Freeing our attentional capacities from the virtual world is the number one ethical task

In an interview on our podcast with Shaun Lambert, he gave this quote:

‘Freeing our attentional capacities from the virtual world is the number one ethical task’.

I’m not sure where the quote comes from¹, but in the wake of the US election, it seems truer than ever. The main argument for leaving social networks has been about preserving our own mental health. But there is an ethical side as well.

Many more people are waking up to the fact that our social media networks – indeed many of our tech networks as a whole – are not neutral. They exist to feed you fear. They don’t care about lying or fakery. They will shamelessly show you adverts that are scams (I’m looking at you, YouTube). They are not interested in you, as a person, they are not really concerned with your interests, except as a way of keeping you on the platform. Ultimately, all they want is your cash.

Let’s face it: their ethical standards are… not high.

So, I think we can assume that the intentions of the people who run most of the major networks are not benign. And nor is the algorithm they have created. You might think that an algorithm exists to show you more of what you like. But the system is, in fact, weaponised against you. A recent investigation from the Wall Street journal showed that new users to X with interests in topics like cooking and crafts were soon inundated with political content whether they wanted it or not. (What’s more the first user suggested for these new accounts to follow was, surprise, surprise, Elon Musk.) Extreme content will find its way to you, will, in fact, be forced on you.

The Guardian newspaper has already left X. Others will surely follow. Jaron Lanier’s book Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now is five years old now, but remains prescient.

Personally I left Instagram, Facebook and Twitter some time ago. I stopped using Reddit when it became another walled garden. I’m still hunting for a good alternative to Google, but it will come. In the meantime, I’m enjoying Mastodon, which has no algorithm and old-fashioned blogging and rss remain good sources of information.² You can do more. You can sign up for newsletters from writers and thinkers whom you like. You could actually subscribe to print media.

I don’t really visit the news sites any more (apart from BBC sports for the cricket, because some things are truly important) but I do read The Week each… er… week.³

As Saint Neil Sedaka said, ‘Breaking up is hard to do’. But we are in an abusive relationship with these platforms. We need to detach from them, or, at the very least, use them more consciously.

It’s not just good for our mental health and for our flagging attention, it’s a matter of ethics.

More reading

• POSSE: Reclaiming social media in a fragmented world
• The Verge: The poster’s guide to the internet of the future
• The secret power of a blog
• Wired: Big Tech Won’t Let You Leave. Here’s a Way Out