I’ve written previously about the devil’s bargain that authors and other creators need to make with respect to social media. We want others to see/read/hear our work, and we need to find people where they are at, and at present that seems to be on social media, for worse or for worser. But social media does its best to rob us of our attention spans, and as we continually seek that next dopamine hit, we lose the ability to abide periods of non-stimulation, i.e. boredom.

But boredom, I believe, is necessary for creative work.

There’s an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation, called “The Game,” in which the crew of the Enterprise is hypnotized by an addictive game that gives their brain little bursts of endorphins every time they jump a level without realizing that the game is also erasing their executive function and basically turning them into drones for an evil alien menace. It was mostly derided by fans as being too preachy, as the writer was clearly warning against the new fad of video games (this was mid 80s), which had just a few years before burst onto the scene, and folks also never seemed to like when whiny Wesley got too much screentime.

I rather like the episode, because I find it sufficiently creepy, but also because it perfectly mirrors the current predicament we’re now in. I regularly ride subways and buses and wait on lines, and you don’t have to look far to find people always on their phones, scrolling, searching, seemingly busy. No one looks up anymore. They’re hooked into the game, hunting for that next dopamine hit. And when their post gets likes or it goes viral, it’s like that endorphin rush in “The Game,” but instead of an evil Ktarian commander giving us instructions, it’s AI-algorithms that are continuously tweaked to keep us agitated and engaged so that giant corporations accountable to no one and malicious agents intent on destroying social cohesion can shovel their toxic slop into our brains 24/7.

And we do this willingly, because it feels good. But so does snorting cocaine.

I was never a big gambler, and I don’t like casinos, but once in a rare while I find myself in one. I used to always wonder about those sad-looking folks with a cup of quarters leaning over at a slot machine, putting coins in, pulling the lever, watching the colors flash, then doing it all over again, for hours upon hours, slowly draining their cup. Don’t they realize they’re whiling their life away? I wondered.

I don’t wonder anymore. Now, I do the same thing, scrolling on social media, hoping to hit upon that lucky triple-7 of an interesting or viral post. My lever-pull is my scroll. My winnings are my interactions, likes and reposts and more engagement.

There is a concept called “Digital Minimalism” coined by the writer Cal Newport in a book of the same name, and in it he suggests a way to reduce, minimize, and even remove social media from your life. There’s also a reddit forum of the same name, and every day I read young folks posting there, struggling with phone addiction. I had the benefit of growing up in a time before cell phones were a thing, and you could get lost walking around, and you could be gone all day and no one would know where you are or how to reach you, and it was glorious. Now, everything in the world is just a search away, and there’s a cheap thrill just over that next swipe. I can’t imagine what it’s like for young folks now, kids who grew up with screens, who never had time to be bored, away from the noise, to get to know themselves. These kids are really lost and struggling, and the big corporations answer to them is to spew more AI slop.

This definitely isn’t the solution. I don’t know what the solution is, but it’s got to be something far from the noise. There has to be a place that we can go, daily, often, that isn’t saturated with instant connections to everything, everywhere, all at once. It should be, preferably, a place with other humans, a so-called third space, where we can make offline, real, authentic connections. But it can also be a walk in the woods or a park by ourselves, without a phone, a quiet moment away from everyone.

For me, it might be just reading a paper book, alone, in my living room. Even then, I feel the pull of my phone. What’s going on? What’s in the news today? What’s exciting? What’s terrifying? I feel the lure of the slot lever-pull, the endorphins of the game tugging at my executive function.

I don’t know how to get us out of this dark predicament that we’re in, but I know the first step in overcoming a toxic addition is realizing that you are an addict. There are powerful forces who would like to keep us all plugged into the game, to keep us all mindlessly pulling that lever, waiting for our next dopamine reward, because it benefits them in some way.

But you should remember that to them you’re just a vehicle. Something they can drive to get where they want to go, and then leave you behind wrecked and broken when you no longer serve them.

So here’s a question we can ask ourselves: Where do we want to go?

(ETA: I didn’t even have to look to run across this article about kids unable to finish reading a single book.)

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