RE: Algorithmic Degeneracy
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The devices are additive. We operate on a frequency level that sucks us in and is difficult to distance ourselves from. It takes great effort to do so!
The good stuff is how much easier it can be to learn new things - the world is truly at our fingertips, as long as we don't go always to the same places online.
This reminds me of a bat mitzvah I went to a dozen years ago. Smart phones were suddenly everywhere, in every teenager's hands. Just a few years before then, bat and bar mitzvahs were big dance and play parties, but this particular bat mitzvah had only the grown ups dancing, and the teens were ALL sitting at their table staring at their phones. It was shocking! Then covid got many of us working in our homes, all the kids learning in their homes on screens. We have been conditioned to believe that truly living means spening a great many hours each day staring at screens. Unfortunately, it has become necessary to do so.
In theory, we could almost do anything that has been done by others in the past and have a far better chance of creating something new in the future.... but, what do we do with it?
I see your bat mitzvah scenario play out daily in different ways. I just wonder, what is the scenario for a first kiss like now? Is it still through a dance at a party?
Your first kiss was in public? Not mine! It was in a boy's basement, his mother popping in now and then to check on us. She did not look happy, I remember that. Maybe because her son had let me smoke a cigarette down there. I still remember how he smelled, his acne meds I can still smell! Something quite missing via electronics, and must really affect the experience! If one is not able to fully experience the charge of human contact, do they settle for less? Does less seem good enough, as exciting? We are seemingly being systematically deadened.
hahahaha!
The quest for more and the quest for less - are the same psychology.
First kiss is going to be my next post btw. Might be fun!