A coworker showed me a quote from this guy, Steve Magness (www.stevemagness.com) that sums it up really well - When we’re constantly ‘killing time’ on our phones/screens in every waking moment that our attention isn’t otherwise required, we suck up the space that was once reserved for creativity and fill it with garbage instead. We fragment our attention and rarely get lost in our thoughts or follow up on cool ideas. Creativity is dying first before it’s born because we don’t just sit and engage with our own ideas like we did once…we just scroll.
The second factor is the giant, impossibly sophisticated psychological rat’s maze the internet has become for content… we are fed much more than we truly discover, and every day 100k tons more AI shit is shoveled over real, genuine ideas… and it’s that bullshit the algorithm will serve you. You have a lot less agency and exposure online than you THINK you do… and that is by design. If you have been on the internet for more than 10 years, then you remember when that was very much not the case and feel the difference.
Hang out with local, creative people in person, ask them what they’re into. Stare out a window and think thoughts, shut your phone off and read books. The good news is that there is SO MUCH good shit in the world already that the decline of our civilization and its creative output isn’t so bad, if you just get some distance from it.
