WE CAN STILL DISCOVER AMAZING THINGS WITHOUT SOCIAL MEDIA

I discovered “The catalogue of imaginary beings” from the Not-Ship newsletter, which I found on Hacker News.

Social media makes it so easy to discover similar artists, but at breakneck speed. This from Vivian Fong, in “you scroll for hours but remember nothing.”

“… short form content, or addictive social media, allow users to rapidly context switch, and intensity switch, which leaves no breathing room between unrelated stimuli. We scroll and we remember nothing because our brains are not mentally integrating or consolidating.”

Stepping away from social media can be jarring because we’re no longer drinking from the firehose. When we slow down and drink from a glass, it feels slow. It’s no longer bottomless like social media, and if we drink all the water, we need to get up and refill. There’s friction, a bit of inconvenience.

I’m not saying we have gotta go back to corded phones and record players, merely saying the techbros would love for us to forgot that we can discover amazing things without them.