50 Analog Activities that Resist the Attention Economy

One of the most influential books that I’ve read in 2021 was How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy by Jenny Odell. Big companies spend a lot of money to gain our attention. Before the digital age, companies were focused on capturing our hard-earned dollars through consumption of their products. Today, companies seek to capture our attention by consuming their advertisements. Our attention, rather than our money, has become the commodity that big companies compete for. Looking at it from this perspective, our attention is what we must protect. Our attention is the resource that companies seek. Our attention is what we run out of all the time, because sneakily, companies are trying to buy them from us.

The attention economy is what drives us to social media. It’s what makes us pick up our phone and unknowingly click on Instagram. Addictive apps are creating social behaviors that keep us coming back to these companies. The companies that have the ability to bring your attention back to them has the most influence, and influence is power. If they can make the behavior a habit, any future influence they want to have on you in the future will become easier. They can essentially make you do whatever they want you to do, without you ever being aware of it. Because of this, we must resist, to the best of our ability, the attention economy.

In the book How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell articulates how doing ‘nothing’ (according to our society’s definition of what gives life purpose and meaning) is actually a way for us to ‘fight’ these companies from taking control – which really means that by doing ‘nothing’, we are doing something about the way in which large companies are subverting the general public. That really struck home, as I prefer to see my choices in life as its own form of silent rebellion against the current institutions that I don’t agree with.

Plus, as a frugal-wanna-be who has spent the last five years resisting consumerism as best I can, I have gained plenty of experience in finding analog activities that do not succumb to companies vying for my attention. In general, just being out there doing things for others around you and for yourself is the best way to resist the attention economy. But in case you need a few ideas on how to separate yourself from those Instagram advertisements, here are a few of our favorite activities to engage in.

Our Top 50 Analog Activities

Play vinyl records.
Go bird-watching at an estuary.
Skim stones on a glass lake.
Learn how to walk a tight-rope.
Cook meals together.
Read books by candlelight, or aloud.
Wash the car.
Go on a hike.
Have a social interaction without social media.
Plant a tree or garden.
Visit a farm.
Bake something challenging (like a croquembouche).
Make a sandcastle at the beach.
Go for a bike ride.
Organize the home.
Walk other people’s dogs.
Do a puzzle.
Go stargazing.
Visit a museum.
Play board games.
Enjoy a picnic, even if it’s on your balcony.
Play a sport outdoors. Think tennis, or kick a soccer ball around.
Visit friends or family.
Have a bonfire at the beach.
Take afternoon naps.
Pick up an instrument and practice, practice, practice.
Take a long, hot bath.
Volunteer.
Finish a home improvement project.
People watch on a park bench.
Give your pet all the cuddles they deserve.
Do a nature walk and photograph all the different plants and animals you encounter.
Make lists of the things you want to do.
Draw, paint, or do some sort of art project.
Try your best to master chess.
Perfect magic tricks.
Go camping.
Pick up pottery.
Learn how to make sourdough bread.
Do your own car maintenance.
Try to become a mixologist.
Pull out those rollerskates.
Complete an adult coloring book.
Practice flower arrangements.
Make plans for the future.
Go swimming at the community pool.
Declutter your things.
Start a journal and process all the feels and thoughts.
Do a workout routine.
Stare into space and let your mind wander.

These are a collection of our personal favorites and we pull from this list quite regularly. Of course, you’ll want to find activities that align with your own personal hobbies! It seems the younger generation will have a tougher time finding things that they can relate to but as the adults, we need to show them how to slow down enough to disengage from the RA-RA-RA, GO-GO-GO mentality, lest they develop a strong sense of FOMO in their early youth that will make resisting the attention economy quite difficult for them in the future. Enjoy your silent rebellion.

Photo by Sarah Dorweiler on Unsplash

Recent Reads: Kitty O’Meara

And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply.

Some meditated, some prayed, some danced.

Some met their shadows.

And the people began to think differently. And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal.

And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.

Recent Reads: The Creative Habit

Twyla Tharp’s guide to The Creative Habit has got me analyzing everything about the way I process the world and my art. The book details steps in which we can unravel our creative intricacies and understand the ways in which we work best. It also provides exercises that hope to unlock even more of our potential, as well as unnerve some of our fears. Below, I discuss some of my most recent thoughts as to how I live a creative life under the guidance of well-formed habits, and I study my own battle between being an artist and honing in that artistic quality into something more productive.

My whole life, I’ve struggled with choosing between following good habits for structured creativity and the transience of going with the flow. I lean towards following the former although my natural tendency is the latter. The dichotomy is what makes my life so productive and my art good but internally, it’s chaos.

It is now obvious to me that I was born with a creative soul to a mother who preferred a rigid structure. Growing up, I must have not been very good with a linear way of thinking, which explains why so much of my mother’s energy was spent on teaching me focus. My sister, to whom all subjects came naturally, was allowed to run more wild as reward for finishing her tasks efficiently. I was the child who was not allowed to get up from my chair until my work was done (and re-done) to standard, until all the food was eaten from my plate, until all the boxes were checked off of the list. My daydreaming always got the better of me, and I would watch my sister run off to play while I soured in acknowledging that it was my own darn fault for letting my imagination take the best of my precious time. My observant mother saw that my tendency to dawdle and dwell would hinder my ability to get anything done. At a very young age, she taught me some of my best habits for a productive life.

Sit down and focus.
Mute all distractions.
Create a plan at the very beginning of your day.
Make a strict timeline for all tasks.
Aim for improving your efficiency.
Figure out your weaknesses, and tackle those first.
Do one thing at a time.
Record every step.
Re-assess (for improvement, always).

Eventually, I learned how to follow the lines, I learned how to ignore all distractions, and I learned to reject play. I was taught that if I just focused hard enough, I could finish sooner and would therefore have more time to do what I wanted. Ironically, once I developed these habits and became efficient, what I wanted to do started to embody exactly what I have been doing to be free. In other words, I spent my free time following the steps I was taught, making plans and listing improvements, and it was my sister who ended up having bad focus and less discipline (she’s still efficient though!).

Yet I see that structure is not my most natural way of unfolding. It’s evidenced by the fact that I am always late (to work, social obligations, class, et cetera). I tend to want to do things sporadically, out of order, based on emotion – so it’s great that my mother taught me how to prioritize and make lists, otherwise I would never even make it to work. Real work to me is not a job. It is the work inside of me. I see it in the tornado I leave behind on my days off when creativity strikes. I hear it when my excitability gets the best of me and my conversations jump from thought to thought. Sometimes it drives my husband bonkers, because I’ve asked seven questions before he can even get a word in. Structure is no good to me and I don’t like people telling me what to do or having society define my life. I know this is true when my math always requires a paper and pen. Don’t get me wrong, I was the best at it when I did it, but without every step written out, numbers got lost and left behind unlike words which I could always keep track of even if they’re left floating in my head, even when the sentence runs on and on. Most of all, I know it is so when I explain emotion with color, when I feel a connection with dough, when I empathize with a wilting flower or a forgotten pen.

Because of this dichotomy, I am constantly at war with myself. I wish to write, but I have a million ideas. I’ll want to pull out pen and paper, type on my phone, grab my camera, pull up social media, and soon enough, I’ve got a “text cursor” blinking forgotten and every art supply laid on my desk because somehow what I was typing about gave me an idea that I jotted down on paper which reminded me to take note of it on my phone but upon getting up to grab my phone from the sill I saw something that I wanted to photograph and put up on social media where the first image on my feed called for inspiration to pull out a pencil and draw. Such is life.

Or, I’ll pick up a book to relax but read a line that touched me enough to draw my head up to ponder and then see a bird outside my window that reminded me of a time when we were in New Zealand which made me feel like being an expat and now I am drafting a new plan to make my loans paid off faster to pursue the expat life – and how can I get my baking gig to take off to supplement this dream? And so you see the way my heart works.

Now imagine my mind trying to wrangle all that in. I pull myself from my drawing to relocate myself to my desk where the blinking cursor awaits. But now there’s a mess on the kitchen table and I cannot focus so I get up to clean the mess so that I get rid of the distraction even though the getting rid of distraction is distraction itself. I make a strict timeline for the writing to be done but because of all the creative interruptions, I am missing my marks. And because of all the structure, I am impeding my creative flow. So I try to chase my thoughts but it hinders efficiency thus in order to be efficient I force myself to do one thing at a time. Somehow between all this warring, some things get done. It’s a crazy back-and-forth process, but I do believe that this defines efficiency for a creative life.

I know people who are creative at their core, but unproductive in the real world. I know of people who have brilliant ideas, but also brilliant fear – without the structure to dismantle that fear. I know people who get bogged down by emotion but cannot find a release. It’s a shame when that energy burns a person from the inside. And so it goes that a creative person will not create without having the habit of creating, which is, simply put, good habits.

And after that stressful narrative of the inner workings of my mind and soul, I find comfort in knowing that somehow, I’ve got it right. The balance, which off course runs differently for each person. If you’ve got some creative juice in need of direction, I would highly suggest reading this book. It has a gold mine of thoughts and exercises which may change the way you pursue your most creative aspirations. If anything, I hope it brings you a closer understanding of who you are, as it did me. I highly recommend!

Recent Reads: The Power of Habits

I wrote once about the word negligible, and how I refuse to allow it in my vocabulary. I believe in the power of action. I believe in our ability to change things, to move needles, to push past walls that were built. This belief itself is a habit that allows me to accomplish things which other people can only dream to. A quote from The Power of Habit sums up the importance of this belief.

“Later, he would famously write that the will to believe is the most important ingredient in creating belief in change. And that one of the most important methods for creating that belief was habits. Habits, he noted, are what allow us to “do a thing with difficulty the first time, but soon do it more and more easily, and finally, with sufficient practice, do it semi-mechanically, or with hardly any consciousness at all.” Once we choose who we want to be, people grow “to the way in which they have been exercised, just as a sheet of paper or a coat, once creased or folded, tends to fall forever afterward in the same identical folds.”

A habit of mine growing up was to always say yes. Granted, with the advent of minimalism and slow living, I have come to realize that such action easily leads to a place of overwhelm. But within that habit was born a particularly positive outlook towards our abilities as a human being. By saying yes, I was continually telling myself and others around me, “It can be done.” And whenever I failed at something, I always thought in the back of my mind, “If only I had done this”, serving as ammo for the next attempt I make. “Impossible” was not a valid excuse. Perhaps lack of resources, lack of focus, lack of inspiration were the causes of failure, but nothing that could not be improved or fixed.

When people start to dream of the life they wish to lead, there is a tendency to immediately berate ourselves with a list of reasons why dreams are separate from reality. But the truth of the matter is that our realities are shaped by us in our own heads, in the exact same space where dreams lie. The only thing separating the two is your ability to believe in their oneness.

All I promise is this.
It gets easier, by the day,
until eventually, you realize
you’re the writer of your own story,
a magician of your making,
and the creator of your universe.

Recent Reads: Marie Kondo Interviews Elizabeth Gilbert on Tidying the Mind

May I start by saying that Elizabeth Gilbert’s book, “Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear” was one of the first catalysts that pushed me to embark on a creative lifestyle. I read the book on our flight home from our honeymoon in New Zealand January 2016, and I remember how powerfully I was impacted by her words. Needless to say, I am a huge fan and attribute this writer-baker-dentist-dog-walking lifestyle to her work. As many of you who have already been in this space for a while know, Marie Kondo’s book, “The Life Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing” was the starting point of my decluttering journey. Since then, I have found that cleaning my home was a reflection of cleaning out all the parts of myself that felt unaligned with who I am and who I wish to be. Alas, it comes as no surprise that this interview between the two is brimming with “all-the-feels”, and stands as my top read for this week. If anything I write on this blog jives with you, perhaps it would be relevant to take a gander at this quick interchange of thought between two modern influential women at this time. If you have more than a few moments, perhaps immersing into either of their books would better suit your taste? Below, I highlight a part of the interview that speaks the most to me at this time, as well as my thoughts on the matter.

Marie Kondo:

In the KonMari Method™, we encourage people to ask the question, “Does it spark joy?” to all areas of their lives. Is there a question or concept that you apply in making important decisions?

Elizabeth Gilbert:

I always say this to women: “Start knowing.”
I say it to myself, too.
Enough of “Should I do this?”
Go deep and say, “It’s time to know.”
You have to believe that the force of knowing is in you. We’ve inherited it from our ancestors; they’ve passed on everything they went through. There’s an old version of you that lives in yourself.
Ask her.

Often times I feel like the big changes in my life have come when the one in me who knows is appalled by the way that I’m living.
She’s so ANGRY.
She just looks at the way I’m living and says,
“No! This isn’t it! This isn’t good enough! This isn’t what we came here to do. We came here for better things than this.”
I don’t mean not rich enough, not famous enough.
I mean not accurate, not honorable enough for who you are.

THIS!! ALL OF THIS.

They say that, sometimes, when something in you is unsettled, you get a feeling. Like when Will in Stranger Things gets that eerie tingling at the back of his neck as the Mind Flayer draws near, I think we all have that little inkling towards auras that are dangerous to our well-being. It CAN’T only be me (and Will).

It’s like your inner-self “that knows” is screaming at your oblivious outer-self to listen. We get these uncertainties, but they’re stronger than our anxieties. I’m not talking about a quiet voice that whispers in your head. What I’m referring to is something waaaay more visceral. Something that comes from your gut … but deeper. The gut of your soul, if you believe in that sort of thing. A learned lesson from your past life, if you believe in THAT sort of thing.

I believe that Gilbert’s addressing of women, in particular, is important. Unfortunately, centuries of societal norms have failed in teaching women how to listen to their inner selves. We’ve historically been taught to listen to someone else (ahem). BUT! Times are changing, and it’s time we listen to us. I hang out with a lot of guys. They point out, in particular, my habit of answering simple questions with, “I don’t know.” Easy decision-making that revolves around where to eat, what to do, how I feel… the easy way out is to say, “I don’t know”. They hate it because I revert most decision-making about what we do and where we eat to them. UGH. I know. Thankfully, I have very progressive guy friends who force me to decide by saying, “No. This is an equal relationship, and you have to decide sometimes.” Thank goodness!

But I do see it in myself and in female friends a lot. This unknowingness. This repulsive impulsive reaction to just let men decide what to do with the simplest of things. It’s a habit that needs to change. It’s a matter of believing in our ability to know. “Ask her,” she says. Sage advice, if ever I heard one.

So in asking her, a topic that has been unsettling for quite some time.

Instagram.

I’ve alluded to my addiction once before, here. I know my triggers (seeing my cell-phone) and my reward (public affirmation). I know my excuses (the need to have Instagram to grow my blog, the need to maintain my relationships however virtual, the need to have a creative output, whatever). I know the consequences (hours spent editing photos, writing up paragraphs, scrolling through feeds… mostly the latter). I know what it was like to quit for one month (more time, more calm, more REAL relationships, more energy, more creativity). From this, you gather that I know a LOT. So why is it that I always say, “I don’t know what to do about Instagram.”

Upon reading EG’s answer to MK’s question, something in me sparked. It wasn’t joy. It was a knowing. It was like that inner me was finally yelling loud enough out of absolute R.A.G.E. at my insensitivity towards the unhealthiness of the app. And it’s like EG spoke the exact words that my inner self was trying to get me to hear.

“No! This isn’t it! This isn’t good enough! This isn’t what we came here to do. We came here for better things than this.”

“I don’t mean not rich enough, not famous enough.” Everything I say Instagram promises for the blog.
“I mean not accurate, not honorable enough for who you are.” Everything that goes against what the blog represents. I always write about being good enough. About fighting societal pressures. About doing what’s aligned. All this and more clashes with everything Instagram sells.

The truth is this:

There are systems in place that sell us the things that are not good for us.

Added salts, sugars and fats that keep us returning to restaurant tables.
Advertisements that keep us spending hard-earned dollars on consuming goods.
Celebrities trying to sell us a glamorous lifestyle.
Wall Street analysts telling us that we can outsmart the market.
Instagram selling us a platform in order to stay connected and relevant.

You see what I mean? They all have their vested interest, while we are being stripped of things that matter most. Health, time, simplicity, financial stability, real relationships, all in that order.

Deep down, I know, just as well as you know. But do we listen?

It’s time to know.

It’s time to set boundaries and separate from Instagram.

It’s time to break the habit loop.

So here are the new rules.

I agree that platforms such as Instagram has its perks. But I also truly know that it has its consequences as well. So I will be deleting TheDebtist Instagram account from my phone. I will allow myself one day a month for ONE HOUR to log back on and post all my updates (new courses, new interviews, new happenings, all the pictures worth sharing – already curated) and check any missed messages, and then I will delete it again. This will allow me to break the habit loop and scrolling through feeds and forever editing in search of perfection. This will rid me of unhealthy dependence. This should free me to have more time to be HERE. I know this because it’s happened before. And it works. I started to wonder, “Why am I taking a picture of my avocado toast?”, and “Why am I carrying my camera on this run on the beach?” It brought awareness to all the little habits that were developed solely for the purpose of sharing on Instagram. Yikes.

Secondly, as I want to focus on growing the bakery, I will keep the AeroBakery account live, and limit my Instagram usage to 15 minutes per day. If I fail to hold myself accountable, I will also delete this account and limit it to once a month. If I had a true vested interest in growing my AeroBakery following, I will follow these simple rules. I know that I have the ability to enforce these parameters so I am not worried. If I am struggling, I have my husband. If I am still struggling, I have hundreds of you.

Instagram is a real addiction. Like alcohol, or over-eating, or gambling, debt, sex, drugs, hoarding, smoking, video-game addictions, emotional dependency and more, Instagram is a habit and the loop is difficult to break. It feeds on many things. The feeling of social acceptance and inclusion, the craving for public affirmation or approval, the creative outlet and the visually artistic appeal, the boasting of one’s life or accomplishments, the list goes on and on.

Worded like that, imagine how giving up Instagram could change a life.

Talk about catharsis.

Talk about Tidying the Mind.

Recent Reads: A Sanctuary in the City by Annu Subramanian

“Life in a city can be electric, fast and crowded. Whenever we step out of our urban homes, we join a network that’s packed with opportunities. The chances to grow and expand can feel endless, even if at times we can hardly stretch our arms out across the sidewalk. The flip side to having the city’s untapped wonders at our fingertips is that its energy can be exhausting and leave us craving a slower and quieter pace, one where we can roam unencumbered or savor a meal without a waiter asking, “You still working on that?”

Instead of shunning one mode of energy in favor of the other, we can learn how to perch in the middle ground with the quiet hum of our sanctuary in one ear and the blaze of an ambulance siren in the other. Some may call it compromise, but it’s best to consider it a kind of balance in contrasts.

Building a slow lifestyle in a fast-paced city feels all the better for its incongruousness, kind of like how stepping into a hot shower is much more satisfying when it’s cold outside.

Finding a bit of provincial solace in a city-bound home doesn’t have to mean solitude, though. Instead, we can partake in the long-table lore of country life in our own living rooms, even if that means a few people wind up perched on trunks or milk crates. Take note of how your conversations change when they don’t take place over expensive cocktails and urban din. Joining friends in their homes can make for evenings that move according to their own timetables without the presence of hovering servers silently nudging you to pay the check.

Best of all, crafting a rustic lifestyle brings calm into our own sanctums. It diffuses the pressures of the outside world so that we feel relieved as we cross the threshold into our homes. We can’t control everything that happens outside — from the lengthy bus delays to angry sidewalk-sharers — but we can find some peace and perspective in our spaces. Whether we come home to fall asleep or tackle a to-do list as tea cools beside us, we find joy in a serene space that prepares us for our next departure into the outside world.

The opportunity to have a slower domestic lifestyle within the city allows us to appreciate the streets’ hectic and intoxicating pace even more. By introducing a quieter, less hurried routine to our urban setting, we may achieve the best of both worlds: We can just as quickly visit a museum, pick up fusion cuisine from a food truck and rush to a swing-dancing party as we can spend an afternoon simmering stock and writing letters. We might not have the best view of the stars, but we can still look out at the bright lights of our skyline and feel content.”

Recent Reads: And Books on the Shelf

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I used to never give up on reading books that I’ve started. Call it stubbornness or pride. The thinking was two-fold. Firstly, I didn’t want to stop reading a book because I would not be able to add half-finished books to my list of ‘Books I’ve Read’, and what a “waste of time” that would be. Secondly, I didn’t want to be known as someone who didn’t have the GRIT to see to the finish line something I started. I wasn’t so concerned about knowing the end of the story as I was with the reflection of not finishing the book. Now that I’m older and a much different person, less concerned with other people’s perception, I have an easier time with letting these things go. My perspective has changed on the matter. I find that finishing a book for the sake of finishing is now what I consider a “waste of time”. I am more concerned with time well-spent over a list of accolades to brag about. I recognize the value in enjoying a book (perhaps only for the first half) and allow for the entertainment or the education that that book provided to be worthy enough of the time I spent reading it. Once things lose my fancy, there’s no use hanging on. And so I say farewell to Anna Karenina. 4 books of appreciation, but my heart is now elsewhere, and there’s nothing wrong with listening to your inner workings and abandoning all else. Anyone feel the same way?

Whenever we travel, I can’t help but be attracted to bookstores and libraries. It seems that whenever we walk by one, there is a lustful calling and I just have to step inside. Our recent trip to Seattle was no different. Out of it came a list of books that I am dying to read. Hence the need to thank Anna Karenina, let go, and move on.

Books On The Shelf:

Calypso

Moonwalking with Einstein

Recent Reads: The Circle by Dave Eggers

This post may contain affiliate links. Please see my disclosure to learn more.

Reading The Circle was like looking in a mirror, and realizing that you’ve become the person you most hate. There was only one truth, and it was nauseating to uncover. We live in a world where a particular system has been set into motion, one that makes it not only easy to cede our most personal information, rights, and freedoms, but also one wherein it’s almost expected of us to do so, in order to be considered normal, social beings.

Empathy is apparent even after a child is born. The way babies try to mimic other human’s emotions, the way children easily reflect another’s suffering or joy, these are evidence of the fact that our connection with other humans are a large part of who we are. Unfortunately, that social need is being used as a façade, underneath which a flurry of our most personal information is being exchanged, made public, and made known. We are voluntarily giving up our information in return for appearing social. We tag who we are with, where we are located, can track our closest friends, take videos of what we are doing, update our emotional and mental statuses, share our finances, and so on and so forth.

Actually, it seems to me that transparency is imminent, which can be good, but which also paves the path for potentially surrendering our most basic freedoms. What was so unsettling about reading this book was not the realization that the extreme, dramatized world that Eggers created is so close to our reality, but rather, the realization that we may be too far gone. The gut-wrenching part is that we, ourselves, are voluntarily helping to create this world every day, and I’m not sure we can stop it.

Here are a few of my favorite quotes from The Circle by Dave Eggers.

“First of all, I know it’s all people like you. And that’s what’s so scary. Individually you don’t know what you’re doing collectively.”

“We are not meant to know everything, Mae. Did you ever think that perhaps our minds are delicately calibrated between the known and the unknown? That our souls need the mysteries of night and the clarity of day? Young people are creating ever-present daylight, and I think it will burn us all alive. There will be no time to reflect, to sleep, to cool.”

“It’s not that I’m not social. I’m social enough. But the tools you guys create actually manufacture unnaturally extreme social needs. No one needs the level of contact you’re purveying. It improves nothing. It’s not nourishing. It’s like snack food. You know how they engineer this food? They scientifically determine precisely how much salt and fat they need to include to keep you eating. You’re not hungry, you don’t need the food, it does nothing for you, but you keep eating these empty calories. This is what you’re pushing. Same thing. Endless empty calories, but the digital-social equivalent. And you calibrate it so it’s equally addictive.”

“And worse, you’re not doing anything interesting anymore. You’re not seeing anything, saying anything. The weird paradox is that you think you’re at the center of things, and that makes your opinions more valuable, but you yourself are becoming less vibrant. I bet you haven’t done anything offscreen in months. Have you?”

“Here though, there are no oppressors. No one’s forcing you to do this. You willingly tie yourself to these leashes. And you willingly become utterly socially autistic. You no longer pick up on basic human communication clues. You’re at a table with three humans, all of whom are looking at you and trying to talk to you, and you’re staring at a screen! Searching for strangers in… Dubai!”

“Under the guise of having every voice heard, you create mob rule, a filterless society where secrets are crimes.”

“If things continue this way, there will be two societies – or at least I hope there will be two – the one you’re helping create, and an alternative to it. You and your ilk will live, willingly, joyfully, under constant surveillance, watching each other always, commenting on each other, voting and liking and disliking each other, smiling and frowning, and otherwise doing nothing much else.”

We all know what’s happening. There is an awareness of the ways in which social media is eating us alive, swallowing our very beings, trapping our souls onto little screens. But we allow for it anyway. The far reaching consequences, the approaching implications, all of these are being masked by the jubilee we feel for being seen, heard, and known. We are made to believe that significance is more important than being free.

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