Technology helped destroy honor and attention spans in the United States.
Before social media, people didn’t care about getting as much attention as they do now. In the past, people cared about living their lives to the maximum.
One example of this is the behavior of people on vacations. At one time not long ago, people went on vacations to enjoy the experience and be in the moment of a new place or a new experience.
Now, people go on vacation to signal how good their lives are to strangers on social media. Instead of taking a photo of the grand canyon, people take photos of themselves with the grand canyon.
People care more about others seeing them on vacation more than they enjoy being on vacation. This statement also reflects how people go to the gym now. If you didn’t take a picture of yourself lifting, did you even lift?
It’s nearly impossible to separate young people from their phones. The attention span of the average teenager is less than the family dog. Adults are undergoing the same phenomenon.
Social media giants spend billions of dollars researching exactly how to get you, dear reader, to stay using their platform and stay out of your life.
Post the best photos of yourself. Check Instagram every day. It’s a popularity contest that never ends. A high-school you never leave. The best photos get the most likes.
Grown men and women experience a dopamine rush like flakes of cocaine in champagne for notifications of online strangers “liking them”.
YouTube
YouTube is engineered to keep you on their platform.
All of your data, your personality, everything about you; is given away to YouTube based on your viewing history.
YouTube uses your searches to foie gras video content down your throat while your child starves to death and your grades plummet to levels of countries who can’t read well.
The YouTube engineers are too good at their jobs.
Politics Then
America has become an attention whoring, short attention spanned, reality show. It didn’t use to be like this.
Watching videos of the presidential debates between contenders of the last election shows a tendency to interrupt, break chains of thought and blatantly lie to the people.
No one can stay on topic for much longer than Elon Musk can stay on one project.
The video above shows a fascinating debate between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy back in 1960.
Notice how both parties speak on ideas for long periods without needing to jump topics.
Both of their attention spans are long like the Golden gate bridge and assemble concise arguments on their opinions without interrupting each other.
The crowd isn’t cheering and booing like crowds at debates today, behaving no different than at a hockey game.
Social media conditions us to seek immediate gratification while destroying our attention spans with Sherman tanks.
This debate video is a fascinating look into what America was, and how far she’s fallen.
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