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Condor
2y

I can't help but be disappointed in the direction that technology has directed us into, especially social media.

While I love my girlfriend, she more often than not spends her time scrolling away at the dumbest shit on Instagram, Facebook, .. reels. Reels everywhere. And she's not dumb, mind you. She's an engineer just as much as you (presumably) and I are. Just in a different field.

When looking into it online and stumbling upon more than one study, I learned about the term it had been coined.. technoference. That's the constant interruption of social media into our day-to-day lives, and the dopamine kick it gives -- more so than IRL peers do. Why that is, being the digital equivalent to McDonald's, that's beyond me. But somehow it seems to be better, all while the content isn't even useful. It doesn't allow you to learn anything, to gain insights, or to explore things that could serve you in the real world. Cat videos and random shit that's somehow.. funny? Having pretty much completely disconnected from social media years ago, I seriously fail to see how.

Maybe us nerds in the 90's and early 2000's telling everyone else how we'd change the world and prove everyone who called us freaks wrong, disenchanted as we were (and probably still are), were the catalyst for this social disaster. We had the cognitive skills to do it, but not the social equivalent. I feel guilty... Even though I've always been part of a big tech resistance in some capacity, I still feel guilty. Because I'm one of those people with the skills of those who created this trash fire of a societal status quo. Everyone glued to their screens, 95% of the time not for work. Not even to aid one's ability to function in the real world. Just to combat boredom. All day, for many hours on end.

Where is it going to end? When will people realize the dystopia we got ourselves into? Will anyone but a few fight it? Would those who don't fight it even care?

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Comments
  • 8
    2y
    Just how it is. Technology is a tool. You can use it to improve people's quality of life and save our planet's wildlife, or to rot your brain away, or to bomb more people out of existence.
  • 6
    2y
    I agree, but I’ve also found some useful stuff and the algorithms are learning that I like it and are giving me more of it. For example, I see more and more reels of DIY and home improvement stuff. It’s becoming increasingly useful the more my development job gets automated or outsourced overseas. I start next week shadowing a handyman who’s paying me to get on the job training. There’s incredible demand in the trades for jobs people like I’ve been for a quarter of a century won’t consider doing.
  • 6
    2y
    @Condor 100% agree and can even understand why you feel responsible somehow - although the monster was created by businessmen, not by nerds in the end. But i am also somewhat optimistic the shit will end eventually. When energy prices raise on the one hand and poeple have less to spend on advertised shit at least one of the two income sources of social media will cease. Data collection though will be valuable still...
  • 12
    2y
    IMO children should be protected, but for adults it's their own fault if they keep scrolling brainless content. It's created by the people who consume it. It would cease to exist otherwise.
  • 4
    2y
    @electrineer Yea but.. most people don't use their brain, honestly we are just a bunch of monkeys who got lucky.

    People are stupid and lazy, we can be exploited and manipulated by this apps and majority of people simple won't give a single shit.

    I'm surprised that we haven't nuked our self's into oblivion, as a human race we kinda tend to be self destructive most of the time.

    Think of this next time you hear someone say "the future is bright"
  • 0
    2y
    Sorry if I'm blunt but with all the huge problems we may have in the future (climate change, economic crisis...) I don't fucking care about people wasting their lives on cat videos.

    While they're free of not doing that (as you did with disconnecting from social media) in few years we may have huge problems where, unlike IG reels addiction, simple individual solutions (putting down the goddamn phone or replacing it with a feature phone if the first solution is too hard) exists.
  • 1
    2y
    @DEVil666 Guess what happens when majority of population has attention span of a 5 year old child and lack the capacity to solve "complex" problems

    Yeah.. thees "funny" dopamine driven reels are like heroin to addict. Have you ever tried telling an drug addict "Just put the needle down, go outside its a beautiful day." ?

    This is the future we are approaching (at least I see it this way)
  • 2
    2y
    @nemetepst Most of the population was never able to solve "complex" problems, even before social media few people played chess or studied Math or Physics for fun, most still resorted to silly entertainments like watching trash TV shows, the "5 seconds attention span" study was poorly done (basically the logic was people spends on average 5 seconds on a webpage so that should be their attention span) and reading "dopamine" on a Medium article written by NPC #34234 about how that molecule is the root of any evil and you have to run away from pleasure and do random discipline stuff (wake up at 5AM, cold showers, journaling...) to become a good/enlighted/successful person (bascically Christian moral 2.0) doesn't make someone a psychiatrist.
  • 0
    2y
    about the Why and the McD
    some say it is because of 'reliable mediocrity'
    No matter when and where you can always scroll through your feed and have the vaguely positive emotions you'd expected. Human interactions on the other hand can be far more rewarding, fun but also taxing have drama and so on.
    So it becomes easier to just keep to that trusty averageness of scrolling through the phone

    That leads to another thing: with all those options you kinda need a lot of inner strength while at the same time those social medias rob you of this strength.

    I find those to views very helpful
  • 0
    2y
    YEAH

    The worst happens to little kids. Their parents spend ALL their attention on their phones and give their kids phones too...where they watch mind numbing stupid shit. One couple has a child whose some doesn't even really feel hunger...they just forcefeed him periodically.

    He was born a normal child. May God guide them
  • 0
    2y
    I really think going back into evolution, somehow makes sense now. Like a complete circle. You end where you started, being stupid.
  • 0
    1y
    Just ask her to put her phone down and talk more to her, it worked in my case
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