Interesting, I usually tend to view the screens' attraction as sort of an addiction, rather than a flight from something else. But your view actually might make more sense, at least to me personally, as most of the time, it really does feel more like evading something than going somewhere.
I for my part am mostly hiding from real life, I'm afraid. Real life is to struggle, going the way of the least resistance is living the life of a plant. But to struggle is uncomfortable, and why should we? We've overcome the need to, an everlasting source of numbing comfort at our fingertips.
Aldous Huxley had said about his Brave New World, that the discovery of "the ultimate drug", something giving pleasure without any hangovers or the like, would inevitably reduce humanity to something like an eternal useless machinery, with (most) everyone becoming just a mindless happy cog (not his exact words). Wonder how he would feel about doomscrolling.
Wow, thanks so much for this comment. There's so much!
I think the 'hiding from real life' bit is a great way of precisifying what we're doing, and I've come to think that what that means *specifically* will be different from person to person. It is probably a mistake to think of one thing we're hiding from.
But the most interesting part of your comment, to me, is the proposition that there is not some mysterious new cause, but rather a new solution (scrolling) to a problem that we've always had (struggle). This sounds deeply right. I'll have to think about this. I think the question of why we admit it so easily is still really important, though.
I hadn't thought of Brave New World for a second but its a great fit!
Interesting, I usually tend to view the screens' attraction as sort of an addiction, rather than a flight from something else. But your view actually might make more sense, at least to me personally, as most of the time, it really does feel more like evading something than going somewhere.
I for my part am mostly hiding from real life, I'm afraid. Real life is to struggle, going the way of the least resistance is living the life of a plant. But to struggle is uncomfortable, and why should we? We've overcome the need to, an everlasting source of numbing comfort at our fingertips.
Aldous Huxley had said about his Brave New World, that the discovery of "the ultimate drug", something giving pleasure without any hangovers or the like, would inevitably reduce humanity to something like an eternal useless machinery, with (most) everyone becoming just a mindless happy cog (not his exact words). Wonder how he would feel about doomscrolling.
Wow, thanks so much for this comment. There's so much!
I think the 'hiding from real life' bit is a great way of precisifying what we're doing, and I've come to think that what that means *specifically* will be different from person to person. It is probably a mistake to think of one thing we're hiding from.
But the most interesting part of your comment, to me, is the proposition that there is not some mysterious new cause, but rather a new solution (scrolling) to a problem that we've always had (struggle). This sounds deeply right. I'll have to think about this. I think the question of why we admit it so easily is still really important, though.
I hadn't thought of Brave New World for a second but its a great fit!
Really appreciate your thoughts on this.