I have noticed that writing and perfecting my written word gives me a huge sense of accomplishment for a day
No Jackpot in Social Media — Except One
A dozen lonely people sit in a row of slots and pull the lever of the slot machine over and over again, mesmerized by the information on monitors.
The brain is eagerly waiting for this information.
The brain knows that the probability of getting three strawberries in a row is very low.
The brain keeps analyzing every combination and gives the order to get a new piece of information.
The owner of the brain pulls the lever again.
The brain’s main and default function is to collect information to save, maintain, and improve our lives. To help us survive. Here, in front of the slot machine, it malfunctions. It was supposed to stop this activity as useless. But the hope of getting the information that is beneficial keeps it vigilant.
Even while I understood this malfunction, my own brain was already setting me up for the same game.
“Ok, Kate, you are going to roll this slot machine first thing in the morning,” I said to myself, opening my eyes after a night of rest, and smirked.
The thought was funny at first. Expecting that someone would stop and read my yesterday’s Facebook post and think with me brought sorrow. I felt like Harlequin, the fool entertaining without being understood.
Over 100 people have seen my post. If one were to read, one would react to my thoughts in some way. The brain malfunctions in front of the screen with Facebook content in the same way it does in front of the slot machine monitor. Users scroll, waiting for a big win. But what information are they waiting for here? Definitely not something that will stop them and invite them to think.
Thinking people are not sitting with the Facebook app open and waiting for a good, deep thought to enrich them with the next scroll. They wait for emotions. Scroll. No luck this time. Scroll again. Maybe, with the next scroll. One more and one more… the timeline is endless, so is the scrolling.
I am not a fan of any timeline anymore. Not Facebook, not YouTube reels, not any other. But I still try my luck when I post results of my thinking and learning process, with the expectation that someone will be interested in discussing it. Where? On Facebook? And the fact that I know that no thinking people would scroll the Facebook timeline and still wait to catch some with my post makes me no different from those people in the casino slot machine section.
I have successfully cut off the scrolling habit with a firm decision to stop it forever, and there is no reason to ever reconsider this decision. But I haven’t realized until now that waiting for the Facebook audience to appreciate deep thought is my brain’s malfunction. Social media is not for thinking.
Next thing, I went to the links of bloggers and thinkers I have saved for myself to read. Usually, those are long reads. Sometimes they are short and deep. I felt relief like a non-smoking person would after walking out of a place full of smokers with a dense curtain of poison in the air.
If I don’t expect someone to share deep content in a Facebook post (most of those people simply don’t have that account), why do I expect someone to read mine?
I don’t say that my content comes from a higher intelligence than any of my friends on Facebook. But I do say that Facebook is not a forum for thinkers. I can only reserve it for the marketing materials I will produce. Because it is a marketplace for shallow information and quick wins, just like casino slot machine rows.
Millions of lonely people scroll for useless information, and awareness itself feels like the only real jackpot.
Read moreNothing will tell you more about what people value than what they do repeatedly.
Tom Critchlow – The Strategic Independent: Theory & Practice for Independent Consultants (Ways of Seen Chapter)
When AI becomes your enemy
It took me months to teach my students to use AI for batch production, brainstorming, writing.
It might take me ages to unteach them.
AI is very important time saving tool. I thank God for the opportunity to live in the era when AI is born and became massively used. But overreliance on it robs us of skills to think, formulate thoughts and grow our personalities.
In this sense it becomes our enemy.
Allan Karr in his book about quitting smoking writes that smokers consider cigarettes their friends.
“This is my friend for life” – my husband exclaimed when I confronted him about smoking 20 years ago.
The word “friend” was bolt from the sky. In one word there was the whole philosophy of life. And cigarette had it’s own pedestal.
In upcoming years many people will place AI on the same pedestal. That is when it becomes our enemy. Not the opened one. But in disguise of friend. Just like cigarets for many.
What’s the danger apart of the AI Earth takeover?
A total braintakover like the zombie-ant-fungus.
This fungus takes control of an insect’s nervous system, forces it to move to an ideal location for the fungus, and then kills the host, releasing spores to infect more insects.
Fungus kills the ants physically. I think AI will be smarter, keeping the host physically existent. if we look at existence from the perspective of Descartes.*
* "I think, therefore I am," or cogito ergo sum, is a famous philosophical statement by French philosopher René Descartes. It means that the act of thinking, even if one is being deceived about the nature of reality, proves one's own existence. You must exist to think, and since you are thinking, you must exist.
Thinking is a skill, that vanishes just like the muscle of 50 years olds if they don’t excersize intentionally. Use it or lose it.
Is there a solution?
If the gym and strategic control of physical activity is the solution to seditary lifestyle that kills most of the worlds city population these days, then there is a similar solution to suppress the downsides of today’s technological advancement.
Back in the days of industrial revolution people were panicking that cars were becoming the main transport. Some were insisting in using horses by all means untill it was nearly impossible. Today horses are only used for tourist trips in the cities creating a huge discomfort to the traffic. And therefore mainly allowed in parks and historical sites.
No one could stop cars. No one will stop AI. What we can do is to create gyms for brains. That’s why I joined the blogging people and advance into authoring books. I found solution for myself so that I don’t get extinguished by the friend, which can easily turn into an enemy.
The Day I Quitted Scrolling
Yesterday deleted the Facebook app from my phone to stop scrolling and wasting my time. Noticed that scrolling was like a slot machine, where I get dopamine from the expectation of the novelty. Expectation. That is counter productive because I have never been satisfied with this activity. Losing at times 7 hours of my time on it. Including watching interesting unplanned videos on YouTube.
I don’t want it anymore. I realized that there is nothing that I win with it. Nothing. I need a conscize review of current affairs. I can do it once a week following checked and reliable sourses. I don’t need daily presence online. I can keep my pages in perfect activity through batch publishing. I don’t know why would I want the social media anymore.
The downsides of being addicted to it from the other side have caused me productivity. I have not produced the products and projects that I wanted and with the speed I wanted due to this addiction. I was afraid to miss out on something and not being relevant enough to serve my audience and create positive influence. But staying in social media did not make me niether relevant nor I have made any positive influence.
Today I feel happy. Happy that I am free. Few times I have taken the phone responding to the impulse to scroll, but immediately remembered my decision to quit scrolling once and for all. It is a principle. I don’t scroll because of how the social media work today. Advertisement, low value content, out of the context.