Are We Too Concerned About Social Media? - Cal Newport
calnewport.com/are-we-too-concerned-about-social-media
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.