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And, though easier to study the effect on children, it affects us all. Instant everything is an addictive stimulant and anxiety source. Social media encourage

And, though easier to study the effect on children, it affects us all. Instant everything is an addictive stimulant and anxiety source. Social media encourages intense emotions. The ability to view only what you wish encourages confirmation bias and helps viewpoints at odds with reality from ever being challenged by reality. And unlimited feel-good content encourages a runaway desire for more, making reality boring. Some of us are lucky enough to have self restraint against it all. But the drugs are always lurking a click away.

mistermann 2y ago
> And unlimited feel-good content encourages a runaway desire for more, making reality boring. Agree, and a big and non-obvious part of this is that we've invested "all" of our resources in technology and profit oriented goals, rather than in things that make mainstream day to day life in our communities pleasant and non-boring, for all people. The physical runtime we are in supports a massive diversity of gameplay and outcomes, unfortunately we've somehow "chosen" a model of governance that constantly makes poor choices. This could be fixed, but we've been trained to worship the very thing that is ruining life here on Earth. To me, this is quite a hilarious situation, it is like living in a sitcom. I wonder why reality works this way but we are not able to change it. Maybe being not able to talk about it (skilfully) is part of the problem.
- bitsandboots 2y ago
  Years ago when the first VR headset was released I believe the wikipedia article on "list of emerging technologies" had listed one of VR's outcomes as "alternative to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_reality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_reality " It disturbs me how achievable that is. It's cool that technology has advanced to a point that we can choose to disregard reality, but I don't think we're handling that power very well
  - mistermann 2y ago
    Alternate reality: we finally have the basic technology in place such that we now have the opportunity to understand actual reality for the first time ever.
julkali 2y ago
Yes, I do believe that in the general debate, too little focus is given on the fact that also adults are affected negatively by social media

mistermann 2y ago

> And unlimited feel-good content encourages a runaway desire for more, making reality boring. Agree, and a big and non-obvious part of this is that we've invested "all" of our resources in technology and profit oriented goals, rather than in things that make mainstream day to day life in our communities pleasant and non-boring, for all people. The physical runtime we are in supports a massive diversity of gameplay and outcomes, unfortunately we've somehow "chosen" a model of governance that constantly makes poor choices. This could be fixed, but we've been trained to worship the very thing that is ruining life here on Earth. To me, this is quite a hilarious situation, it is like living in a sitcom. I wonder why reality works this way but we are not able to change it. Maybe being not able to talk about it (skilfully) is part of the problem.

bitsandboots 2y ago
Years ago when the first VR headset was released I believe the wikipedia article on "list of emerging technologies" had listed one of VR's outcomes as "alternative to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_reality https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consensus_reality " It disturbs me how achievable that is. It's cool that technology has advanced to a point that we can choose to disregard reality, but I don't think we're handling that power very well
- mistermann 2y ago
  Alternate reality: we finally have the basic technology in place such that we now have the opportunity to understand actual reality for the first time ever.

julkali 2y ago

Yes, I do believe that in the general debate, too little focus is given on the fact that also adults are affected negatively by social media