When you make a mistake…
A bad partner will tell you what they told you a while ago to remind you how right they were.
A good partner will tell you what you said a while ago to remind you how right you were.
We need to be reminded more than we need to be taught.
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A bad partner will tell you what they told you a while ago to remind you how right they were.
A good partner will tell you what you said a while ago to remind you how right you were.
We need to be reminded more than we need to be taught.
@ebookscafe #Books #Lifeadvice
People criticize because it helps them justify the risks they chose not to take
Everyone owns a phone; maybe you're holding one in your hand right now. If you look up around you, chances are you'll see someone else on their phone. When we're standing in line at the store, in between sets at the gym, it's really become second nature to us by now. But why? Sure, we use our phones when we're bored, but we also use them at concerts, at dinner with friends, even when spending time with the people who gave birth to us.
When Steve Jobs first introduced the iPhone back in 2007, there wasn't really much you could do with it. Sure, you could send a text to your friends, call them if you needed, maybe play a game of chess if you liked. Fast forward 6,238 days later, and the impulse to pull out our phones and mindlessly watch split-screen TikToks pretty much consumes every single one of us. So, what happened? And more importantly, what does the future of content addiction really look like?
Now, if there's one fatal flaw the human species has, it's our curious nature. Sure, it helps us advance as a species and as individuals. It gives us a reason to learn and create new things, but how does it end? We've already become so addicted to watching what everyone else is doing, scared that if we don't open the app, we're going to miss out on something. You don't even really like using them, yet we still find ourselves opening the app for the 10th time today, ready to waste another two hours of our life. And without you even knowing, there's an army of people working to make sure you stay like that.
None of this is random. These big social media companies have one main objective: keep you on the platform. And so they manipulate you. They know exactly how the human mind works, and they take advantage of that. When you grab your phone first thing in the morning, when you open an app without even thinking about it—all of the habits you have, all of them, have been specifically engineered to happen. The apps are literally designed after a slot machine—the way we can pull down and refresh the feed, getting another hit of instant dopamine.
Dopamine. There's a common misconception with dopamine online. It's currently being portrayed as the "feel-good chemical," the chemical that's released in your brain whenever something good happens. Many believe we're addicted to dopamine, and as a result, we seek constant stimulation to fulfill this addiction. This idea works well if you're selling a course on a "dopamine detox." But dopamine is originally a hunting mechanism; it's not released when we catch what we're hunting for, but when we're in pursuit of it. Dopamine's primary role in the human brain is to make the hunt fun. If you put two and two together, you can see why social media is so addictive—it's basically one big hunt. A hunt for a funny video or a post you actually want to see.
But what does this mean for our future? Well, ultimately, there are two different ways this can go. The first path will be one of dystopia. Think back to the year before the iPhone was released. What would give us a hit of dopamine? Maybe a walk in the park, spending time with our families. These things would produce a level of dopamine in our brains that satisfied us. And then imagine the year later, when you could still do those things, but this time you could use your iPhone at the same time. What happens now? It's not that we receive more dopamine; we receive the exact same amount as before, except this time our tolerance has gone up. We now find those previous things not as fun anymore because we've experienced "better."
This is exactly what's happening now. It's why we can't do anything without some sort of noise in the background. It's why we have to watch a TikTok while also watching another TikTok. In simple terms, our baselines have shifted. As long as new and better things keep coming out in the world, we're constantly going to be increasing our baselines. For most people, day-to-day life without any technology has already become unbearable. And we're only 16 years in from the first iPhone coming out.
When Steve Jobs first introduced the iPhone back in 2007, there wasn't really much you could do with it. Sure, you could send a text to your friends, call them if you needed, maybe play a game of chess if you liked. Fast forward 6,238 days later, and the impulse to pull out our phones and mindlessly watch split-screen TikToks pretty much consumes every single one of us. So, what happened? And more importantly, what does the future of content addiction really look like?
Now, if there's one fatal flaw the human species has, it's our curious nature. Sure, it helps us advance as a species and as individuals. It gives us a reason to learn and create new things, but how does it end? We've already become so addicted to watching what everyone else is doing, scared that if we don't open the app, we're going to miss out on something. You don't even really like using them, yet we still find ourselves opening the app for the 10th time today, ready to waste another two hours of our life. And without you even knowing, there's an army of people working to make sure you stay like that.
None of this is random. These big social media companies have one main objective: keep you on the platform. And so they manipulate you. They know exactly how the human mind works, and they take advantage of that. When you grab your phone first thing in the morning, when you open an app without even thinking about it—all of the habits you have, all of them, have been specifically engineered to happen. The apps are literally designed after a slot machine—the way we can pull down and refresh the feed, getting another hit of instant dopamine.
Dopamine. There's a common misconception with dopamine online. It's currently being portrayed as the "feel-good chemical," the chemical that's released in your brain whenever something good happens. Many believe we're addicted to dopamine, and as a result, we seek constant stimulation to fulfill this addiction. This idea works well if you're selling a course on a "dopamine detox." But dopamine is originally a hunting mechanism; it's not released when we catch what we're hunting for, but when we're in pursuit of it. Dopamine's primary role in the human brain is to make the hunt fun. If you put two and two together, you can see why social media is so addictive—it's basically one big hunt. A hunt for a funny video or a post you actually want to see.
But what does this mean for our future? Well, ultimately, there are two different ways this can go. The first path will be one of dystopia. Think back to the year before the iPhone was released. What would give us a hit of dopamine? Maybe a walk in the park, spending time with our families. These things would produce a level of dopamine in our brains that satisfied us. And then imagine the year later, when you could still do those things, but this time you could use your iPhone at the same time. What happens now? It's not that we receive more dopamine; we receive the exact same amount as before, except this time our tolerance has gone up. We now find those previous things not as fun anymore because we've experienced "better."
This is exactly what's happening now. It's why we can't do anything without some sort of noise in the background. It's why we have to watch a TikTok while also watching another TikTok. In simple terms, our baselines have shifted. As long as new and better things keep coming out in the world, we're constantly going to be increasing our baselines. For most people, day-to-day life without any technology has already become unbearable. And we're only 16 years in from the first iPhone coming out.
Behind every exquisite thing that existed, there was something tragic.
Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
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Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray
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Human knowledge is never contained in one person. It grows from the relationships we create between each other and the world, and still it is never complete.
Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air
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Paul Kalanithi, When Breath Becomes Air
@ebookscafe #Books #Lifeadvice
Having social media apps easily accessible on your phone is really like having sweets on your desk all the time.
It’s inevitable you’ll reach out to them again and again as they provide low-effort, high-reward with dopamine hits.
(Maybe social media is worse as with sweets dopamine drops and you can’t keep having a lot of them in one go)
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It’s inevitable you’ll reach out to them again and again as they provide low-effort, high-reward with dopamine hits.
(Maybe social media is worse as with sweets dopamine drops and you can’t keep having a lot of them in one go)
@ebookscafe #Books #Lifeadvice
“You’re gonna be fine.
And even if you’re not gonna be fine, isn’t it better to just exist thinking you’re going to be fine until it’s not fine?
And then when it’s not fine you can just deal with it then.
But it makes no sense to ruin right now.” — billburr
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And even if you’re not gonna be fine, isn’t it better to just exist thinking you’re going to be fine until it’s not fine?
And then when it’s not fine you can just deal with it then.
But it makes no sense to ruin right now.” — billburr
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“It’s normal not to know what you’re doing.
If you did, it wouldn’t be called growth.
High-five your fear, uncertainty and doubt, and carry on.” — AlexHormozi
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If you did, it wouldn’t be called growth.
High-five your fear, uncertainty and doubt, and carry on.” — AlexHormozi
@ebookscafe #Books #Lifeadvice