MiCRO:16 — The Attention War: How Screens Are Hijacking Your Consciousness | Carl Hayden Smith

You know, we talk about ADHD, everyone with ADHD.

The reason we have ADHD is because everything's designed for bite-sized transmission.

And I think that's part of the problem.

We don't have the opportunity to really go into this long-form space and this liminal space that it opens up.

Well, I mean, with some debate to your statement of why we have ADHD being because of technology, I think people who actually have ADHD have it because of a combination of genetic and developmental conditions, but then people who otherwise don't have those conditions.

genetic predisposition develop the behaviors because of how their brain, how they are training slash their brain is being trained to operate based on the way these technologies sort of like guide how the brain, to go back to your reference to Marshall McLuhan, you know, the medium.

is the message.

It's not the content that we're consuming matters, but the means, the medium through which that content is coming in, it is a kind of sort of lesson.

It's a kind of education on how the brain is supposed to engage reality.

And that from your phone to your next screen, to the social media, to the short form video, and et cetera, trains our brains to be very similar to people who might have ADHD.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Attentionally, not necessarily all the other things that come along with a genuine ADHD condition.

And I believe that links back to what you said right at the opening, your first bite out of that big apple, was you mentioned that technology is sort of like We're in a relationship where the technology is changing us.

Now it's been several minutes, I can't remember the exact language that you used.

The way that it had expressed sounded as if technology sort of had the lead where, I mean, I'd love to hear you comment a little bit more on how humans are directing technology from a, this is my sense, a very narrow window of value of what is valuable and what values do we want to encase within our technology? What do we want our technology to achieve according to these value structures? And then as that goes along, there's this feedback loop where the technology sort of reinforces certain ways of thinking, certain values, certain patterns of perception, behavior, and response that then sort of like cycles and the sort of loop gets tighter as it sort of carries us along.

But it's not the technology itself, it's humans getting into this warped relationship with this warped expression of themselves through technology.

That's my perspective and I'm wondering if you agree with that or if you have a different sense of it.

You know, we talk about ADHD, everyone with ADHD.

The reason we have ADHD is because everything's designed for bite-sized transmission.

And I think that's part of the problem.

We don't have the opportunity to really go into this long-form space and this liminal space that it opens up.

Well, I mean, with some debate to your statement of why we have ADHD being because of technology, I think people who actually have ADHD have it because of a combination of genetic and developmental conditions, but then people who otherwise don't have those conditions.

genetic predisposition develop the behaviors because of how their brain, how they are training slash their brain is being trained to operate based on the way these technologies sort of like guide how the brain, to go back to your reference to Marshall McLuhan, you know, the medium.

is the message.

It's not the content that we're consuming matters, but the means, the medium through which that content is coming in, it is a kind of sort of lesson.

It's a kind of education on how the brain is supposed to engage reality.

And that from your phone to your next screen, to the social media, to the short form video, and et cetera, trains our brains to be very similar to people who might have ADHD.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.

Attentionally, not necessarily all the other things that come along with a genuine ADHD condition.

And I believe that links back to what you said right at the opening, your first bite out of that big apple, was you mentioned that technology is sort of like We're in a relationship where the technology is changing us.

Now it's been several minutes, I can't remember the exact language that you used.

The way that it had expressed sounded as if technology sort of had the lead where, I mean, I'd love to hear you comment a little bit more on how humans are directing technology from a, this is my sense, a very narrow window of value of what is valuable and what values do we want to encase within our technology? What do we want our technology to achieve according to these value structures? And then as that goes along, there's this feedback loop where the technology sort of reinforces certain ways of thinking, certain values, certain patterns of perception, behavior, and response that then sort of like cycles and the sort of loop gets tighter as it sort of carries us along.

But it's not the technology itself, it's humans getting into this warped relationship with this warped expression of themselves through technology.

That's my perspective and I'm wondering if you agree with that or if you have a different sense of it.