Multiple jobs and constant phone interruptions during free time are a worst-case scenario. I personally only know one guy with 2 jobs (private music teacher and uber driver), and I know people from their 20s to retirees - in fact my RPG group spans that whole swath of ages. We meet twice a week at my house for 3.5 hours, and I can’t even remember a time when anybody got interrupted by a phone call. Your experience may vary, but I don’t think multiple jobs without a spare moment is the norm at all. People today just zone out mindlessly on phone feeds like they used to on sitcoms.
One subtle difference between yesterday’s newspapers and today’s info feeds is that you could finish a newspaper. You could read what you wanted, be done with it and put it down. A feed is an endless firehose - you never get the subtle satisfying feeling of being done with it. I think most of us have an innate desire to finish things. Our natural instinct is to get through the endless in-box by spending as little time as possible on each item - we absorb minimal information, make a quick value judgement, mentally swipe left/right on it and scroll ahead to the next little task. This builds a habit of snap judgements and meme-level thinking that gradually makes our whole mental process more superficial. We actually have as much time as we used to, it just feels like we don’t because so much more stuff is available to process.
Yes, you’re right and summed it up well. This indeed is a big difference with newspapers & co and social media. I myself have found me in this scroll-trap. It’s just this one more entry…
Yet the difference between tv and social media is not the same. You can slowly wither in front of the tv too. I grew up with just 3 stations but even then you could mindlessly consum forever. Stopped tv totally when i was 20 or so and never had one again.
As with the phones, that might surely vary. I personally don’t know, mine is totally silent, only wifey can ring me, the rest of the world can write me a mail or use telegram.
But i know a lot of people, from poor to immensly rich, which are constantly interrupted by their phone. Call here, message there, notification in the middle. It always seems like they’re total slaves to their devices and are “pavloved” to the ding.
But ofc this is equally just anectodal “evidence”. But it’s a possbility which, back then, wasn’t there.
If you left work, you were gone. Today boss could reach you anytime.
I’m retired since forever now, but sometimes just worked for fun some months and already noticed how pissed some bosses are when you’re not 24/7 commited and always there in an “emergency”.
Maybe that’s a german thing, i dunno.
Unrelated but: i envy your rpg-group. I never in my life happened to stumble upon enough nerds to actually do that. But always wanted 😊
It’s always good to read comments that go deeper than meme-level thinking. It’s true that some people are absolutely ruled by their phones, and can’t even sit on the toilet for a minute without having some sort of content to scroll through. You can definitely find worthwhile reading material online but IMO most web content is equivalent to junk TV, and is designed to do the same thing - provide eyeballs for advertisers. Attention spans have shrunk to where a single line of slang-filled text is considered adequate analysis to reduce a complex issue to an airtight opinion. My endless bitching about it is probably similar to the early radio era when people complained that the art of conversation was dying. Somehow the world survived anyway.
Yes, my RPG group is truly great, We’ve been playing for about 5 years now, having met through Meetup.com - there’s a whole D&D section. I created a meetup for 1st edition AD&D and a bunch of people responded. We played at a game store for the first year, but I realized that for what I spent on a sandwich and a beer for myself I could feed the whole group at my house, and without all the noise. I also love making food, and as an added bonus I don’t have to go anywhere. I kind of feel like the food is a reward for everybody else doing all the traveling, especially when the weather is bad. A couple weeks ago we had a power failure and finished the session by candlelight, which was a first. Anyway I highly recommend meetup.com if you want to try to find or start a game group.
We’re kinda on social media here, so deeper comments might be out of place 😁
I admit, i absolutely love my phone too and don’t go a meter without it with me. But it’s literally the device i couldn’t even fully dream about 30yrs ago. A tiny fraction of this marvel was in my wettest nerd-dreams. And no day passes where i wouldn’t be aware of that.
Yet, beside using lemmy, i never used any social media at all. I don’t even consume Youtube or netflix or whatever.
This massively shrunken attention-span is really noticeable. Not only when seeing youngsters scroll through tons of content, deciding in an instant if this minute that “article” takes, is even worth stop scrolling. It’s palpable in the way it all is made/presented. Videos instantly starting so you might get a hint of interest before scrolling further. It’s horrible, from design to execution to content itself.
And yes, all is just built around selling us shit or sell us to shit.
THIS is not the net i dreamt about and was part of its creation. This is the net that’s ripe for euthanasia and a new start.
Why does everything has to turn to shit when it hits mainstream? (rethorical question sadly)
Oh yeah your group sounds totally rad. And your thought of exchanging good food for the hassles of travel is just totally adorable.
I know meetup, yet it’s not that filled up here (krautland), it’s probably way more valid in the US (i just assume you’re from there).
Besides I’ve grown way too anti-social to even consider trying it. So it’s just a regret that i never did this in my life when i was more social.
Multiple jobs and constant phone interruptions during free time are a worst-case scenario. I personally only know one guy with 2 jobs (private music teacher and uber driver), and I know people from their 20s to retirees - in fact my RPG group spans that whole swath of ages. We meet twice a week at my house for 3.5 hours, and I can’t even remember a time when anybody got interrupted by a phone call. Your experience may vary, but I don’t think multiple jobs without a spare moment is the norm at all. People today just zone out mindlessly on phone feeds like they used to on sitcoms.
One subtle difference between yesterday’s newspapers and today’s info feeds is that you could finish a newspaper. You could read what you wanted, be done with it and put it down. A feed is an endless firehose - you never get the subtle satisfying feeling of being done with it. I think most of us have an innate desire to finish things. Our natural instinct is to get through the endless in-box by spending as little time as possible on each item - we absorb minimal information, make a quick value judgement, mentally swipe left/right on it and scroll ahead to the next little task. This builds a habit of snap judgements and meme-level thinking that gradually makes our whole mental process more superficial. We actually have as much time as we used to, it just feels like we don’t because so much more stuff is available to process.
Yes, you’re right and summed it up well. This indeed is a big difference with newspapers & co and social media. I myself have found me in this scroll-trap. It’s just this one more entry… Yet the difference between tv and social media is not the same. You can slowly wither in front of the tv too. I grew up with just 3 stations but even then you could mindlessly consum forever. Stopped tv totally when i was 20 or so and never had one again.
As with the phones, that might surely vary. I personally don’t know, mine is totally silent, only wifey can ring me, the rest of the world can write me a mail or use telegram. But i know a lot of people, from poor to immensly rich, which are constantly interrupted by their phone. Call here, message there, notification in the middle. It always seems like they’re total slaves to their devices and are “pavloved” to the ding.
But ofc this is equally just anectodal “evidence”. But it’s a possbility which, back then, wasn’t there. If you left work, you were gone. Today boss could reach you anytime.
I’m retired since forever now, but sometimes just worked for fun some months and already noticed how pissed some bosses are when you’re not 24/7 commited and always there in an “emergency”. Maybe that’s a german thing, i dunno.
Unrelated but: i envy your rpg-group. I never in my life happened to stumble upon enough nerds to actually do that. But always wanted 😊
It’s always good to read comments that go deeper than meme-level thinking. It’s true that some people are absolutely ruled by their phones, and can’t even sit on the toilet for a minute without having some sort of content to scroll through. You can definitely find worthwhile reading material online but IMO most web content is equivalent to junk TV, and is designed to do the same thing - provide eyeballs for advertisers. Attention spans have shrunk to where a single line of slang-filled text is considered adequate analysis to reduce a complex issue to an airtight opinion. My endless bitching about it is probably similar to the early radio era when people complained that the art of conversation was dying. Somehow the world survived anyway.
Yes, my RPG group is truly great, We’ve been playing for about 5 years now, having met through Meetup.com - there’s a whole D&D section. I created a meetup for 1st edition AD&D and a bunch of people responded. We played at a game store for the first year, but I realized that for what I spent on a sandwich and a beer for myself I could feed the whole group at my house, and without all the noise. I also love making food, and as an added bonus I don’t have to go anywhere. I kind of feel like the food is a reward for everybody else doing all the traveling, especially when the weather is bad. A couple weeks ago we had a power failure and finished the session by candlelight, which was a first. Anyway I highly recommend meetup.com if you want to try to find or start a game group.
We’re kinda on social media here, so deeper comments might be out of place 😁
I admit, i absolutely love my phone too and don’t go a meter without it with me. But it’s literally the device i couldn’t even fully dream about 30yrs ago. A tiny fraction of this marvel was in my wettest nerd-dreams. And no day passes where i wouldn’t be aware of that. Yet, beside using lemmy, i never used any social media at all. I don’t even consume Youtube or netflix or whatever.
This massively shrunken attention-span is really noticeable. Not only when seeing youngsters scroll through tons of content, deciding in an instant if this minute that “article” takes, is even worth stop scrolling. It’s palpable in the way it all is made/presented. Videos instantly starting so you might get a hint of interest before scrolling further. It’s horrible, from design to execution to content itself. And yes, all is just built around selling us shit or sell us to shit.
THIS is not the net i dreamt about and was part of its creation. This is the net that’s ripe for euthanasia and a new start. Why does everything has to turn to shit when it hits mainstream? (rethorical question sadly)
Oh yeah your group sounds totally rad. And your thought of exchanging good food for the hassles of travel is just totally adorable. I know meetup, yet it’s not that filled up here (krautland), it’s probably way more valid in the US (i just assume you’re from there). Besides I’ve grown way too anti-social to even consider trying it. So it’s just a regret that i never did this in my life when i was more social.