---
layout: post
title: "\"Modern Media Is a DoS Attack on Your Free Will\" - Nautilus"
date: "2018-01-13 20:58:43 -0500"
external-url: http://m.nautil.us/issue/52/the-hive/modern-media-is-a-dos-attack-on-your-free-will
---

Describing the hijacking of attention:

> **It’s easy to see how persuasive tech disrupts our “spotlight” of
> attention. But what about ["starlight" and "daylight"]?**
>
> I think one way, in general, is by the way it can create habits for us.
> If you get distracted by the same thing in the same way every day, it
> adds up to a distracted week, distracted months. Either by just force of
> repetition, or whatever, it has the effect of making us forget about
> those stars that we want to live by, or not reflect on them as much. We
> start taking lower level goals as having inherent value—essentially what
> pettiness as a phenomenon is. It’s the idea of, if my team wins, it
> doesn’t matter if the entire political climate becomes more toxic.

These technologies are adversarial and are not typical tools:

> **Isn’t it our own fault that we’re too easily distracted? Maybe we just
> need more self-discipline.**
>
> That kind of rhetoric implicitly grants the idea that it’s okay for
> technology to be adversarial against us. The whole point of technology is
> to help us do what we want to do better. Why else would we have it? I
> think part of the open door that these industries have walked through is
> the fact that, when we adopt a new technology, we don’t typically ask
> “What is it for?” If we were to ask what a smartphone is for, it would
> almost be a ridiculous question. It’s for whatever it can do now!

Add Nautilus post about Modern Media
Add Nautilus post about Modern Media
