When I was younger I could spend 6-10 hours a day on a computer easily.
In that time I wrote and recorded music, I built an RPG in a game making software—and wrote MIDI music loops for it, I wrote a blog that reached people all over the earth, I managed FB groups and pages that reached thousands of people, and yes, there was also lots of porn. . .
Yet, I wrote stories, I painted landscapes, I sketched home designs and all sorts of ideas on everything, I played guitar, I performed on stage, did extra work in film, cycled 10-20 miles almost daily, I often played pool in stretches of 6-10 hours every night, I met new people, I read books, I went to college, I worked.
Now, I can easily spend 10 hours a day on my phone and produce next to nothing— and I am not even looking at porn. Shitposting on X, doom scrolling, checking emails, clearing notifications. I don't even play games. I don't watch videos.
Sure, some of it is because I am older. Time is more selective, more demanding for any given thing. I have a child that needs care. . . Blah, blah, blah. That's not really it though— and it's not that I am any less creative than my younger self, or less energized (tired sure, but when you're actually ADHD there is never a shortage of energy— just drive.)
Social media today consumes so much mental energy. It's a literal drug.
I have more time today than I did over the decade of my 30s, yet produce almost nothing; not for me, not for others. To top it off, I am in better health than I was in my 30s as well. Yet, lazier. Then, I worked. Now, I X. [And babysit.]
At this point it's about habits. X is a bad habit. Laziness is a bad habit.
The internet has changed the way we interact with it as well. It is mostly accessed through apps, accounts, logins. All of them socialized. All of them subjected to algorithms devised by social media, designed to waste your time and sell you services to access the internet by one set of terms or another. X is no different.
The death of practical creativity is being driven by these platforms' algorithms. They trade you a promise of access for your time, and it's far from a straight across deal.
20 years ago I spent the same amount of time glued to my PC screen as I spend now on my phone, yet was able to access what I wanted/needed when I wanted/needed it. That allowed me to be productive mentally in all other aspects of my life.
Today we are trained to fail, trained to not succeed, trained to be frustrated, trained to have endless meaningless tasks (notifications), trained out of the creative process, trained not to wonder, trained not to desire by lack of satiation, trained by socialized, algorithmized interfaces that we must login to, opt out of, keep up with the ever-changing terms of, and keep updated accounts to maintain the promise of access through, even though that promise is never fulfilled and never guaranteed, even when monetized.
Enough already. I want my time back.
I want my mind back.
If we don't take back the creative process from these apps, from their algorithms, soon we will be nothing more than a hive mind; checking into the consensus for confirmation of who we are and what we do, instead of deciding it for ourselves. We will be drones— disposable, thoughtless, forgotten when gone or absent, meaningless when present. Not even a numbered cog in the machine that serves AI.
Ask yourself what do you physically produce? What does your time get you that is real? Because if it's online it isn't yours, and it isn't real.
