I do love this. Very very much. The world moving too fast is a problem that’s very much on my mind and one I’m trying to solve for myself. And enshitification is frustratingly real. Sadly we’re accepting it. The video is hysterical. I would add AutoCorrect. And airline seats.
Dr. Stein, I'm happy it made an impression. Curating one's exposure to (fill in the blank with your preferred enshittifier) seems like a life skill now. Especially because blanket blocking certain elements isn't smart, eg, AI, unless it is really smart, eg, toxic social media. The discipline curve is daunting but not applying it has documented negative health impacts, as you know.
Please spread the gospel of no phone notifications! If the phone (or website, streaming device, wearable, etc.) is pushing you to do it, it's not likely in your best interest.
As I desperately cling on to my ability to be bored (leading to thinking and creativity) the constant attraction of these empty dopamine hits kills me.
Tom, you're a wise man to intentionally give yourself space and time to be bored. Bored in quotes, because as you indicate, that's when creative thinking has a chance to blossom. Hard to be as human as we were meant to be if we're continually ceding our ability to ponder to whatever social media slop beckons us. I'm starting to leave my phone in the other room — cue "mind blown" emoji — and I think I like it.
IN addition to being an annoying (to me) distraction, there is another reason to turn off notifications. if you have an Android phone, the notification process pings Google something like 90 times per hour checking for messages, but each time your phone checks in it also transfers data about you and where you are. The notification function just makes your phone an even more efficient intrusive tracking and privacy invasion device.
Dave, that fascinating...and not in a good way. I intentionally turned off the location tracking function on my iphone, on the specific notion that I don't want to give Apple monetizable information on where I go when. For payment, maybe I'd consider it....
For more information on protecting your privacy from big tech spying, see Rob Braxman Tech on youtube, He has a series of explanatory videos each under 1/2 hour. He does say that Apple is less intrusive than G and MSFT.
I've heard the same re Apple having (slightly) more respect for your privacy than the other tech incumbents, which now also include OpenAI and the rest. Open AI steals as much copyrighted information as it can, it seems, and sees how much it can get away with. As a writer, it's infuriating to see such a policy. But that's a different subject....
As a fellow wordnerd, I appreciate your affection for disenshittify. Thank you for conjugating it. Few if any have. In fact, you may well be the first—something to mention at dinner parties from now on.
It may amuse you to know that I had thought, while writing this article, to also mention the pushback that the act of disenshittifying may prompt. But then I realized that the main reason I wanted to mention it is because I was looking for an excuse to name this phenomenon — antidisenshittification — which itself was just an excuse to print the word and, thus, claim it. (Alas, I thought no one would give a damn.)
Meta, OpenAI, Twitter/X and both major American political parties: they're each examples of organizations intending to prevent us from disenshittifying, because doing so doesn't serve their bottom lines. Therefore, they are the embodiment of antidisenshittification.
Therefore, we must fight their antidisenshittification vigorously. #fightantidisenshittification
that’s a good one. I’ve completely stopped watching news. News has become read-only, with some radio news allowed in the car, but I ruthlessly turn down the volume when I become aware that it’s taking time away from my own thinking.
Love that you put this out there, and the idea of the mysterious hand written letter. As others have already said, the enshitification is real and is creeping into every nook and cranny. I just had a friend today try to convince me an "artist" was ah-mazing because he conceptualized ideas and figured out how to have AI create a realistic looking, quirky portraits. I had to point out that an idea and good AI instructions doesn't make a person an artist. That's like saying a person is a great writer of they figure out how to have AI write something well.
Heather, thank you for educating your friend on the definition of what an artist isn't. An artist is not a prompt engineer, an artist is a creator, obviously. A human typing words instructing what AI should create is certainly not an artist . Whether AI can be an artist is an open and interesting question, probably.
I don't know about hand written letters...I love typing!! click, click...My hand writing was terrible from the time they forced us to learn cursive and it has not improved. So no thanks to writing by hand. But writing letter is another story. I like sending emails to my friends who I don't see much. Just a few funny stories (not links but personal stories) and a few family updates. This is as good as a handwritten letter to me. No social medial involved. But as for the other ideas you suggested...Yes it is incredible how much constant checking of news, social media and other things occupies our brain, as if we are addicted to filling every gap of time with something. We used to think that TV was the thing that numbed us. TV doesn't even come close to how the digital age has shaped us. We used to have a dose of news while driving and listening to the radio (maybe) or if we watched evening news or if we read an actual newspaper. Then there was essentially a blackout on information for most of our day. And somehow we didn't feel like we were missing out on anything. But then desktop computers and internet access at work suddenly changed how often we got updates. Suddenly we could peek at the news during the work day. Then laptops gave us a bit more time to update when we were traveling. iPod suddenly gave us access to a big store of songs instead of the lowly single CD in a walkman or cassette in something similar. Still this was before social media. Then smart phones came at about the same time as social media. This turned out to be the digital time bomb. The never ending stream of distractions has been relentless. It would be nice if it turned out that we were actually better informed but it seems pretty apparent that this experiment didn't work out so well either. Yes there are plenty of good things to read too, but perhaps its not important to be fed so much so we have time to digest things. We are much angrier, more worried and paying attention to things that we never would have focused on before. This experiment has had many unintended consequences. We need to remember that the tech bros build things without much thought about consequences. Things we start to depend on morph in ugly ways to things that lure us into new habits that are not helpful. Its very hard to both appreciate the many good things that have come out of this technology while we clearly see so many new problems that have been created. And as for A.I, well it can be used for many good things. Great pattern recognition can find cancer in medical images, sort complicated date to give great summaries etc... It will also allow the government to take all the massive amount of data it has captured in various forms of surveillance it has captured and make sense of it,allowing previously undetected issues to be caught, for better or worse. Generative A.I. is going to create a shit show in the public discourse as we take an already inflammatory social media scene and add even more false information to it. And you can bet that ever corporate CEO is evaluating how to reduce workers or limit employee growth by using some form of A.I. Maybe it will cut back on employment, maybe it won't but they CEO's will attempt to find an answer by cutting back initially and seeing what works. It is the early stages now. A.I. is not truly intelligent. It is very good pattern recognition. As it turns out that is good enough for many tasks that are done as part of many jobs. I truly wonder how this experiement is going to turn out given our previous history with how social media turned out.
Mark, I’m afraid you’re all too right. The deepfakes are going to cause havoc, and will probably instigate violence at some point. Hard to see how it wouldn’t. But, come on, now: handwritten letters are the best!
Maybe just write a letter to a friend like we used to in the old days, I have loads of them from the 70s until they abruptly stopped in the early 90s, for me anyway. Thanks for reminding me, I think I'm going to write to someone.
Winifred, here here. Write that letter. I too have a box of letters, going back to pen-pal correspondence from middle school with a girl I met at an Arkansas dude ranch during a vacation one summer. Ellen, from St. Charles, Mo. The world needs more mailed letters now.
I got the notification for this article. I read it quickly. I was moved, agreed with every word, and started writing a response just as quickly — then stopped. Had I actually taken in what I just read? I think I read more than I ever have since the internet entered my life. And I asked myself: how much of it do I actually remember? Your walk home from school with the phone in your pocket — I think that’s where it starts. And maybe the beauty of a handwritten letter is that each word arrives with a shape you can hold. It’s late here in Tokyo — I’m going to sleep on this one. Thank you for writing it.
Doc, thanks for your note and your candid self-criticism (if that's the right way to describe it). I think it helps to see others call out their automatic behaviors that they realize aren't their best interests, because it helps make others more aware of theirs. Also, humans are fallible. Being more human is a major strength, now more than ever.
I do love this. Very very much. The world moving too fast is a problem that’s very much on my mind and one I’m trying to solve for myself. And enshitification is frustratingly real. Sadly we’re accepting it. The video is hysterical. I would add AutoCorrect. And airline seats.
Dr. Stein, I'm happy it made an impression. Curating one's exposure to (fill in the blank with your preferred enshittifier) seems like a life skill now. Especially because blanket blocking certain elements isn't smart, eg, AI, unless it is really smart, eg, toxic social media. The discipline curve is daunting but not applying it has documented negative health impacts, as you know.
Please spread the gospel of no phone notifications! If the phone (or website, streaming device, wearable, etc.) is pushing you to do it, it's not likely in your best interest.
As I desperately cling on to my ability to be bored (leading to thinking and creativity) the constant attraction of these empty dopamine hits kills me.
Time and place for everything, just not all
the time and everywhere.
Tom, you're a wise man to intentionally give yourself space and time to be bored. Bored in quotes, because as you indicate, that's when creative thinking has a chance to blossom. Hard to be as human as we were meant to be if we're continually ceding our ability to ponder to whatever social media slop beckons us. I'm starting to leave my phone in the other room — cue "mind blown" emoji — and I think I like it.
IN addition to being an annoying (to me) distraction, there is another reason to turn off notifications. if you have an Android phone, the notification process pings Google something like 90 times per hour checking for messages, but each time your phone checks in it also transfers data about you and where you are. The notification function just makes your phone an even more efficient intrusive tracking and privacy invasion device.
Dave, that fascinating...and not in a good way. I intentionally turned off the location tracking function on my iphone, on the specific notion that I don't want to give Apple monetizable information on where I go when. For payment, maybe I'd consider it....
For more information on protecting your privacy from big tech spying, see Rob Braxman Tech on youtube, He has a series of explanatory videos each under 1/2 hour. He does say that Apple is less intrusive than G and MSFT.
I've heard the same re Apple having (slightly) more respect for your privacy than the other tech incumbents, which now also include OpenAI and the rest. Open AI steals as much copyrighted information as it can, it seems, and sees how much it can get away with. As a writer, it's infuriating to see such a policy. But that's a different subject....
I think I just fell in love.
With a word I can barely pronounce.
Dis… en… shit… ify?
Dys-enshittify? Disenshittify? …I’m already losing it.
I disenshittify,
you disenshittify,
he/she/it disenshittifies,
we disenshittify,
you disenshittify,
they disenshittify…
…dys-en-fjklsdfj… whatever.
I can’t even spell it properly, but I’m in love.
At least it finally quiets down my internal list of words I hate.
As a fellow wordnerd, I appreciate your affection for disenshittify. Thank you for conjugating it. Few if any have. In fact, you may well be the first—something to mention at dinner parties from now on.
It may amuse you to know that I had thought, while writing this article, to also mention the pushback that the act of disenshittifying may prompt. But then I realized that the main reason I wanted to mention it is because I was looking for an excuse to name this phenomenon — antidisenshittification — which itself was just an excuse to print the word and, thus, claim it. (Alas, I thought no one would give a damn.)
Meta, OpenAI, Twitter/X and both major American political parties: they're each examples of organizations intending to prevent us from disenshittifying, because doing so doesn't serve their bottom lines. Therefore, they are the embodiment of antidisenshittification.
Therefore, we must fight their antidisenshittification vigorously. #fightantidisenshittification
The next weeks of my life are under one absolute premise: to systematically disenshittify what no longer serves real function.😃
Peggy, would you be willing to share a list of your accumulated disenshittifications? It would be a fun and mutually supportive exercise.
"My Oura ring would definitely make the list 😄
It tells me I slept badly every time I sleep badly."
that’s a good one. I’ve completely stopped watching news. News has become read-only, with some radio news allowed in the car, but I ruthlessly turn down the volume when I become aware that it’s taking time away from my own thinking.
You challenged me to start disenshittifying — so I’d start with words.
‘Longevity’ is high on my list — a promise without substance, often built on far too many substances… maybe not fully disenshittified yet
Love that you put this out there, and the idea of the mysterious hand written letter. As others have already said, the enshitification is real and is creeping into every nook and cranny. I just had a friend today try to convince me an "artist" was ah-mazing because he conceptualized ideas and figured out how to have AI create a realistic looking, quirky portraits. I had to point out that an idea and good AI instructions doesn't make a person an artist. That's like saying a person is a great writer of they figure out how to have AI write something well.
Heather, thank you for educating your friend on the definition of what an artist isn't. An artist is not a prompt engineer, an artist is a creator, obviously. A human typing words instructing what AI should create is certainly not an artist . Whether AI can be an artist is an open and interesting question, probably.
You said a handwritten letter. Lovely. Not that I’m jaded and a bit cynical, but written by whom?
me! written by me. sorry to not make that clear.
I don't know about hand written letters...I love typing!! click, click...My hand writing was terrible from the time they forced us to learn cursive and it has not improved. So no thanks to writing by hand. But writing letter is another story. I like sending emails to my friends who I don't see much. Just a few funny stories (not links but personal stories) and a few family updates. This is as good as a handwritten letter to me. No social medial involved. But as for the other ideas you suggested...Yes it is incredible how much constant checking of news, social media and other things occupies our brain, as if we are addicted to filling every gap of time with something. We used to think that TV was the thing that numbed us. TV doesn't even come close to how the digital age has shaped us. We used to have a dose of news while driving and listening to the radio (maybe) or if we watched evening news or if we read an actual newspaper. Then there was essentially a blackout on information for most of our day. And somehow we didn't feel like we were missing out on anything. But then desktop computers and internet access at work suddenly changed how often we got updates. Suddenly we could peek at the news during the work day. Then laptops gave us a bit more time to update when we were traveling. iPod suddenly gave us access to a big store of songs instead of the lowly single CD in a walkman or cassette in something similar. Still this was before social media. Then smart phones came at about the same time as social media. This turned out to be the digital time bomb. The never ending stream of distractions has been relentless. It would be nice if it turned out that we were actually better informed but it seems pretty apparent that this experiment didn't work out so well either. Yes there are plenty of good things to read too, but perhaps its not important to be fed so much so we have time to digest things. We are much angrier, more worried and paying attention to things that we never would have focused on before. This experiment has had many unintended consequences. We need to remember that the tech bros build things without much thought about consequences. Things we start to depend on morph in ugly ways to things that lure us into new habits that are not helpful. Its very hard to both appreciate the many good things that have come out of this technology while we clearly see so many new problems that have been created. And as for A.I, well it can be used for many good things. Great pattern recognition can find cancer in medical images, sort complicated date to give great summaries etc... It will also allow the government to take all the massive amount of data it has captured in various forms of surveillance it has captured and make sense of it,allowing previously undetected issues to be caught, for better or worse. Generative A.I. is going to create a shit show in the public discourse as we take an already inflammatory social media scene and add even more false information to it. And you can bet that ever corporate CEO is evaluating how to reduce workers or limit employee growth by using some form of A.I. Maybe it will cut back on employment, maybe it won't but they CEO's will attempt to find an answer by cutting back initially and seeing what works. It is the early stages now. A.I. is not truly intelligent. It is very good pattern recognition. As it turns out that is good enough for many tasks that are done as part of many jobs. I truly wonder how this experiement is going to turn out given our previous history with how social media turned out.
Mark, I’m afraid you’re all too right. The deepfakes are going to cause havoc, and will probably instigate violence at some point. Hard to see how it wouldn’t. But, come on, now: handwritten letters are the best!
Maybe just write a letter to a friend like we used to in the old days, I have loads of them from the 70s until they abruptly stopped in the early 90s, for me anyway. Thanks for reminding me, I think I'm going to write to someone.
Winifred, here here. Write that letter. I too have a box of letters, going back to pen-pal correspondence from middle school with a girl I met at an Arkansas dude ranch during a vacation one summer. Ellen, from St. Charles, Mo. The world needs more mailed letters now.
I got the notification for this article. I read it quickly. I was moved, agreed with every word, and started writing a response just as quickly — then stopped. Had I actually taken in what I just read? I think I read more than I ever have since the internet entered my life. And I asked myself: how much of it do I actually remember? Your walk home from school with the phone in your pocket — I think that’s where it starts. And maybe the beauty of a handwritten letter is that each word arrives with a shape you can hold. It’s late here in Tokyo — I’m going to sleep on this one. Thank you for writing it.
Doc, thanks for your note and your candid self-criticism (if that's the right way to describe it). I think it helps to see others call out their automatic behaviors that they realize aren't their best interests, because it helps make others more aware of theirs. Also, humans are fallible. Being more human is a major strength, now more than ever.