Tech lost its magic
Turns out it’s just easier to let Spotify or Netflix or Instagram feed us media that, while perhaps not our first choice, seems consistent with things we’d likely choose if we actually decided to make a choice in the first place. The magic that we felt when tech was young has been replaced by the dark art of the hidden and inscrutable algorithms busily feeding us stuff we never would have thought of engaging with otherwise.
Everything about this piece is perfect.
I remember so many of the early moments of software and tech. The magic of logging onto AOL and clicking their homepage links.
Then, finding my way onto a browser and realizing I could type in any .com and find something. There was danger of course. Tigers.com was not, in fact, what I expected. Not all web searches were safe.
Then I found search engines and finally Google.
This was all so magical.
But now, so much of my desire to discover and deal with friction and tinker and just create—it’s all consumed by algorithms and data fed to me in engagement-bating ways. There’s nothing left. We’re all used up.
The only way I’ve seen to combat all this is to pull away from the algorithmically fed timelines entirely. Cut cold turkey. Then, and only then, do our minds have moments in time to be bored, frustrated, curious.
Through the friction of unease and curiosity we discover things. We tinker, we build, we create.
That can’t happen when our lives are a second away from the endless scroll. Over the last four months I’ve used these giants to dive in and look at pieces of data, then immediately jump out. They’re too good, their siren call beckons and turns everything else to dust in our months.
We have to push back, have to pull away from the feeds. Beauty and friction and curiosity awaits.