Spent a morning out on the town on my day off, and everyone is just fucking buried in their phones 24/7. This realization was so absurd to me
Of course I’m not exempt from this shit, but no wonder people are having so much trouble making friends and creating meaningful relationships in this day and age. So fucking bleak
It's a mixed bag; TV for the most part isn't quite as algorithmically curated to squeeze maximum attention draw and engagement, moment by moment, for each individual watching it.
I'm sure there's still upsides, but considering the "there's nothing on, let's do something else" windows of opportunity of TV's peak of relevance, I don't think the new stuff is less harmful.
yep, TV isn't in your pocket 24/7 with a magnetic draw to your attention span, where every moment you aren't watching TV you feel a slight pressure at the back of your mind, like a fixation, to view it right now
I can tell you that even TV-hooked older millennials (and younger Xers) that were at my earlier D&D tabletop games had a steep drop in attention span, even at the table, when smartphones started becoming commonly used. Night and day difference and it took years for some of them to decided they could turn the damn things off at least for a little while to play.
They're bad in different ways. TV is more brainwashy while social media is more addicting. The real difference is portability. People weren't running around with pocket TVs during the 90s. At best, you had TVs in vans that kids would watch on long road trips. But if pocket TVs did exist back in the day, then I honestly don't think there would be any difference between people in the 90s staring at their pocket TVs and people now staring at their phones. The algo and bullshit like infinite scroll are cognitohazards, but everyone mindlessly absorbing the same talking points from the same talking heads is its own problem as well.
No disagreements with you there.
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You not seeing it doesn't mean they're not manipulating you and everyone around you.
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This comment?
You implied in that comment that being in front of a TV is worse and that's kind of dubious. TV isn't clearly worse; it's bad in different ways compared to portable devices that constantly shovel algorithm-driven content at people for maximum attention draw and engagement.
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I admit my ideas were somewhat tangential but I contend that they mattered enough to be brought up anyway because they affect the outcomes of what we were discussing.
I also admit I did somewhat miss your intended thrust with what you were saying.