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> I think consumers are slightly smarter now that they don't want to be drawn into this kind of addictive toxic content. The addictive toxic content will go th
by Tade0 7mo ago
> I think consumers are slightly smarter now that they don't want to be drawn into this kind of addictive toxic content.
The addictive toxic content will go the way of tobacco and explore new markets.
Back in 2010 around 11% of the population of Indonesia was connected to the internet. Currently it's closer to 80% - largely via mobile phones. That's approximately 200mln new users.
Nigeria and Pakistan are going through the same change, just started later.
Since 2016 India alone added more users than the mentioned countries combined.
That's a lot of first generation users. More than the entire western population.
- WarmWash 7mo agoI'm reminded of a video from the 80's/90's where researchers took a TV to the Amazon to see how "live off the land" tribes reacted to high technology. Apparently they stopped doing everything and just wanted to watch TV all day. And that was just regular old TV. Short form video is a special kind of crack. I see even old people getting hypnotized by it. And even worse, they're terrible at determining if something is AI.
- ghurtado 7mo agoI'm gonna try to remember this comment for the next time someone brings up the boiling frog analogy. Which is usually back to back with the thought that in bygone times "the human mind used to be cleaner / healthier / smarter and it was slowly destroyed by modern living" There's not that much difference between our behavior and that of a chicken fixated on the chalk line in front of it.
- Tade0 7mo agoThis. What really happened is that someone figured out what makes people give something their undivided attention and is profiting handsomely off of this finding.
- andai 7mo agoIn the 19th century, many authors lamented the frantic, unhealthy pace of modern life.
- dpflan 7mo ago“The world is too much with us” - W. Wordsworth The world is too much with us; late and soon, Getting and spending, we lay waste our powers;— Little we see in Nature that is ours; We have given our hearts away, a sordid boon! This Sea that bares her bosom to the moon; The winds that will be howling at all hours, And are up-gathered now like sleeping flowers; For this, for everything, we are out of tune; It moves us not. Great God! I’d rather be A Pagan suckled in a creed outworn; So might I, standing on this pleasant lea, Have glimpses that would make me less forlorn; Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea; Or hear old Triton blow his wreathèd horn. https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45564/the-world-is-too-much-with-us https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/45564/the-world-is-to...
- aenis 7mo agoAnd boy, were they right.
- sahildeepreel 7mo agoHighly recommend reading Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death. in the 80's, he wrote about how shift from print media to TV has caused us to trade critical thinking for a 'numbing' addiction to constant amusement. Little did he know about social media.. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death
- ProllyInfamous 7mo agoThe hardest part of a 2026 reading of Amusing Ourselves is that nothing within the pages is extraordinary anymore — the book is plainly boring once you know about the internets... definitely groundbreaking, for its time.
- sahildeepreel 7mo ago
- ifethereal 7mo agoCan anyone come up with a citation for this? Not to say it's a hallucination, but, to modern standards, if this were publicly funded research, it seems like it would have been a gross violation of ethics or other non-technical criteria. Interested to see how people think of it in later years, e.g., now.
- Terretta 7mo agoIt's a particularly misleading anecdote. In a sufficiently isolated population, you get the same effect from a sound-making greeting card, or a battery powered light and/or sound toy from a carnival. And for what it's worth, tomorrow they don't miss whatever “indistinguishable from magic” thing, so no harm done. // grew up near such areas
- mlok 7mo agoOn TV, content changes all the time. It is "always new". In your examples, content is the same over and over. They would not be fascinating for too long because the novelty would wear off. Very different.
- randycupertino 7mo ago> On TV, content changes all the time. It is "always new". Personally I think this also is what makes reddit so addictive as well. I want to read all the threads on the subreddits I enjoy... which is impossible, because there's always new interesting posts.
- Terretta 7mo agoI was responding to the "violation of ethics". Both are novel or fascinating for a bit, no harm no foul. And to be clear, same effect from a Kodak slide projector and carousel, just one carousel, endlessly fascinating. Anything is. A carved stick toy is. If you let them have the carnival gizmo, they'll wear it out. If you take it back, they happily go back to their toy made out of a stick. If anything, a defining characteristic is a lack of boredom, that novelty doesn't wear off from things westerners might find quickly dull. At the same time, sameness and change are taken in stride, along with a disregard for aggregate time in general, neither planning ahead nor regard for "spending" it. Everything is in the moment.
- armenarmen 7mo agoI got rid of Instagram for 3 years, redownloaded and spent maybe 2 hours watching reels of Italian American family humor. It felt like a trance. I’ve since redeleted the app. But yeah, scrolling short form is crack
- KptMarchewa 7mo agoI find it a bit amazing that we're all still able to work somehow, when surrounding with all those distractions.
- deleted 7mo ago[deleted]
- KellyCriterion 7mo agoThats also the case today: There was a report lately that smartphones brought to young natives in rural areas of Amazon/etc., completely stopped learning the skills that helped the tribes to survive (hunting etc.)
- aledevv 7mo ago[dead]