Being Broken
I read a couple of posts this week that really got into my head. The first was The State of the Culture, 2024. It's a bit of a ride through ideas about Art and Entertainment and the trend for growing entertainment to eat art. It then zooms out and all of a sudden, Distraction is there to eat Entertainment. As a society, we're no longer seeking to be entertained; we're here to be distracted.
The fastest growing sector of the culture economy is distraction. Or call it scrolling or swiping or wasting time or whatever you want. But it’s not art or entertainment, just ceaseless activity.
It's TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Reddit, X, Bluesky - and Mastodon and the fediverse too. They're all built not on engagement, connection, conversation or discussion but on distraction via little hits of dopamine.
And what follows behind Distraction?
I was a little stunned when I saw this because it seemed so obvious. It also hit me as I'd been here before. As a smoker, I'd got to the same point - where you do things for Fun, Habit, Distraction and then you're staring at Addiction. It sneaks up over time until you hit that realisation that you are just ... addicted. The only reason you do this thing is because of the addiction, not because it was dangerous or fun, or because it felt good in the morning with a coffee, or because it helped distract you from stress and step outside – now you're just addicted. You do it to feed the addiction, the what seems inescapable draw to just do it.
Until you reach a point where you just can't do it anymore. Until you stop. I got to that point because what smoking was at one point had been greatly diminished. It wasn't like it was, it was shallow and mechanical. And Gioia shows that too... where the dopamine culture has got us, with a massively diminished life experiences across the board.
What I found with smoking was that there was no pleasure anymore. There was no buzz, and so the next part resonated:
The more addicts rely on these stimuli, the less pleasure they receive. At a certain point, this cycle creates anhedonia—the complete absence of enjoyment in an experience supposedly pursued for pleasure.
This is where I feel I am right now. I wrote before of feeling stuck, but maybe that was just a symptom of the addiction, that what used to be good and fun and engaging more deeply just isn't anymore. That social media has become so hollowed out that it's now devoid of pleasure. It's not there now, and maybe it never really was. Or it was, but the whole point wasn't to engage you with art or even entertainment but to distract and addict you.
The article ends with a reference to Dr. Anna Lembke, author of Dopamine Nation, and her suggestion of detoxing. And this is where I feel that pang of recognition. That idea of really truly disengaging makes me deeply uncomfortable. Like when I knew I was truly addicted to the cigarettes because I couldn't stop. Well, not that I couldn't, but that I needed to. There was a point after I acknowledged the addiction that I knew I had to quit. And I'm realising that's where I am with all of this other "stuff".
But this "stuff" is ... well ... everything!
How the fuck did we break everything?
Well, I think it was Covid.
I've felt the aftereffects of COVID-19 on my own life. Moving 1000+ kilometers away from your family and everyone you know right before being sealed off by a global pandemic leaves a few scars. Given its size and scale, it seems logical that everyone else also experienced some of the same effects to some degree.
This paywalled piece from David Wallace-Wells How Covid Remade America talks about the long-term effects Covid had on a nation and how they are playing out now in the US. While Trump 2.0 is one thing, the fact of the matter is that when the lockdowns came, technology was there. At first, it was to express ourselves. Then, to entertain us. Then, to distract us. And then Covid went away, but the habit didn't. It stayed, and the more we sort pleasure from it, the less we got.
Yes, things aren't what they used to be, but maybe part of that is that we are not who we used to be. We're addicts now. Willing to walk past the acts of bastardry we saw as long as it didn't affect us to the point where we were able to do the worst possible things to each other just so we can get another hit. Craving that stimulus, wherever it might come from. Willing to lower our standards and take whatever we can get because we need it now. Feeding the strategy of flooding the zone and responding to everything going on around us because... we're absolutely fucking addicted.
That's how it all broke. That's why we live here now, in all this hate and fear. We're no longer connected to reality, just to the screens, dopamine, habits, and scrolling.
Where we stop, that's when we can start again. By disconnecting from the habit and giving up on our addictions. You can feel that collectively now, a realisation of what we've left behind and turned our backs on. We need to return to place and people, to actual conversations, to talking with each other, and to sharing places.
Where I stop, that's when I can start again.
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