# Are We Too Concerned About Social Media? - Cal Newport

<https://calnewport.com/are-we-too-concerned-about-social-media/>

- Host: [calnewport.com](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/hosts/calnewport.com/)
- Saved: June 12, 2025 (2025-06-13T01:56:02Z)
- Record: https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/b4f024e68a80/
- JSON: https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/b4f024e68a80.json

## What Jamie wrote

Newport's answer on this isn't surprising, and is in agreement with my own. I like his analogy. 

> As I argued, we can think of the content that cuts through modern attention economy apps as **ultra-processed content**. This digital fare is made by breaking down hundreds of millions of social posts and reactions into vectors of numbers, which are then processed algorithmically to isolate the most engaging possible snippets. This then creates a feedback loop in which users chase what seems to be working from an engagement perspective, shifting the system's inputs toward increasingly unnatural directions. 
> 
> The resulting content might _resemble_ normal media, but in reality, it's a fun house-mirror distortion. As with its ultra-processed edible counterparts, this content is hyper-palatable, meaning we use apps like TikTok or Instagram way more than we know is useful or healthy, and because of the unnatural way in which it's constructed, it leaves us, over time, feeling increasingly (psychologically) unwell.

Social media is the refinement of many anti-patterns.

## Facts

- Kind: [Page](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/kinds/page/)

## Appears in

- [WT323: Weekly Thing 323 / Context, Dithering, Liquid Glass](https://weekly.thingelstad.com/archive/323/), Notable

## Same host

- [On Kids and Smartphones - Cal Newport](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/8f575265ce5d/) (calnewport.com, May 9, 2023)
- [On Disruption and Distraction - Cal Newport](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/3f432370ebd5/) (calnewport.com, October 18, 2023)
- [AI and Work (Some Predictions) - Cal Newport](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/f9dedda8b1d9/) (calnewport.com, May 22, 2025)
- [Does WiFi Make Students Smarter? - Cal Newport](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/942f38fd7739/) (calnewport.com, September 25, 2025)
- [The Pope vs. Silicon Valley](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/34e0557a7ef9/) (calnewport.com, June 2, 2026)

## Saved the same week

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- [powRSS](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/75245550dd4f/) (powrss.com, June 12, 2025)
- [Model Context Protocol (MCP) Tools for Mac - Michael Tsai](https://links.thingelstad.xyz/links/59baaa159b61/) (mjtsai.com, June 12, 2025)

## Elsewhere

- Wayback Machine: https://web.archive.org/web/*/https://calnewport.com/are-we-too-concerned-about-social-media/