Phetasy News - Take Back Your Time
Phetasy News - Take Back Your Time
Phil Hanley Explains The Gifts of Dyslexia, Factory Settings 14 - Social Media, Politically Homeless - No Place For Me Anymore, Dumpster Fire 104 and Merch
Greetings from the Phetaverse!
This week on Factory Settings, Jeren and I talked about our history with social media. It’s the jumping off point for what will hopefully be many more conversations about media, social media, and our relationship to it. I mention how I wouldn’t have a career as a writer and a podcaster without Twitter—but at a certain point the cost starts to outweigh the benefit.
Since I’ve had a daughter all I can think about is how much time scrolling takes away from her. How much time it takes away from whatever other writing or creating or reading or exercising or meditating I could be doing. How much time it takes away from my husband or my dog, Hope. How much time we squander observing or partaking in virtual drama for the dopamine and lulz. It used to be a kind of harmless vice to kill time. Now I find myself saying, “If I’m scrolling, I could be [INSERT LITERALLY ANYTHING ELSE HERE].
But scrolling doesn’t just steal our time. It does something to us, psychologically.
This is what I’ve been trying to unpack on Walk-Ins Welcome in the series I’ve been doing with Thomas de Zengotita, the author of one of my favorite books on this topic, Mediated. He writes, “The problem with trying to comprehend the process of mediation is that you can’t get outside it. It is like a shadow that expends no energy and makes no effort, yet never falters. Perpetual reflexivity is haunting.”
I spend an inordinate amount of time talking about and thinking about what all the scrolling and swiping and liking and upvoting is doing to our minds, our hearts, our democracy and the very thin fabric of society. But will I ever really understand “The osmotic process through which reality and representation fuse”?
I doubt it. Trying to understand how the media saturated world I’ve been raised in has affected my mind is like trying to comprehend the vastness of the universe—only the universe isn’t constantly flattering me, addressing me, begging for my attention. The Universe, more often than not, is reminding me of my place. It’s reminding me that I’m an animated meat suit on loan and the clock is ticking before it’s time go back from whence I came.
Do I really want to spend what time I have left, scrolling mindlessly?
Thumbnail artwork by Lara Cullen.
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