It’s no secret that social media has become highly addictive. In fact, the average person spends about 2 and a half hours per day consuming social media in some form. As a result, the Senate is considering a ban on the addictive features of online media, such as continuous scroll and autoplay.
David Gelernter, in 1999, released “THE SECOND COMING — A MANIFESTO,” making radical predictions about future technologys' place in our lives. While some of his projections have proved fruitless, others are coming true, and the addictive continuous scroll is just one example.
“In the beginning, computers dealt mainly in numbers and words. Today they deal mainly with pictures. In a new period now emerging, they will deal mainly with tangible time — time made visible and concrete. Chronologies and timelines tend to be awkward in the off-computer world of paper, but they are natural online.”
Gelernter clearly hit the nail on the head with this prediction. Copious social media platforms now utilize a continuous scroll in chronological order. In fact, when platforms such as Twitter and Instagram announced a switch to a curated post order rather than chronological, users were outraged, demanding the change be reverted; the most natural layout of online media is through a tangible chronological timeline. Gelernter also predicted that “the computing future is based on "cyberbodies" — self-contained, neatly-ordered, beautifully- laid-out collections of information, like immaculate giant gardens.” A social media continuous scroll is exactly that. Our infinite media feeds are beautifully crafted exhibits of information individually curated by perceptive algorithms according to time, relevance, and our own preferences. That's what makes them so addictive.
Gelernter furthermore envisioned pictures overtaking words as the forefront of our interaction with technology. This prophecy has manifested in the dominance of Instagram, TicTok, and YouTube. Images are more quickly absorbed, more entertaining than words, and ultimately more addictive.
While Gelernter was accurate in these predictions, he did not account for the reasons behind them. The infinite media feed was not created simply due to its natural representation of data; instead, it was created to feed internet addiction which bolsters software companies’ insatiable bottom lines. Gelernter was brazenly optimistic about the future of technology, but he did account for who would be funding those changes and why. He projected a change for the better, but for better or for worse, it’s now up to lawmakers to decide whether the era of internet addiction has reached critical mass.
Hi Emma, I really enjoyed reading your post! You do a good job of explaining Gelernter's vision for information and how it has been actualized today through social media. I especially appreciated your articulation of how this came to be because of corporations thirst for power and money rather than the nature of information itself. I did notice a few typos here and there ('TikTok','He DIDN'T account for...') so be sure to proofread! I think the title might be a little unrelated but I know you can't change that now.
ReplyDeleteWow, your use of images is spot on and really helps the flow of the article. The format and size of the images dont draw attention away from the reading but do help to help the reader picture what you're writing about. I also really liked the use of links in case the reader wanted to explore the topic further. The use of Gelernter's arguments also fits in well with the paragraphs and stays central to post from the beginning to end. Honestly it was a really good read. The only possible thing I can say is I'd be really interested in hearing your opinion on the topic, it doesn't really come up in the post but that's more of a stylistic choice than something to be critiqued.
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