Next Gen Digital Drugs

I wrote about how Scrolling Is The New Smoking a while ago. That Big Social’s (FB, insta, etc) takeover of our minds has the same effect on our bodies as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. 

Big Social’s runway hundreds of billions of dollars of success has now spurred the emergence of the next generation of social media. Designed in the image of their predecessors, this new generation of digital drugs is determined to reduce the richness and depth of the human experience to the absolute lowest bar in a race to the bottom fueled by their search for the most addictive, viral platform that can get the attention of the most number of people.

In this dystopian future being created right in front of our eyes, there is no tactic too low to win the war on attention. Digital Drugs have little substance and require minimal effort to deliver the biggest adrenaline, dopamine rush possible. Want to spiral down the rabbit hole and consume tweet after tweet while terrified and second guessing anything you might post that reflects your own opinions? Enjoy the state of Big Social. Want to chat with strangers about nothing for hours and just see people say “hi” “want potatoes” “i’m a potato” in hundreds of thousands of variations? Join Discord. 

The problem is partly what it’s doing to us, adults. But the bigger problem is how these social systems are shaping the minds of future gens (Discord, with 200m users and a $2b valuation, is primarily comprised of 13-16 year olds). What happens when you feed future generations the equivalent of cocaine from the time they use their first device until they’re adults?

Here’s a way to predict that – it’s being captured right now, on one of the most popular reddits w/ 1.8m members: r/socialskills. Here are some recent posts from that thread:

“I don’t know how to carry conversations and keep them interesting…

My conversation skills are Terrible.. I can’t find topics.. I always end up in awkward silence and people eventually get bored of me.. i read DMs from notifications to process them and come up with something to say… I am in a lot of pressure while talking to literally anyone… My sense of humour sucks… I’m not funny… Agh”

“How Do I Feel Less Invisible?

My main contact comes from a group chat with 20 people in it. I have felt really lonely recently but I have noticed when people talk to me in there it usually helps me feel better. The obvious answer is to talk in the group chat more but I struggle with anxiety and depression so it can be very intimidating to try and talk in the group chat. When people talk to me in there it usually helps me to feel less alone for a bit, but when I talk in the group chat I feel so anxious and worried. So how do I feel less invisible when talking to people?”

The sad truth is, there’s no possible way we can learn the nuances of communication, conversation, the social skills and EQ to navigate, understand, and explore the depths, complexities of the entire human experience, if all we’ve ever experienced in life is endless chatter and noise. If the way we’re forced to practice participating in social settings is to share a witty meme to a giant group chat of strangers, or send a quick SMH…NVM…YOLO back rather than engage in a conversation. There’s no way to experience and build on what makes us human when every system we’re drawn to participate in is designed to appeal to our worst selves because it’s easier to monetize off our addictions than it is off anything that requires any sort of effort for us (eg: candy for kids? Or broccoli? Which do you think is easier to sell?). 

In the endless chase for the next hot app, where addiction is rebranded under the euphemism of Daily Active Users (DAU) and heralded as a GROWTH METRIC, this is the dystopian world we are funding, fueling, and spiraling towards. 

Capitalism, once the world’s haven for innovation to change the world, is now the fuel and fire for tech that systematically destroys any semblance of quality of life in a maniacal race to the bottom for quantity of likes. Want to see what this looks like? It’s already happened to journalism over the last decade, where shock value and fake news take precedence over real, professional journalism. This is what is happening to our digital social networks. And this is particularly important now because our physical social networks have been disappearing for decades (now accelerated by Covid, remote work), so we’re basically left with these digital social networks as our only alternative.

There HAS to be a space that we carve out in the coming digital future for real conversations. We HAVE to create opportunities for empathy and real connection that can replace these systems of addiction. Not chatter. Not noise. Not memes. Not abbreviations. Not posts. Not posturing. Not silencing. For thoughtful, real conversations that matter. Between real humans, unfiltered, authentic. No audiences, no followers, watching, liking, poking fun at, judging. Just human beings, talking about something they care about. Giving each other more than 10 seconds of attention. 

The future is undeniably digital. And it’s up to us to create the world we want to live in, otherwise we’re enabling or succumbing to our current reality and dystopian future. Inaction is complicity. For me, action means building twine, a conversation platform designed to ensure that there is always a place for humanity where great conversations can happen. 

What world will you choose to create and enable?