this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2025
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Yeah, this, ahem, is strengthened by this:
Because you have a dopamine farming machine that goes as good as it can, why do an activity where nobody's even trying to compete with it?
And I hate to say it, but being autistic I'm more, not less, vulnerable to said machine. Willpower.
So - there are similar extremely optimized dopamine farming machines everywhere looking nicer than some truths around. Instead of continuing to write a program to do what I'm dreaming of, or at least find tooling, I can argue in a TG chat about whatever. Instead of going to a friend group meeting I can sit all day playing video games. Between going for a walk I can read things I don't need. Or comment on Lemmy.
When everyone is used to picking a glossy advertised easy way over more real and dimmer one, it also reinforces "all or nothing" thinking.
In addition, “short” forms, right down to the trite, terrible music, mimic TV ads of yore. (Maybe current too, idk. I don’t consume ads. I don’t have a TV, and when I do watch YT it’s on a PC with uBlock on.)
Basic Psych 101: people are drawn to the familiar. Are high shorts consumption individuals more likely to consume ads?
With everything we’ve said, it wouldn’t be so bad if it was light consumption, maybe with morning coffee, left off for the rest of the day, but instead there’s an insidious pattern I see at work. Do the work, rush back to a chair to thumb swipe up on a screen for the next 30min to an hour. Work, back to the seat for more low attention span crap, rinse/repeat, for an entire shift.
I’m old. If I try to watch shorts like that my brain feels like a cross between watching TV ads and like I’ve been working on busywork/bullshit homework worksheets from school back in the day. It’s an awful sensation, so I don’t do it. I can only speculate that my crystallized wiring has a different format that isn’t so compatible with this new consumption pattern.
This, our discussion, fits more with long form discussion boards in academia, but as part of a graffiti wall. With bullshit, screaming, and bots filling in the gaps. The attention span problems aren’t so much an issue, depending on how you consume, but the dopamine bit is the same. There’s also a partial reinforcement rewards schedule there but that’s another discussion.