#15: Anti-Flow

The Hidden Plots Impacting Your Life

Welcome to Recalibrating! My name is Callum (@_wanderloots)

Join me each week as I learn to better life in every way possible, reflecting and recalibrating along the way to keep from getting too lost.

Thanks for sharing the journey with me ✨

This week we are going to talk about waking up to the operations of the world around you (plot).

Recap From Last Week

Last week, we touched on the difficulties of finding your Voice in the digital age and how society tends to favour some voices over others. Social media further confuses our sense of self as we see curated highlight reels of others and can find it difficult to know which self to put forward online.

A solution is to develop your Voice as part of a character, you, the hero of the story. Flow is an excellent way to gauge which experiences you find the most engaging in life, a useful tool for finding your Voice.

This week, we are going to continue by discussing the next pillar of story: the plot.

But before we get into how we can add to our character development through plot, I want to provide some backstory so that you can understand the nuances of the current plot.

I warn you that this may be tough to think about, but that not thinking about it is even more dangerous.

Digital Distraction - The Anti-Flow

Last week I addressed the concept of creating a closed ecosystem for creativity and productivity, your second brain that operates within the echo chamber of your own mind. Your own World.

But why should you care? We now have access to the Internet, an infinite source of information that can give us the answer to every question we can think of, and hundreds or thousands more we didn't even have to ask.

Therein lies the problem: information overload. We are in a constant state of overwhelm. We go onto our phones or computer in search of one answer and get stuck scrolling for minutes or hours, taking in information (content) that we don't actually need.

Do you ever walk into the kitchen in search of something, but when you arrive, you immediately forget what it is you were doing in the first place? Instead, you do something else that you happen to notice needs to be done. It's not until you walk back to the living room that you remember what you were searching for in the first place.

It's the same with our digital spaces. Social media, email, the Internet, video games, etc. Each forms a digital place that we project our selves into while we consume digitized information. Data.

We intend to use these devices as tools for accomplishing tasks, entertainment, problem solving, etc., and often instead get caught up in the digital flow of information where time passes without notice. Rabbit holes and doomscrolling can take up many minutes or hours without us noticing how much time has actually passed.

Unfortunately, this digital ecosystem of distraction is not by accident. It is by design.

Attention Economy and Surveillance Capitalism

The attention economy is an economic system that enables transactions to be paid not with money, but with attention. We are in the era of literally paying with our attention as a currency.

We use so many products on a day-to-day basis that are completely free to use. Social media, email, and most websites provide services that do not require money.

However, there is a hidden cost to these products.

If the product is free, you are the product. 

Many companies operate on a business model where you do not pay to use the service. In exchange, you waive all or almost all of your privacy rights. Algorithms track every action you take on these services, often including the messages you are writing, likes, clicks, saves, shares, etc.

One of the absolute biggest metrics these algorithms care about is watch time. How long did you pay attention to this video vs that video vs that image. All of these forms of engagement generate data.

In turn, they sell this data to third parties who advertise on the free platforms and try to sell you their products or services.

Your attention is used to generate data that develops into targeted advertising.

This article from the United Nations Economist Network provides an excellent overview of the development of the attention economy. Here's a quote:

To address the scarcity of people’s attention, these technologies have been increasingly aimed at strategic capture of private attention aided by systematic collection and analysis of personal data, which has become a very profitable business model. Digital platforms started gathering very large numbers of data points about their users to sell to external users (particularly advertisers) for profit. Business models capturing and monetizing people’s attention and data, mostly without users knowing, were made possible by the lack of regulation to protect users as described in Prof Zuboff’s several writings on Surveillance capitalism. Advertisers pay as a function of viewers (attention) which is maximized by engagement in content (e.g. videos on YouTube, feeds on Facebook).

This topic is a complicated one that involves a deeper understanding of the business models of how major companies operate. Meta, Google, Amazon, Netflix, and social media generally all operate on a business model of surveillance capitalism.

But wait, doesn't this mean that I get advertisements that are more specifically tailored to me? Why is that a bad thing to cut out some of the noise and see things that I genuinely might want?

Where do I even begin…

Addicting Variable Reward Systems Stealing Your Focus

The more time you spend on a given app, the more watch time you generate. The more watch time you give a particular app, the more ads you see. The more ads you see, the more collective clicks those ads receive and the more purchases are made.

Accordingly, social media (and other free software) apps have an incentive to keep you on their platform vs the platform of a competitor. They want you scrolling as long as possible because they earn more ad revenue.

Thus, these companies are incentivized to structure their content, algorithm, and reward systems to keep you on their app as long as possible.

The term for the system that has been developed is called a variable reward system, or intermittent reward system. This reward system is the same system that is used to get people addicted to slot machines.

You know, where people sit at the slot machine for hours, days, and weeks, pulling the arm to play the lottery. Insert money, pull. Insert money, pull. Insert money, pull. Again and again and again and again.

Each pull there is a moment where you do not know what will happen. Maybe you win, maybe you don't. This uncertainty is thrilling, in part because we know that shortly we will return back to a place of stability (the known). This variable reward (uncertainty) provides a dopamine rush that makes us feel pleasure.

Sure, there is a chance that you will "win big" (massive dopamine), but the odds are stacked against you. In exchange for your time, attention, and money, you get a fleeting dopamine hit. With each loss, you want more, getting addicted to the thrill of each attempt, but leaving at the end of the day with nothing to show for your efforts.

Slot machines are often referred to as the "one-armed bandits" because they have a single arm that is pulled and they steal money from people.

Sound familiar?

Instead of pulling a lever, we use one thumb to scroll on websites and social media. Each time we scroll from one post to the next, we experience that fleeting intermittent reward: is this post going to make me laugh? happy? learn something? The unknown is thrilling, but only for a moment.

We then hit the next post. If we like it (winning at the slots), we stay for maybe 6 or 7 seconds, sometimes longer. If we don't like it (losing at the slots) we immediately scroll to the next post in search of something better.

Again and again and again and again.

I highly recommend the book Stolen Focus to learn more about the subtle pulling of your strings each day. The more you are aware of how these business models operate, the more you can choose to use them instead of having them use you.

Infinite Micro-Transactions

I hope you are sensing a theme here. These systems are not designed for one-off, large time sinks. Instead, they operate on thousands of minuscule moments that wrack up a huge count of watch time, over time.

Micro transactions of paying attention for seconds leading into minutes or hours.

What was your screen time this week?

Whatever the number, there is no judgement here. We do not need to blame ourselves or others for their screen time and their time on apps and social media.

Instead, let's think about how we can establish safer environments for our brains to process information without getting swept up in surveillance capitalism and the attention economy.

For context, the creator of the infinite scroll estimates that roughly 200,000 human lifetimes are spent each day on screens that would otherwise not have been spent on screens. That is to say, by not providing a limit to the scroll, we get sucked into an endless cycle of wasted time that wastes 200,000 lifetimes each day.

200,000 lifetimes! each day 🤯 If that scares you, to be honest, it should. It scares me.

To Play Or Not To Play

Tying this paradigm back to last week's entry on character development in story, instead of being the hero of our stories, the main character moving intentionally through the world, we becoming non-player characters (NPC). NPC are often bots in video games that go through the same actions over and over and over again without independent thought.

That is how I view infinite scrolling on social media. We lose our sense of self and move from being the main character to a NPC. Mindlessness, not mindfulness.

Aside from wasting our time, this infinite scrolling has dire consequences on our behaviour. We are PAYING attention. We are using up attention without even noticing it, losing the ability to pay attention to other tasks that would fill our cups instead.

In other words, instead of investing our attention, we are spending it freely, burning the currency instead of investing in our futures.

Of course, entertainment is not a bad thing. Entertainment can be very restorative and even mindful. I am not referring to intentional use of positive distractions, but rather those times where we find ourselves scrolling and not paying attention to the passage of time. The unintentional slippage.

It's hard to find flow when we have no energy or attention after burning one or more of our precious free hours each day scrolling on infinite scroll platforms. This is Anti-Flow. As we talked about last week, flow can be an excellent tool for character development.

This lack of time, energy, and attention to spend on tasks that truly benefit our character development, the hero's journey, is only one of the problems associated with the attention economy and surveillance capitalism.

As another horrifying example, the 2016 election in the USA was influenced drastically by misinformation and disinformation supplied through Facebook, echo chambers, and powered by the attention economy. Fake news through social media impacted the democratic process of one of the most (if not the most) powerful nations on the planet. We all saw what happened there…

I'm not going to go into detail on fake news in this Entry, but if you want to learn more, I wrote a paper on this topic in law school.

What's the Solution?

Now that you have some context for how the digital world is monetized through the attention economy, consider that, in many ways, this is not a new way of operating.

The attention economy has always been in place, even from the days of newspapers fighting for the attention of their audience or town criers yelling out the king's announcements. However, this system got way more personalized with the advent of television, and even more customized in the Internet Era.

In this world, ignorance is not bliss when ignorance comes at the cost of your ability to pay attention, engage with life, and participate in a free and democratic society. The Anti-Flow. I haven't even touched on the mental health issues (anxiety, depression, imposter syndrome, etc.) associated with overuse of infinite scroll systems.

If we want to develop our sense of self, we must take time to educate ourselves on how the world the self exists in operates.

With this knowledge comes the power to understand the operation of the world (the plot) and your place in it (setting).

Understanding the Plot

You can either be NPC (non-player character) or the hero, the choice is yours. The heroes become aware of their selves as they move through the journey of life. The NPC becomes a tool in someone else's game, monetizing the slot machines with their attention.

If you are not the the hero, you are the tool being used by others.

Understanding the rules of the game helps generate self-awareness of your place in it, and how you can begin controlling your own life.

Many people are NPC, going through the motion of life without actually living. They are pawns in someone else's game, being moved around without thought to the negative consequences to their physical and mental health.

Traditionally (especially since the 70's) corporations have treated workers like machines rather than individuals. Conformity has become the norm, resulting in stagnation of the individual in exchange for the growth of the inhuman corporation. I discuss this topic more in Entry #6: Financial Security and Mental Safety.

In a rapidly developing world of artificial intelligence, we as humans are going to be put in the middle of two inhuman entities. Literally. Corporations are considered "legal persons" and have rights despite the fact that they are not human.

With the rise of surveillance capitalism, it is often not even humans who are the ones pulling the strings, but the algorithms they have designed.

We are left with inhuman algorithms talking with artificial intelligence about how humans should be spending their attention. You are not alone if this gives you AI-nxiety.

Do we really want to leave the future of humanity to systems and machines? Or do we want to leverage the systems and machines to make us more human?

Personally, I am for the latter. Technology is an incredible tool that can be wielded by humans to save time, energy, and make our processes more sustainable and efficient, spreading wealth and equality throughout the world. This automation and efficiency would leave more time for art, science, travel, reading, anything you want. The modern renaissance.

Future-Proofing & Looking Ahead

Instead of reacting like a marionette, moving to the whims of the algorithmic puppeteers, consider what it means to act with intention in your own life.

We do not need to be helpless to the plots moving and weaving around us. If we only take the time to wake up and pay attention to the weaves, we can see the pattern and begin playing the game instead of having the game play us.

We can act with intention to control the path ahead of us instead of sleep-walking into the future.

Are you awake?

Next week

Next week we will finish with the third pillar of story: the setting. I will also tie together all three concepts into the Story as I see it, touching on how our use of technology can help us build a better world for ourselves and others.

Stay tuned ✨

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