Nov 23, 2024
on Content, Comments
Had these thoughts after, for a couple days, I was watching YouTube for hours on end.
Watching online content is a direct antagonist to "living." This is so obvious (you're staring at a screen) and so well recited ("brain rot"), yet unbelieved (if belief: something one would act on).
One becomes a spectator in others' lives. The mechanism in which you're continually drawn, to either one or the other, is the ephemeral 'stimulus'. While each hit short lived, its effects over time compound.
Stimulus wants more stimulus. Dopamine makes you want to "ramp up" your dosage. When you're drunk, you want to drink more. When you're "stimulated," you want (unsuccessfully) successive greater hits. That's how one finds themselves on their fifth contiguous hour on YouTube, hating how they spent their day and also suddenly their life (me).
A heuristic to check if you're too far into Content: is the amount of external stimulus (Content) greater than internal stimulus (thoughts, introspection)? Said differently, is your headspace filled more with a video you saw last night or about your day's plan, the previous day's events and occurances, or upcoming events.
The comment section is another layer of (unnecessary) information. It overlays the content with commentary. It's an abstraction that enables people to not only spectate but then become involved, invested, (more than need be—which, in most cases, is at all) in the online (anti real) Content.
Current forms of online media displaces from your headspace your processing of your own life (narrative) and your own commentary about your own life drawn over time (theme). Narrative and theme helps root your identity—it's important to live your own life. Not doing so is the real "NPC behaviour."
Educational Videos?
Recorded lectures (MIT OpenCourseWare, etc.) are different in that the content is stimulating at a higher level. Viewers must be primed to engage at an intellective level. But I find, for a different reason, these Educational Videos aren't generally helpful for learning; when has staring at a lecture—doing no exercises, no practice problems, no self quizzing—helped you learn?
One on average has, at least implicitly, the goal to grow and become a better self. There's dopamine release (read: stimulus) when one feels they've moved closer towards their goal. Watching these Educational Videos can trick one into thinking they're learning, which elicits a favorable response. But the learning is often illusory.