How your phone changed your brain

This topic is overdue:

The fastest growing addiction today is your phone.

We are almost all addicted.

We live in a time when people can’t even take a dump without using their phone — but that’s just the beginning. Social media platforms are now stuffing their algorithms with more advanced A.I in some sick evolutionary arms race to soak up your sweet sweet attention.
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Take YouTube:

The goal of YouTube is to increase how long you watch videos in order to make money for Google, right?

No argument here, fellow slave!

But how do you reckon they program the algorithm to do that?

Turns out Google does NOT tell the algorithm to serve videos you will like, because doing this is possibly irrelevant to the goal.

Instead, they give almost zero direction.

They ONLY give the goal.

They now let an A.I powered algorithm ‘figure out’ how to increase your ‘watch time’ in the most effective way possible — whatever that turns out to be.
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So maybe you’re thinking:

“Sir, so what? A bunch of apes in shoes programmed an algorithm to keep me watching videos. No big deal… right?”

Wrong.

The algorithm evolved already.

It changed in weird ways we apes could not envision. It figured out that the vast majority of the great unwashed asses in our society don’t even know what they want to watch.

So it had an epiphany:

Algorithms worked out that they can change what you want.

They can change how you think.

They can change… you.

YouTube no longer works out which video to serve you next — it knows that crap but doesn’t much care — instead, it works out the next 50-500ish videos it can serve you that will convert you into a less assertive slave over time…

…increasing your ‘Average Lifetime Value‘ to Google.
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What does it mean for you?

It means you now outsource ‘what you want’ to the whims of software.

And, this software no longer cares about ‘what you want’.

And, it can actively change ‘what you want’.

I don’t know about the rest of y’all screen-time suckers, but allowing robots to change ‘what you want’ isn’t something I remember singing up for… Oh, wait…

Wait a minute…
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**CHECKS NOTES**

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She already signed us up.

He can adapt to us.

It fights back.

This new addiction has teeth. It is so damn different to any traditional addiction that I’m doing a deep dive in this April’s edition of Evolve Already.

If you have a weird relationship with your phone and want to stop being the bitch in that relationship, then check it out.

Link yonder for the uninitiated:

Evolve Already

Keep Reality Real,

Tristan Weatherburn

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