Kill your time wisely

Social media, regular media, mobile phones, TV - have all and together dumbed us down so badly and so tremendously that I fear we are losing our ability to think, reason and interact like erstwhile normal human beings. Things are getting integrated and we are pushed for ever higher adoption, so that more and more data is generated that can be fed into big-datas and AI's - and help businesses target customers better, create machines that are like the screwed up versions of humans that we ourselves are on the internet. The addictive nature of online platforms is no more a hot topic of debate, as it was in the Orkut days 10 years back - perhaps coz the debates that gain prominence now are controlled better by the platforms that host these debates, and there's no incentive for them in letting the content that hurts them show up, especially when they are listed companies and responsible for keeping on generating profits and shareholder returns.

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Getting out of this quagmire is as nearly impossible as it is easy getting into it. It plays with your mind constantly, and the moment you try to distance yourself from it even a bit, the feeling of getting left out grips you all over, and when the cold turkey becomes unbearable, you are pushed back into the mess. And even if you are capable of dealing with the psychological complexities, the more practical issue is that the way most stuff works these days is tightly integrated with the web and the social media. How could you stay away from WhatsApp when everyone in your office is lying in that group in the app where office matters are discussed, although only for 1% of the time; and there are more 1-1 interactions happening on these instant messengers than face-to-face? How can you stay away from LinkedIn when networking has become the only way to get good jobs - true especially for MBA's? I owe finding my wife to a matrimonial site, so I shouldn't complain. But then, a matrimonial site doesn't try to engage you beyond its purpose. Same is the case with a job portal or a travel/hotel booking site, although they want you to return for your next job or booking. But the likes of Facebook and Twitter work on a different principle. Their goal is not to help the user carry out a transaction but to tie down the user and make him/her stay for as long as possible. And they do this by creating an environment where the users pull each other while the platform provides them with tools to do so. And smartly embedded in those tools and the environment are pieces that are paid for, not by the users but by the actual customers of these platforms for gaining access to the users killing time and exposing themselves to these pieces in the process, and also offering information about themselves that helps businesses target them more effectively. This is a simple and general way of looking at what happens on the web, but the point that does come out is that someone out there is using our time to help other businesses. In a way that's great for the market. We, as users, are undoubtedly served better in the process, but at what expense? The opportunity cost can't be quantified as any alternative scenario seems inconceivable the way things have evolved on the web and into our lives. Nor do I think we can go back from here. But perhaps some of us can make better choices and make something else of our time, while also not totally giving up the better service that's on offer!

Dumb and Dumber

The most ironic thing about social media is that people are reading a lot, and yet are becoming dumber day by day. I feel that about myself too. Enormous and ever increasing volumes of crap is generated every day and fed to us through a bunch of channels. We pick and pass crap, and keep doing that until the crap is thoroughly consumed by everyone. And then we move on to other crap, and keep doing that all the time on our mobile devices. Even if we try to take a break from all this madness, we get extremely restless with the feeling of getting left behind. We can't stay away for long and are internally pushed back towards it. It has deeply screwed our minds and our ability to control them. While the creators of crap do that to get more visits and somehow get more ad revenue or plain attention, the readers are going on reading and getting entertained. It's like a whole new medium of entertainment has emerged for all idle times and when on the go - all situations with no brain usage required and when reflexes are enough to manage the physical activity. If TV was once seen as killer of all productive time, mobile and data now are together the modern-day weapons of mass destruction. (Warren Buffett needs to revise his quote in the changing times, but this one's taken now!) And yet, TV has not been displaced. In fact TV has transformed to become a tool in this whole data game.

There are indeed positive aspects in all this. For example, without doubt, the awareness of people has reached a whole new and advanced level. Information travels fast and wide within no time. And when it matters, it's really useful and exciting to have everybody on the same page. But of late I've started seeing this feature getting abused abundantly. Things on social media have a repetitive nature, and the same detail or info or news gets reinforced in our minds as it keeps appearing in front of our eyes as we scroll screens. It has 2 effects. One - agents who want to spread something - a message, some news, or a perception - even totally false - are smartly manipulating people's minds to achieve targeted outcomes. Two - as most of the stuff is on topics of minor intellectual value, we feed ourselves continuously on shit that neither helps us nor adds to our knowledge of the world. Our brain probably dynamically allocates resources for new shit by freeing up some old shit which is sent to some long-term area of the brain that keeps piling up shit but offers very minimal ability to retrieve or recall. And this long-term shitty area is getting loaded with more and more shit - at the fastest pace ever in the history of human species. So much ever increasing load chokes the brain, slows us down and makes us dumb. All this technology was supposed to make us smart, but it's only turning us into idiot boxes which can't think. And that's the irony.