alt Hacker NewsPandemic really ramped it up. Also screen addiction has gone mainstream. In front of a screen 12+ hours a day 20 years ago? Total nerd. Now? Standard behavior.
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I made the same observation recently.
I think people under 25 probably don't even know how absolutely uncool it was to tell people you stayed at home in front of a computer on weekends or after school.
Absolute pariah behavior on the scale of coolness. But now ? Totally normal.
I started to notice a shift in how the recommendation algorithms worked probably around 2018-2019 and then the pandemic just took it to nuclear levels against the entire population
Okay but what should people be doing instead?
The complaint that everyone is on their phone (or in front of screens) is less informative then the interlocutors ideas of what should be instead.
It's so weird. I used to consider myself a fringe internet addict in the 2000s but now everyone is like me.
Like many of you, I deal with stuff like depression, anxiety, ADHD. Back in the 2000s it felt like I was the only weirdo out there. Now I cringe writing that out because it feels like everyone is like that now.