Great post. It seems harder and harder to disengage from the digital network, or to feel at ease without it. Nature is the main/sane way to decouple, still.
I was thinking about the attention economy in terms of basic advertising recently: back in the day you’d watch TV and get a discrete burst of ads every one in a while during a program/show. You’d know what it was, why it was there, and how to avoid it (hit the mute). Now, especially on the socials and YouTube, it seems that advertising/plugging/doing promos for wares or courses or merch is everything, wall-to-wall, and the actual content or reason for watching is the occasional blip. We’re in a totally commercial ecosystem (lousy pun), where everyone is selling something, trying to get the eyeballs, desperate for a sales edge and also anxious to stay present & relevant for the algorithm. It’s very sad.
Agreed. I made a little joke about TikTok in class, pointing out to my students that they might have to use YouTube if the US bans TikTok. A couple of students looked distressed. I wonder if YouTube requires too much attention.
I’m an old guy so much of my life has been pre-digital, not free from electronics and radio though.
If it were not for my growing up in the mountains and woods I too, may have succumbed to everything revolves around accumulating things and digital garbage.
I’ll take the solitary places in PA, VA, WY, & MT any day over much of the grid or digital.
OH, I do like the desert SW USA also, I’ve just not spent as much time there.
The Untimely Typewriter:Daily Writings Against the Tides of Distraction 
How hard it has become for us to find worth apart from exchange value and end results.
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America’s capitalist fantasy of infinite growth and (superficial) innovation doesn’t help—and this certainly has invaded the academic halls.
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Great post. It seems harder and harder to disengage from the digital network, or to feel at ease without it. Nature is the main/sane way to decouple, still.
I was thinking about the attention economy in terms of basic advertising recently: back in the day you’d watch TV and get a discrete burst of ads every one in a while during a program/show. You’d know what it was, why it was there, and how to avoid it (hit the mute). Now, especially on the socials and YouTube, it seems that advertising/plugging/doing promos for wares or courses or merch is everything, wall-to-wall, and the actual content or reason for watching is the occasional blip. We’re in a totally commercial ecosystem (lousy pun), where everyone is selling something, trying to get the eyeballs, desperate for a sales edge and also anxious to stay present & relevant for the algorithm. It’s very sad.
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Agreed. I made a little joke about TikTok in class, pointing out to my students that they might have to use YouTube if the US bans TikTok. A couple of students looked distressed. I wonder if YouTube requires too much attention.
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Great post.
I’m an old guy so much of my life has been pre-digital, not free from electronics and radio though.
If it were not for my growing up in the mountains and woods I too, may have succumbed to everything revolves around accumulating things and digital garbage.
I’ll take the solitary places in PA, VA, WY, & MT any day over much of the grid or digital.
OH, I do like the desert SW USA also, I’ve just not spent as much time there.
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One of these days I’ll get up to WY and MT.
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