On 'dopamine fracking'

While I'm not sure that 'dopamine fracking' is the term for this, it's nevertheless a decent analysis of what's going on. (One of the terms they consider and reject is 'sloptimisation' - a term I also used in a post exactly a month ago.)

For all intents and purposes, an enormous number of people live online. The constant search for the next big thing, the next big hit of dopamine, has led to a culture of overconsumption and addiction. Whether it's communities becoming too popular, music becoming too cliché, videos becoming too "MrBeast-y," movies becoming too Marvel, websites becoming too flat — all that matters is the dopamine hit. And the long-term consequences are ignored. Not out of malice, but because it feels as addictive as a commodified drug, and people are simply trying to get their next hit.

I'm not saying that the things I listed lack merit or effort: an immense amount of work undoubtedly goes into any movie, song, or video if it's made by a person or team and not by AI. But at a certain threshold, if everything converges on a single point, there's quite literally no room for anything else in zero dimensions.

[...]

[This approach] extracts the most concentrated hit of dopamine and puts it in everything, while erasing all the complexity, nuance, and beauty that made it special in the first place. And the more we do it, the more we forget what the original experience was like, and the more we prefer the synthetic version, and the worse off we are. It's a vicious cycle that leads to a homogenized, commodified culture that is devoid of meaning and connection.

[...]

I've been gradually turning off dopamine fracking in my life: deleting channels and feeds that infuriate me or milk my triggers (positive or negative), uninstalling apps, and setting boundaries on what I will and won't engage with and consume. Becoming aware of this concept has made it easier to navigate the world. And it's becoming easier and easier for me to simply stop a video and close a tab when I sense that it's just trying to give me a hit of dopamine. It's so immensely liberating to be able to do that.

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Source: igerman.cc
Are.na block: ↗
Collection: digital-literacies-uqwnndauuom