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Social media use probably isn’t the problem. Social media use is probably just the most obvious manifestation of lots of problems. And in fact, social media could probably be a solution. It’s up to you.

It's not social media, life is just worse

Article

It has been pretty trendy for the last little while to notice that mental health problems are on the rise, and also social media use is on the rise, and so probably mental health problems are on the rise because social media is an attention sucking monster. But research on the topic doesn’t seem to find any obvious connection between the two. Lots of people are talking about this now, so I will run you through the ‘social media isn’t actually that bad’ thing then give you some other things to stress about instead.
Social media use probably isn’t the problem. Social media use is probably just the most obvious manifestation of lots of problems. And in fact, social media could probably be a solution. It’s up to you.
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digital-architecture gratification on-(un)happiness on-aesthetics on-culture on-thinking-and-reasoning somatic-architecture

article

AI alarmism thrives on speculative, worst-case scenarios, but our understanding of AI’s fundamentally alien nature and the complex forms of consciousness make me suspect that less stressful alternatives are equally plausible.

AI isn't that scary

Article

As a brain scientist, people often level questions at me about how worried we should be about the ‘rise of AI’. AIs are brain-like things, I study brains, people think I might have some ideas. I’m not really an AI person. But I do have some ideas, and since it keeps coming up, I thought I’d write them down. I’ll give you my usual counterpoints to the alarmist talking points. Then I’ll spend a bit of time talking about why I’m particularly not that worried about AI trying to kill us, from the perspective of someone who studies the brain.
AI alarmism thrives on speculative, worst-case scenarios, but our understanding of AI’s fundamentally alien nature and the complex forms of consciousness make me suspect that less stressful alternatives are equally plausible.
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betterment digital-architecture on-(un)happiness on-the-nature-of-things on-thinking-and-reasoning thought-architecture

article

The most successful facts about the world are the ones that subvert our weakly held beliefs. They look like they’re about improvement, but they’re more often simply entertainment dressed up like education.

Malcolm Gladwell Shit

Article

Facts about the world don’t merely sit about waiting to be ‘discovered’. Facts are constructed to fill a need, and the dimensions of the world that these facts reveal to us will reflect less the world, and more the need … The recent climb in non-fiction is an example of this. The need that this huge appetite for educational facts about the world is attending to isn’t education. No, these facts are in the business of entertainment. It fills our downtime with something interesting, something so interesting, in fact, that it doubles as social capital.
The most successful facts about the world are the ones that subvert our weakly held beliefs. They look like they’re about improvement, but they’re more often simply entertainment dressed up like education.
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betterment digital-architecture gratification on-(un)happiness on-being-fruitful somatic-architecture wealth-architecture

article

Nudging doesn’t work because people aren’t thinking hard enough. Everything is choice architecture, so look to the way you build things in the first place or turn to our deepest motivations—our communities.

Everything is Choice Architecture

Article

Nudging is a buzzword that floats around places where consultants or policy-makers can be found. In their mouths it refers to the act of encouraging some meaningful change in behaviour by making a small change to… you know… something or other. And then everyone kind of trails off. I will leave you to read around about the criticisms of nudging. There are plenty. But I think these criticisms often miss something that really is worth thinking about.
Nudging doesn’t work because people aren’t thinking hard enough. Everything is choice architecture, so look to the way you build things in the first place or turn to our deepest motivations—our communities.
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betterment collective-architecture connection digital-architecture gratification on-(un)happiness on-being-fruitful on-culture on-leadership on-politics-and-power somatic-architecture wealth-architecture

article

Since the invention of the telegraph, information has become increasingly atomized, incoherent, and irrelevant. Our media technology encourages entertainment, not discourse. Information ‘from nowhere’, ‘to no one’ about which we can do nothing. We don’t have to lean in.

Amusing Ourselves to Death

Article

Neil Postman’s prescient critique of the modern media landscape is centred on an unusual interpretation of the way the television manipulates how we communicate. The medium determines the message, and the message of the television drowns us "in a sea of irrelevance". The implications, thirty-odd years later are both the same and surprisingly different.
Since the invention of the telegraph, information has become increasingly atomized, incoherent, and irrelevant. Our media technology encourages entertainment, not discourse. Information ‘from nowhere’, ‘to no one’ about which we can do nothing. We don’t have to lean in.
Read this article

filed under:

betterment connection digital-architecture gratification on-(un)happiness on-being-fruitful somatic-architecture thought-architecture
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