đĄThink
Hey everyone, itâs been a while!
I was asked this week what my thoughts were on the social media landscape, given I spend so much time in or around it.
Honestly? Itâs a bit of a disaster. Twitter has gone the way of âbuy my stuff!â / everything is an advert, LinkedIn is apparently where we all post selfies and write inspirational quotes, and Instagram is somewhere you can lose 3 hours per day endlessly flicking the screen, no problem.
In none of these networks do I feel that we have a âsocialâ aspect, which defeats the point. What we are in now is a dollar squeezing, where metrics promote addiction, and where our need-this-buy-this is fed to infinity. If you havenât read the book Hooked, weâre practically living it.
Some positive though! I have noticed a deep desire for people to meet more in person, which is a surprise given how comfortable we got in our comfies, but is a very welcome sign for how this social gap can be plugged.
Have a great week đ
đ· Look
đ Read
ⶠWeâre all lurkers now
This article may slap you round the face. It discusses how everyone is online, but no one is contributing. Weâre all in the shadows! They summarise way better than I could the introduction to this newsletter, highlighting that weâre all turning âoutwardâ, growing silent, and sitting in digital rooms alone.
â· The sterile world of infinite choice
This article discusses a âyearning for limited optionsâ, in a world where we can get everything we want in an instant. If you either missed it, or forgot about the world before instant access everything, well this will be refreshing. I wanted to quote so much of this article, as it rang very true with how Iâm feeling at the moment. Hereâs one more great quote: âalgorithms do the work for cheap, but when they reflect our taste back at us.â
âž What comes after liberalism
A bit of philosophy and politics to finish this week. This jumps into discussing how we now live in a hyper liberal world, where weâre assaulted by the politics of our own identity.
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Bonus round
An interactive scrollable article uncovering loneliness in the US. The visual style is fantastic
đ§ Listen
The MLM-to-coaching pipeline
Linking back to my opener, I mentioned how everything is for sale. This podcast looks at that phenomenon under the microscope. Itâs a bit more âstoryâ than Iâd normally share, and looks at one personâs exposure to marketing pyramid schemes, but I enjoyed it regardless. The content relates incredibly well to the problem we have in tech at the moment where everybody is making a damn course.
Listen to this podcast (45 mins)
Spotify â Apple
Have a great week,
@disco_lu