagination or autonomy of thought. Will they learn the beauty of solitude, that you often need some amount of boredom or tranquility for fantasy to arise, and that as in meditation the exploration of internal states can be key to a good and interesting life. I'm reminded of a video game i once played about the native american ritual called Vision Quest where one isolates himself in a dark cabin - and as a lack of inputs creates vivid imagination like in a floatation tank - one finds his purpose eventually. Not much different than religious sabbath or sitting meditation. To get something beautiful you have to remove noise.

_a_a_a_ 3y ago
Just turn it off. You will get a short period of withdrawal then you'll get the world as it is. I did, and while I miss some stuff, I'm better off. Don't blame "I'm hooked". It's down to you.
- kossTKR 3y ago
  The problem is that i can do this but not kids. I've become better at it and is always reminded of the quiet summers when i was a child, the beautiful boredom and fantasy of "some part of my life that happened a long time ago", or running around without a cellphone, just being completely present and "away" from others in good and healthy sense like a rite de passage. When i see nieces in family everyone under the age of 20 is always inside of cyberspace, never present in the here and now, and while being hypersocial is normal for a teen, it's to an extreme degree for everyone including the smallest ones.
- ryandrake 3y ago
  Trying to see the other side of it: The real world pretty much sucks, for adults and for children. Adults are living one missed paycheck away from insolvency. The rent is due in a week, and they're not sure they'll be able to pay it this month. Grocery bill is up over $200, and $5 doesn't even get the car home from the gas station. And Lumburgh is very likely to do another round of layoffs before Christmas. Aunt Sophie is addicted to meth and now uncle Leroy got himself arrested again, and their elderly mom won't stop calling to make the extended family figure out how to take care of Sophie's other kids. Their joints are in pain, but they can't afford to go to the doctor. They have 4 maxxed out credit cards and zero retirement savings. The real world for kids is awful, too. They are constantly bored and there is no place to just go and play because the real world was not built for dreaming and play, but for commerce and every square inch of the planet needs to be either a parking lot or a business. And that's even if they could go places, but they can't because everything is a car ride away and they can't drive. They can't even get on a bicycle and go exploring because one of their miserable nosey neighbors will call the police or Child Protective Services if they see an unaccompanied kid roaming around. From the moment they enter school, they're told that the world is coming to an end due to climate change, and they're all gonna die. And the world is awful for young adults/old teenagers. There are almost no jobs available that pay even close to what it would take to barely move out of their parents' basements. They know that they will never own a home, nor have any kind of financial security, and that the world is deliberately set up to allow a handful of people to sponge up everything, so why even bother? And if they do manage to get a job that lets them barely pay rent, they had to move to an unfamiliar, lonely city to take the job, leaving all their friends behind. It's no wonder everyone is addicted to their phones and the fantasy worlds of games and social media. The real world is pretty awful for a lot of people.
  - _a_a_a_ 3y ago
    > Aunt Sophie is addicted to meth and now uncle Leroy got himself arrested again Does this reflect your actual life experiences or an invention? Because a lot of htis sounds like made-up whingeing. > The real world for kids is awful, too. They are constantly bored and there is no place to just go and play ... We can discuss the merits child boredom vs. child abuse if you wish because I can certainly do that. Your all-stations broadcast of failure and despair is boring. Stop it.

_a_a_a_ 3y ago

Just turn it off. You will get a short period of withdrawal then you'll get the world as it is. I did, and while I miss some stuff, I'm better off. Don't blame "I'm hooked". It's down to you.

kossTKR 3y ago
The problem is that i can do this but not kids. I've become better at it and is always reminded of the quiet summers when i was a child, the beautiful boredom and fantasy of "some part of my life that happened a long time ago", or running around without a cellphone, just being completely present and "away" from others in good and healthy sense like a rite de passage. When i see nieces in family everyone under the age of 20 is always inside of cyberspace, never present in the here and now, and while being hypersocial is normal for a teen, it's to an extreme degree for everyone including the smallest ones.
ryandrake 3y ago
Trying to see the other side of it: The real world pretty much sucks, for adults and for children. Adults are living one missed paycheck away from insolvency. The rent is due in a week, and they're not sure they'll be able to pay it this month. Grocery bill is up over $200, and $5 doesn't even get the car home from the gas station. And Lumburgh is very likely to do another round of layoffs before Christmas. Aunt Sophie is addicted to meth and now uncle Leroy got himself arrested again, and their elderly mom won't stop calling to make the extended family figure out how to take care of Sophie's other kids. Their joints are in pain, but they can't afford to go to the doctor. They have 4 maxxed out credit cards and zero retirement savings. The real world for kids is awful, too. They are constantly bored and there is no place to just go and play because the real world was not built for dreaming and play, but for commerce and every square inch of the planet needs to be either a parking lot or a business. And that's even if they could go places, but they can't because everything is a car ride away and they can't drive. They can't even get on a bicycle and go exploring because one of their miserable nosey neighbors will call the police or Child Protective Services if they see an unaccompanied kid roaming around. From the moment they enter school, they're told that the world is coming to an end due to climate change, and they're all gonna die. And the world is awful for young adults/old teenagers. There are almost no jobs available that pay even close to what it would take to barely move out of their parents' basements. They know that they will never own a home, nor have any kind of financial security, and that the world is deliberately set up to allow a handful of people to sponge up everything, so why even bother? And if they do manage to get a job that lets them barely pay rent, they had to move to an unfamiliar, lonely city to take the job, leaving all their friends behind. It's no wonder everyone is addicted to their phones and the fantasy worlds of games and social media. The real world is pretty awful for a lot of people.
- _a_a_a_ 3y ago
  > Aunt Sophie is addicted to meth and now uncle Leroy got himself arrested again Does this reflect your actual life experiences or an invention? Because a lot of htis sounds like made-up whingeing. > The real world for kids is awful, too. They are constantly bored and there is no place to just go and play ... We can discuss the merits child boredom vs. child abuse if you wish because I can certainly do that. Your all-stations broadcast of failure and despair is boring. Stop it.