Short Reframings

We often compare social media to Orwell’s surveillance state of 1984 , but here’s what’s different about our telescreens: our screens do not exist to monitor us, but for us to monitor others. There is no totalitarian state behind our screens enforcing social order; instead, the screens turn us into the supervisors of each others’ behaviors.

The internet used to be fun.

It was weird. It was frenzied. People didn’t know what they were doing, so they tried things. They didn’t optimize, because they didn’t know what to optimize for. Good websites got found because they were good. Good tweets went viral because they were good.

Then people learned how to get the results of being good, at le... See more

Implicit in the promise of outsourcing and automation and time-saving devices is a freedom to be something other than what we ought to be. The liberation we are offered is a liberation from the very care-driven involvement in the world and in our communities that would render our lives meaningful and satisfying. In other words, the promise of liber... See more

Social media intensify this kind of communication without community. You cannot forge a public sphere out of influencers and followers. Digital communities have the form of commodities; ultimately, they are commodities.

Bits of information provide neither meaning nor orientation. They do not congeal into a narrative. They are purely additive. From a certain point onward, they no longer inform — they deform. They can even darken the world. This puts them in opposition to truth. Truth illuminates the world, while information lives off the attraction of surprise, pul... See more

I wrote about the kind of cognitive dissonance between the argument that we need people to have more babies and the argument that we need fewer immigrants. Do you think that having more babies causes people to lose jobs because the babies take the job? No. You want more people because then you have a country that flourishes more.

These days, we digest sadness alone with our phones. This is so thoroughly the case that sometimes even speaking out loud to your spouse or your mother or your close friend about a recent disaster or tragedy can feel like doubling down. They probably already know about it, so why endure the awkwardness and despair of feeling it together? And if the... See more

Yes, we are riding and resting a bit on the vibe, and the mood and enthusiasm. It doesn't mean the problems aren't real. Vibes alone won't cure climate change. Climate change is real. The threat to us is real. The ongoing extinction of our friends and partners, it's real. But when we understand these challenges purely through the metrics and the fl... See more

The author suggests that Amish are not “radical” because they chose to shun particular technologies, but rather “because they actually make decisions , rather than allowing the decision to be made for them by something called ‘progress.’”