On Haidt's book, I wonder if there is a socioeconomic difference in the dominance of smartphones on childhood in place of unstructured play. The smartphone is free childcare. Creating opportunities for play and activities can take money and parental time.
I dig the conclusion because you’re right, lamenting the current state of technological affairs does nothing to change it. As with any potential toxic behavior, the best way to combat it is to lead by example. Making clear, conscious choices to actively limit smart phone use remains the best way to stay human in my experience.
The term platform is key in understanding how social media is a theatrical experience. We lose sight of its structure when we discuss it as mere literary discourse. As in conventional theatre social media has its hierarchy of Svengali style producers, talented teams of technicians designing the stage sets, a large cast of paid actors and a paying audience. The notable difference is in how the audience pays twice. The first time knowingly in signing up and the second time unknowingly as their personal life experiences are algorithmically harvested.
Social media is a new form of very profitable voyeurism. It functions through multi layered and often invisible abuses of power. At the moment it’s producers are being back footed by the increasing numbers of individuals suffering often fatally from the fall out of their violations of privacy and person. But as with all abusers they victim blame - only a few ‘vulnerable’ types who would be damaged anyway and/or it is all down to bad parenting etc…- whilst they loudly continue to control their victims narratives.
Eventually, however sophisticated the initial grooming processes, all sentient beings reject bullying and abuse through various forms of disobedience. There was an interesting related article on The Pragmatic Optimist: We Scroll More than We Post - The Great Media Reset by Uttam Dey and Amrita Roy. It outlines the increasing rejection of engagement with social
media by younger generations. Quoting Wired magazine’s Cory Doctorow’s term ‘enshittification’ as a description of the ongoing diminishing of user’s experiences and subsequent lowering of profits for platforms as they lose their abused audience.
On Haidt's book, I wonder if there is a socioeconomic difference in the dominance of smartphones on childhood in place of unstructured play. The smartphone is free childcare. Creating opportunities for play and activities can take money and parental time.
I dig the conclusion because you’re right, lamenting the current state of technological affairs does nothing to change it. As with any potential toxic behavior, the best way to combat it is to lead by example. Making clear, conscious choices to actively limit smart phone use remains the best way to stay human in my experience.
The term platform is key in understanding how social media is a theatrical experience. We lose sight of its structure when we discuss it as mere literary discourse. As in conventional theatre social media has its hierarchy of Svengali style producers, talented teams of technicians designing the stage sets, a large cast of paid actors and a paying audience. The notable difference is in how the audience pays twice. The first time knowingly in signing up and the second time unknowingly as their personal life experiences are algorithmically harvested.
Social media is a new form of very profitable voyeurism. It functions through multi layered and often invisible abuses of power. At the moment it’s producers are being back footed by the increasing numbers of individuals suffering often fatally from the fall out of their violations of privacy and person. But as with all abusers they victim blame - only a few ‘vulnerable’ types who would be damaged anyway and/or it is all down to bad parenting etc…- whilst they loudly continue to control their victims narratives.
Eventually, however sophisticated the initial grooming processes, all sentient beings reject bullying and abuse through various forms of disobedience. There was an interesting related article on The Pragmatic Optimist: We Scroll More than We Post - The Great Media Reset by Uttam Dey and Amrita Roy. It outlines the increasing rejection of engagement with social
media by younger generations. Quoting Wired magazine’s Cory Doctorow’s term ‘enshittification’ as a description of the ongoing diminishing of user’s experiences and subsequent lowering of profits for platforms as they lose their abused audience.