Friday Fodder #2
What's trending and what's transcendent?
Round 2. Fight!
Timely
What happened when I made my son and their friends go without smartphones - This is the single best article I’ve seen yet on the effect that smartphones have on teens, even well-adjusted teens with parents paying attention to social media. It’s also the best complement to Jonathan Haidt’s arguments. In this experiment, a group of kids goes without phones for a month, together, and are given real-world freedom too. A must read. A couple of ruthless quotes:
“It’s a trap,” Edie says. “You’re stuck, because if you do escape, you’re classed as a weirdo, and you’ll fall behind on trends, you won’t understand what people are talking about.” Rose jumps in, “But if you do watch TikTok, you’re going to get influenced. You know it’s all fake, but you still feel like it’s real. You still can’t help comparing yourself with everyone who looks pretty, and feeling bad about yourself. And you’re going to get addicted. It’s literally like a drug.”
And another:
“We did have a childhood,” Edie adds quietly, “without social media. I’m 15 now. Do you want to know why I still sleep with stuffed cuddly toys? To try and get back to how I used to feel, when I felt happy and free. Before all this shit kicked in.”
Your Boyfriend Isn’t Your Camera Man - Freya India demonstrates how the desire to be performative online puts extra stress on the real life relationships sitting right in front of you.
The Transformed Child - What I like so much here is distinguishing between transitional and persistent problems. Cutting off screen time is a transitional problem.. once kids adapt and (re-)learn how to entertain themselves.
Analog Is Cool Again - Jack Raines is one of my favorite writers from the zoomers, and here he points out: “for the younger millennials and zoomers (like me) who grew up in a world where fully digital was the norm, the question is no longer what can we put behind a screen, but what should we?” Sounds like the right question to me.
Timeless
20 Observations On Friendship - If there is anything that is timeless, it’s friendship.
The Rise of Neotoddlerism - While this is also timely, there’s a larger tension here around the need to look like you’re doing something and actually doing something. Heisenberg showed us almost a hundred years ago that the very act of observation changes any experiment, and what is our collective online life if not a gigantic fishbowl? Bonus points for using my favorite activist contrast: Greta Thunberg and Boyan Slat.
Swiftian Normality and The Freak Right - Smirk introduces the idea of Swiftian Normality as the conservative antidote for the pendulum swinging between Wokeism and the Andrew Tate/Bronze Age Pervert crowd.
Our Vanishing Internet - An interview with the other Wikipedia founder Dr. Larry Sanger. What does it mean when all the information is online? And just how biased is Wikipedia?
The Consequences of Generative AI on Online Communities - A deepdive into how generative AI changes communities of people. Newbies are less likely to interact and the quality of information dwindles over time. Fortunately, it sounds like focusing on social fabric can counteract the effects.
Books
Leisure: The Basis of Culture by Josef Pieper - Too many still imagine leisure as sitting on a lounge chair sipping mai tai’s and doing nothing. Leisure, instead, is what you want to do when you have the freedom and support to do it. Pieper gives this idea of leisure its proper philosophical due.
The Timeless Way of Building by Christopher Alexander - I wish more people knew about this book! It is particularly about building beautiful buildings, but it applies to so much more. It’s all about “the quality without a name” - the character that makes a building alive and satisfying - and the patterns that will let a builder make it happen.
Submission by Michael Houellebecq - This is a weird book about a French literature professor’s experiences as he navigates the Islamic takeover and application of Sharia Law in France. It’s one of those books where not much happens on any given page and yet somehow everything happens. By the end, he’s ready to convert and meet his first of many wives. Surreal.
Strange Rites by Tara Isabella Burton - A couple friends and I started a nonfiction book club earlier this year and this the first book. Burton explains the particular nature of American religion, it’s odd 19th century offshoots, and how all this applies to our cultural lives today.
