The answer, I’ve learned, usually determines whether I’ll feel empty or full when the screen finally goes black. Measuring entertainment taught me that "trending" is just a direction, usually leading toward the lowest common denominator. I’d rather walk my own path, even if the view counter is a little lower.
I wasn't a consumer; I was a vessel. I was trending content’s willing hostage. The "After-Feel" score for the social video category averaged a 3.2/10. The comments in my spreadsheet were brutal: "Felt dizzy," "Lost time," "Why do I know who this influencer is?" measuring my cum
We live in the age of the Quantified Self. We track our steps, our sleep cycles, our heart rate variability, our calories, and our macros. We treat our bodies like science experiments to be optimized. But there is a massive, untracked, hungry entity in our lives that we largely ignore when it comes to data: our entertainment. I wasn't a consumer; I was a vessel
I was spending more than twice as much time watching 15-to-60-second clips than I was engaging with narrative storytelling. The comments in my spreadsheet were brutal: "Felt
My spreadsheet revealed that when I engaged with a trending item, the algorithm would punish me by serving me five more things exactly like it. It creates a monoculture. By measuring my intake, I saw that I was narrowing my worldview, not expanding it. I was watching what everyone else was watching, thinking the same thoughts, and laughing at the same memes. I was becoming a demographic, not an individual.