The thing I worry about the most regarding today's thouth is whether or not the attention economy has fundamentally warped youth's concept of joy.
All of these are increasingly becoming unknown to people.
People today consume memories that were never theirs. The manufactured memories are more perfect and vivid than the lived ones. And so, we grow to prefer the signs of life rather than life itself. However, the signs lack substance and durability. They can never thurst upon us anything, but to be thrusted upon is the starting point of anything meaningful. I see this vision develop everytime a toddler veges out in front of a video reel.
The new youth has no recollection of the myriad qualities of joy. To them, increasingly, there is only one form of joy, "the veg out," and because the way they receive this joy is through a contextless siteless medium, joy becomes interchangeable. Like a drug addict, the how of the feeling is irrelevant. It only matters that they do.
Ethics, a right way to live, these concepts become incomprehensible to a youth who is accustomed to receiving a joy that is contextless. If the basic premise of a right way to live is that it leads to a better life, we are doomed in this project if youth's vision of the better life is to zone out more vividly, more efficiently, and more completely.
I walk through the mall, and a toddler cries out the name of a content creator, hands reaching out toward the printed face of a person they have never met, and will never meet, but it's a face they've looked at for longer than their own parents.
Điều tôi trăn trở nhất về thế hệ trẻ ngày nay là liệu nền kinh tế sự chú ý có đang làm biến dạng hoàn toàn khái niệm của họ về niềm vui hay không.