Because television is primarily an entertainment medium, all information, even the most serious or important, is packaged and presented as entertainment... …Only when we break free from the shackles of constant distraction can we truly harness our potential to create a better world.
Neil Postman was a prophet of our times, he tried to warn us of what we were doing to ourselves. I got an Iphone in 2010 and went from reading books all the time to, by late 2018, not having read a book for over a year. I started to realize that my addiction to my phone was the cause of my inability to focus on reading so, in February 2019, I severely curtailed my usage(I look at my phone maybe 10-15 minutes a day now and usually only to look at the crypto market); thanks to this my love of reading came back and last year I read well over 100 books. The best part about being free of a phone addiction is being able to sit back and enjoy boredom, I love being bored because it gives me time to think, to explore my consciousness, and to really perceive the reality of my surroundings. If I'm going somewhere that I know I'll be waiting I'll bring a book; often feel like a zoo exhibit as people are usually staring at me due to reading a book and not a phone. I absolutely believe that "smart" phones are one of the biggest causes, if not the biggest, for the complete breakdown of civil society. We're basically living in a society that contains a shit ton of crack fiends who are always searching for that next hit of sweet sweet dopamine and have complete schizo tendencies due to their brain chemistry being so fried.
100% agree with every word said here! I might even compile this comment and restack is as a note because you dropped gems here! I want to get to your level (15mis daily use of smart phones) and i've been thinking of getting a dumb phone. But again, you're absolutely right. Society is a lot of drug addicts running around -- the drug is the cell phone
It most certainly is a drug, combine them with all the psychotropic "medication" the majority of society is on and it's a recipe for utter disaster. Once you quit using your phone so much you can literally feel the urge to pick it up, would love to say its easy to do but it's not, takes a lot of will power to truly become, and remain, free of it's grip. There are definitely reasons why our tech overlords don't allow their kids to have smart phones, they know the damage they cause. Truly feel awful for kids growing up these days, school is bad enough but mixing in social media/smart phones would just make it so much worse. Recently read an article that said something like 5% of 3-4 year olds have smart phones, who the fuck would buy a toddler a smart phone? May as well hand them a bottle of scotch and a handgun...
When I go to a restaurant I always see toddlers and children staring at phones or tablets while they are waiting for their food, and even while they are eating. The parents are using them as a distraction so they don't have to deal with their kids. I'm sure the kids would throw a fit if they took them away, and that would most certainly induce a Pavlovian response in the parents to give them back. Most of the time the parents are also looking at their phones instead of engaging with each other and their kids.
I have a very different view of social media. Millions of people posting from their daily lives unscripted unedited sincere uncontrolled is an organic and very human process. It’s a dreamscape. One moment I’m looking see a crying father in Gaza holding his dead child, the next moment, I’m see a young girl on the north slope of Alaska talking about her family life, speaking words in her own language. The Internet has become an ecosystem of complexity beyond the Amazon rainforest. It is extremely rich, diverse, and true. For me the Internet is a cyclical process of observe, speak, think, listen, think, speak. It leads to no action for me, but it enriches my dreaming mind, and I hope the dreaming minds of the people using it beyond anything that could’ve been anticipated a generation or two ago.
John, thanks for this comment here! Yes, I definitely did show the darker side of social media, but to your point, there is a brighter side as well, the side you mentioned. I discuss the binary nature of reality in this article here as in fire can give us food or burn our house (https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/the-beauty-of-good-and-evil).
However, I'd argue that as a society, we're currently using these technologies more on the negative side than positive. We're interacting more with screens than we are with other humans, and we're seeing that the body wasn't made to have "so many friends." I've touched on this in the following articles, but definitely looking forward to any additional insights or feedback you may have!
Thanks again for the reminder Franklin. I am sure I have mentioned this before, but smart phones (I don't know why we call them that. They are actually mini tablet computers that have the capability to make phone calls.) have destroyed my attention span. I will often pick up my phone to do one thing and find myself doing something different several minutes later with no clue why I am doing it. Like The Reverend, I used to be a voracious reader of physical books. I can hardly read a physical book now without getting distracted, checking my email, etc. Now I am a voracious reader of Substacks, watcher of YouTube videos, and consumer other electronic media. I will say that I don't watch or read a lot of entertaining content, although I am entertained by learning and hearing different viewpoints.
Neil Postman was a prophet of our times, he tried to warn us of what we were doing to ourselves. I got an Iphone in 2010 and went from reading books all the time to, by late 2018, not having read a book for over a year. I started to realize that my addiction to my phone was the cause of my inability to focus on reading so, in February 2019, I severely curtailed my usage(I look at my phone maybe 10-15 minutes a day now and usually only to look at the crypto market); thanks to this my love of reading came back and last year I read well over 100 books. The best part about being free of a phone addiction is being able to sit back and enjoy boredom, I love being bored because it gives me time to think, to explore my consciousness, and to really perceive the reality of my surroundings. If I'm going somewhere that I know I'll be waiting I'll bring a book; often feel like a zoo exhibit as people are usually staring at me due to reading a book and not a phone. I absolutely believe that "smart" phones are one of the biggest causes, if not the biggest, for the complete breakdown of civil society. We're basically living in a society that contains a shit ton of crack fiends who are always searching for that next hit of sweet sweet dopamine and have complete schizo tendencies due to their brain chemistry being so fried.
100% agree with every word said here! I might even compile this comment and restack is as a note because you dropped gems here! I want to get to your level (15mis daily use of smart phones) and i've been thinking of getting a dumb phone. But again, you're absolutely right. Society is a lot of drug addicts running around -- the drug is the cell phone
It most certainly is a drug, combine them with all the psychotropic "medication" the majority of society is on and it's a recipe for utter disaster. Once you quit using your phone so much you can literally feel the urge to pick it up, would love to say its easy to do but it's not, takes a lot of will power to truly become, and remain, free of it's grip. There are definitely reasons why our tech overlords don't allow their kids to have smart phones, they know the damage they cause. Truly feel awful for kids growing up these days, school is bad enough but mixing in social media/smart phones would just make it so much worse. Recently read an article that said something like 5% of 3-4 year olds have smart phones, who the fuck would buy a toddler a smart phone? May as well hand them a bottle of scotch and a handgun...
Don't know if you've read this article or not, but here's an article I wrote detailing how information acts as a drug: https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/addicted-to-information
When I go to a restaurant I always see toddlers and children staring at phones or tablets while they are waiting for their food, and even while they are eating. The parents are using them as a distraction so they don't have to deal with their kids. I'm sure the kids would throw a fit if they took them away, and that would most certainly induce a Pavlovian response in the parents to give them back. Most of the time the parents are also looking at their phones instead of engaging with each other and their kids.
I have a very different view of social media. Millions of people posting from their daily lives unscripted unedited sincere uncontrolled is an organic and very human process. It’s a dreamscape. One moment I’m looking see a crying father in Gaza holding his dead child, the next moment, I’m see a young girl on the north slope of Alaska talking about her family life, speaking words in her own language. The Internet has become an ecosystem of complexity beyond the Amazon rainforest. It is extremely rich, diverse, and true. For me the Internet is a cyclical process of observe, speak, think, listen, think, speak. It leads to no action for me, but it enriches my dreaming mind, and I hope the dreaming minds of the people using it beyond anything that could’ve been anticipated a generation or two ago.
John, thanks for this comment here! Yes, I definitely did show the darker side of social media, but to your point, there is a brighter side as well, the side you mentioned. I discuss the binary nature of reality in this article here as in fire can give us food or burn our house (https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/the-beauty-of-good-and-evil).
However, I'd argue that as a society, we're currently using these technologies more on the negative side than positive. We're interacting more with screens than we are with other humans, and we're seeing that the body wasn't made to have "so many friends." I've touched on this in the following articles, but definitely looking forward to any additional insights or feedback you may have!
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/our-ocularcentric-society
Thanks again for the reminder Franklin. I am sure I have mentioned this before, but smart phones (I don't know why we call them that. They are actually mini tablet computers that have the capability to make phone calls.) have destroyed my attention span. I will often pick up my phone to do one thing and find myself doing something different several minutes later with no clue why I am doing it. Like The Reverend, I used to be a voracious reader of physical books. I can hardly read a physical book now without getting distracted, checking my email, etc. Now I am a voracious reader of Substacks, watcher of YouTube videos, and consumer other electronic media. I will say that I don't watch or read a lot of entertaining content, although I am entertained by learning and hearing different viewpoints.