I’m riled by an extractive industry, one I believe is a momentous dark force in society. This industry includes Meta, the owner of Instagram, and TikTok and others peddling porn and video games.
The bible of this industry is literally titled “Hooked.” No joke. Here is an excerpt from the book:
“Emotions, particularly negative ones, are powerful internal triggers and greatly influence our daily routines. Feelings of boredom, loneliness, frustration, confusion, and indecisiveness often instigate a slight pain or irritation and prompt an almost instantaneous and often mindless action to quell the negative sensation. For instance, Yin [a human being] often uses Instagram when she fears a special moment will be lost forever… By thoughtfully moving users from external to internal triggers, Instagram designed a persistent routine in people’s lives. A need is triggered in Yin’s mind every time a moment is worth holding on to, and for her, the immediate solution is Instagram.” (48 - 51)
This industry makes shiny, grabby user interfaces designed to alter human psychology. It foments addiction, anxiety, depression, eating disorders, comparison, and competition. In a sense, it is not an extractive industry, but a Devouring Industry.
Here’s how it goes: You get a new phone. You download an Industry app. You sign in, seamlessly, one click. You’re invited to join interest groups and follow sexy and interesting people. It shows you some sexy and interesting photos and videos. Your brain lights up! You click like. A heart appears, letting you know that it’s not a like after all — it is, in fact, true love!
Rinse, repeat, faster and faster, more and more. You add photos. People love YOU now. More photos, more love. What could be simpler! You have never had more love than you have on this app! What delights!
Yes, delights… and now it has its hooks in you. Day after day, you pick up your phone impulsively. You cannot control it. It will never let you go. It eats your attention. It eats your time. It eats your life. Bit by small bit. You cannot, of course, imagine deleting the Industry app from it (too useful! too loving!). From Hooked:
“The collection of memories and experiences, in aggregate, becomes more valuable over time and the service becomes harder to leave as users’ personal investment in the site grows.” (147)
Have you watched Stranger Things? There are scenes where the villain, Vecna, forces his slimy tendrils down into children’s throats, and pumps them full of dark energy, forcing them into a virtual dreamstate to take their agency for his uses. Hooked, again:
“Recently, a blog reader e-mailed me, ‘If it can’t be used for evil, it’s not a superpower.’ He’s right. And under this definition, building habit-forming products is indeed a superpower… [Industry products] can quickly degenerate into mindless, zombielike addictions for some users.” (11)
This is Zuck’s metaverse, pipelined straight into your eyeballs, welded into your tweenbrain, pumping you full of dopamine and feeding your desires. And monetizing them. Today, Meta’s market cap is $1.56 trillion. What a valuable company!
This is the nature of the Devouring Industry. It eats human capital. It eats cultural capital. It turns it into cash. Rinse, repeat. Every day it is engaged in a Great Devouring of human potential. Nom nom nom.
Jon Haidt and Zach Rausch wrote just yesterday, “…social media is an unusual consumer product because of its vast user base and the enormous amount of time it takes from most users. It’s as if a new candy bar, intentionally designed to be addictive, was introduced in 2012 and, within a few years, 90% of the world’s children were consuming ten of these candy bars each day, which reduced their consumption of all other foods.”
Candy bars Devouring us. Devouring the possibility of real-life human connection and imagination, like the Nothing and its wolf agent G’mork in the Neverending Story:
Now, not all social medias (or porn and video games) are dark forces. I do not think it includes Substack, but I may be wrong. Also, some people use Industry apps like Instagram as tools, and appear to have healthy (or at least managed) relationships to them. Good for these people. I am not one of them. I had Instagram’s hooks in me, back before 2017 (see Story #1 here). I hated this, and I eventually quit cold turkey.
A big part of quitting is answering, “what is the counterfactual? What do I otherwise do with the time I spend on social media?”
I had coffee with a new friend the other day and we discussed this very thing. He said, “imagine if all the time spent on these apps went into community service.” It’s a beautiful thought. Idealistic, yes, and beautiful.
It doesn’t have to be service. There are very many other ways to spend your time. Reading, running, dancing, writing. Music! Parties! Smooching! Picking your nose!
Whatever it is, share it one-to-one with a friend or family member, or with a small group in person. Real-life, person-to-person connections make life rich. Just please don’t pick your nose and share it.