Thanks for reading through it Charli, appreciate you.
Yeah it's so tricky balancing individual freedom on the one hand with wanting to impose some [X - limits, education, or other answer]. All I know is it seems like a cop out to say "oh we can't do anything, this is just the new normal."
I do think the conversation around regulation is especially relevant for kids. I saw Australia banned social media for <16 year olds, and I'm torn about it because I grew up super super online from a very young age (divorced and very busy parents), so in part I wouldn't want to ban that little me's ability to find connection online... but at the same time it's so obviously damaging for kids in some ways (and the late 90s is very different than the 2020s haha).
Great write up! It’s something I’ve thought about often as well! Love the BP carbon footprint association… the harvesting of nearly every natural resource on earth is regulated to some degree, but for the past decade it’s been open season on our attention and mental state… If you don’t guard yourself and your mind, no one else will unfortunately.
Thanks for taking the time time to read Michael. I think I "realized" I was overdoing it in 2021-2022, so at the intersection of COVID lockdowns in Canada + the crypto mania of that time. It probably took another 2 years though before I started taking this seriously, which would have been in the summer of 2024 as I saw my health decline + friends having kids and stuff (while my life was on standstill).
Think I’ve been coming to a similar realisation for at least a year but kinda just tried to ignore it and think it was some sort of phase. It isn’t. And it’s ruining my focus, attention span and mindset. For someone that has worked and lived online for the best part of 20 years it’s a strange and interesting place to be.
It's nice to hear from you...I haven't been on Twitter much.
I met a former Firefox dev recently who only allows himself to log on between 3-6 p.m. But I think he does less than that. He's very into physical pen on paper now.
I'm glad you are thinking of your health.
Thank you for sharing and for being a great writer.
Nice to hear from you Eva! Thanks cool re: the Firefox dev. I also am a big fan of paper/analog. Appreciate you taking the time to read and hope you're well.
“I lived in a dystopia of being plugged into endless, multi-screen slop at 2x speed for years. The reason why I’m writing this is I realized that I need to wake up and get my head in the game before my life is vaporized into a puddle of infinite digital regret” Yes, yes, yes!
I wrote something similar: “When someone sends me a YouTube video or podcast and it’s five minutes or longer, something in my brain flinches.
I immediately try to speed through it, like I’m sprinting from the Grim Reaper.
1.5x. 2x, even 3x.
If I could go to 5x without losing comprehension, I probably would.
It’s the same with longer articles (hypocritical, I know).
If the scrollbar looks tiny—microscopic, like an elongated mitochondria—I “save it for later.” Ne’er to be seen again.
Instead, I almost instinctively open X for my informational fix, the jittery drip of edutainment, the slot-machine hit of half-insight, half-dopamine. Tiny pellets of “knowledge” stripped of context but optimized for my shortened attention span.
Why read the article when I can get the hot takes? Why suffer through the sentences when I can glean the snippets?
The problem is not that content has gotten longer.
Really enjoyed this, great piece 👏 had some similar thoughts myself over the last few weeks. Probably what has helped me most, is deleting social media apps from my phone and only checking on my laptop. Definitely a strange feeling at first when you get the urge to pick up the phone and realise that you can’t just simply sit and scroll
Thanks for reading Cameron, appreciate you taking the time. Yeah it's actually so simple in some ways just deleting a lot of apps from your phone, but it definitely takes some time to get used to.
An idea I have stuck in my head is, if you just use the internet in mostly the same ways you did in 2008 (i.e. on a computer), it's actually relatively easy to detox off your dopamine addiction and reduce your screen time drastically.
Not to oversimplify, but I do think, it's just the phones.
If you remove all the feeds, entertainment and media from your phone (and keep it strictly for utilities), you start to gain back a fairly significant amount of time. Cooking dinner, washing dishes, doing laundry. These activities which we used to do assisted-by-stimulus, start to be little mental brain breaks, and I've found, at first it's uncomfortable, but quite quickly you grow to enjoy the feeling.
Very relatable. I personally notice time being very distorted in my memory, hard to remember / distinguish travel/experiences I did the last years. Sometimes I feel I need to catch up with my past.
I feel this is the side effect of constantly paying attention.
I knew a young man who started an internet detoxification company 2014 mostly CEO’s who went by alias’s so no one knew who they really were. They would travel somewhere remote and leave behind all electronics. I forget his name but his family from NY stayed in my Airbnb close to UCSF because he had a glioblastoma. It’s a real thing. I mean internet addiction. Read The Anxious Generation.
extremely relatable. your regulation point is interesting too, it’s something i think about a lot more since becoming a parent.
Thanks for reading through it Charli, appreciate you.
Yeah it's so tricky balancing individual freedom on the one hand with wanting to impose some [X - limits, education, or other answer]. All I know is it seems like a cop out to say "oh we can't do anything, this is just the new normal."
I do think the conversation around regulation is especially relevant for kids. I saw Australia banned social media for <16 year olds, and I'm torn about it because I grew up super super online from a very young age (divorced and very busy parents), so in part I wouldn't want to ban that little me's ability to find connection online... but at the same time it's so obviously damaging for kids in some ways (and the late 90s is very different than the 2020s haha).
Great write up! It’s something I’ve thought about often as well! Love the BP carbon footprint association… the harvesting of nearly every natural resource on earth is regulated to some degree, but for the past decade it’s been open season on our attention and mental state… If you don’t guard yourself and your mind, no one else will unfortunately.
what was your first step in realising it was a problem and how did you start the process of healing? really enjoyed this article thanks for sharing.
Thanks for taking the time time to read Michael. I think I "realized" I was overdoing it in 2021-2022, so at the intersection of COVID lockdowns in Canada + the crypto mania of that time. It probably took another 2 years though before I started taking this seriously, which would have been in the summer of 2024 as I saw my health decline + friends having kids and stuff (while my life was on standstill).
Think I’ve been coming to a similar realisation for at least a year but kinda just tried to ignore it and think it was some sort of phase. It isn’t. And it’s ruining my focus, attention span and mindset. For someone that has worked and lived online for the best part of 20 years it’s a strange and interesting place to be.
Hi Ben!
It's nice to hear from you...I haven't been on Twitter much.
I met a former Firefox dev recently who only allows himself to log on between 3-6 p.m. But I think he does less than that. He's very into physical pen on paper now.
I'm glad you are thinking of your health.
Thank you for sharing and for being a great writer.
Nice to hear from you Eva! Thanks cool re: the Firefox dev. I also am a big fan of paper/analog. Appreciate you taking the time to read and hope you're well.
😊❤️❤️
“I lived in a dystopia of being plugged into endless, multi-screen slop at 2x speed for years. The reason why I’m writing this is I realized that I need to wake up and get my head in the game before my life is vaporized into a puddle of infinite digital regret” Yes, yes, yes!
I wrote something similar: “When someone sends me a YouTube video or podcast and it’s five minutes or longer, something in my brain flinches.
I immediately try to speed through it, like I’m sprinting from the Grim Reaper.
1.5x. 2x, even 3x.
If I could go to 5x without losing comprehension, I probably would.
It’s the same with longer articles (hypocritical, I know).
If the scrollbar looks tiny—microscopic, like an elongated mitochondria—I “save it for later.” Ne’er to be seen again.
Instead, I almost instinctively open X for my informational fix, the jittery drip of edutainment, the slot-machine hit of half-insight, half-dopamine. Tiny pellets of “knowledge” stripped of context but optimized for my shortened attention span.
Why read the article when I can get the hot takes? Why suffer through the sentences when I can glean the snippets?
The problem is not that content has gotten longer.
It’s that I’ve gotten shorter.
My patience.
My presence.
My attention.”
More: https://www.whitenoise.email/p/stop-literally-fast-forwarding-your
Really enjoyed this, great piece 👏 had some similar thoughts myself over the last few weeks. Probably what has helped me most, is deleting social media apps from my phone and only checking on my laptop. Definitely a strange feeling at first when you get the urge to pick up the phone and realise that you can’t just simply sit and scroll
Thanks for reading Cameron, appreciate you taking the time. Yeah it's actually so simple in some ways just deleting a lot of apps from your phone, but it definitely takes some time to get used to.
Enjoyed the exploration of the less acute but way more concerning flattening effects on culture and our behavior. Like, if it's doing this to our luxury brands what is it doing to our conception of love, friendship, heartbreak, etc? https://www.businessoffashion.com/opinions/luxury/the-revolution-will-not-be-serifised-why-every-luxury-brands-logo-looks-the-same-burberry-balmain-balenciaga/
Oh awesome, thanks for sharing this Clayton, I'll take a look. And thank you for reading!
Thought of this... Wouldn't Isaiah Berlin's positive liberty just be a different way of saying let them cook? haha great article!
Well articles and thoughtful.
An idea I have stuck in my head is, if you just use the internet in mostly the same ways you did in 2008 (i.e. on a computer), it's actually relatively easy to detox off your dopamine addiction and reduce your screen time drastically.
Not to oversimplify, but I do think, it's just the phones.
If you remove all the feeds, entertainment and media from your phone (and keep it strictly for utilities), you start to gain back a fairly significant amount of time. Cooking dinner, washing dishes, doing laundry. These activities which we used to do assisted-by-stimulus, start to be little mental brain breaks, and I've found, at first it's uncomfortable, but quite quickly you grow to enjoy the feeling.
congrats on this, man
Resonates a lot. Wrote something last week back on this thought:
I used to flee the real world and find solace on the internet.
Now I find myself fleeing the internet to seek solace in the real world.
What happened?
Very relatable. I personally notice time being very distorted in my memory, hard to remember / distinguish travel/experiences I did the last years. Sometimes I feel I need to catch up with my past.
I feel this is the side effect of constantly paying attention.
Excellent article, thank you for this read
This is an absurdly good read. Thanks for sharing
I knew a young man who started an internet detoxification company 2014 mostly CEO’s who went by alias’s so no one knew who they really were. They would travel somewhere remote and leave behind all electronics. I forget his name but his family from NY stayed in my Airbnb close to UCSF because he had a glioblastoma. It’s a real thing. I mean internet addiction. Read The Anxious Generation.
Yeah this is so real. I'll take a look at The Anxious Generation, thank you for the recommendation (and thanks for reading!)