On the reactive consumption and status-quo production of online content
Notifications. Tweets. Medium articles. Linkedin posts. Reactions to Linkedin posts. Industry articles. Independent articles from writers who used to work for the industry outlets. Reactions to Tweets. New notification! And so it goes.
There is so much content online. On one hand, that is helpful to society: people are sharing expertise and opinions. More discourse is good for democracy if you’re a believer in that. More expertise ‘democratized’ helps ‘level the field’.
But we’re so distracted from real life when consuming this content. We consume it so superficially that Twitter was inspired to ask if you have even read an article before sharing it with others. Is that not a red flag something is off?
Part of me feels like the move is actually to restrict consumption of online content reactively - and just seek it out proactively. Great - want to learn about chess? Google it and find reputable sources (and outliers), and learn. It doesn’t have to be high brow only. But opening a Twitter feed, seeing whatever the people I have some common interest have to say in this particular moment, clicking links, reading the replies - it’s all very hollow to me.
How can we justify reading the latest tweet if we have never read The Odyssey or The Prince? OK, a little high brow.
The now and the urgent hijacks our brain over the age-old and the important, we know -- but are we just victims? Do we just accept this and take solace in the idea that we understand why our brains do this, but do nothing to change?
I am glad online content means anyone can publish. But we also know that it’s the exception not the rule for the average person to break through the noise from mainstream publishers, verified tweeters, and the algorithms -- to seek out valuable knowledge and directly apply it for the benefit of themselves or the broader world. It’s all somewhat random and passive, which feels like a massive abdication of the power that technology has afforded us.
We must remember that new platforms evolve and don’t permanently play the same role as upon founding. Originally when anyone could blog or anyone could tweet or anyone could be an Instagram influencer or YouTube expert - yes, this did bring attention to voices that may go unheard; that may have prevented the obscurity of posthumously great thinkers of the past like a Kant, and how good for society to pull forward that progress. But over time, the forces of capitalism and status quo naturally co-opt new models as attention shifted there, and is anything really that different?