There you are, sitting in a coffee shop with a handful of friends. On the table in front of everyone is a cup of whatever convoluted combination of caffeine and sugar each of you prefers. You each periodically take a sip and put the cup onto the table to continue the conversation. Or do you?  

A more likely scenario is that the coffee cups aren’t the most important objects on the table at all. It’s the phones. All of them. Sitting there face up. Flashing at each notification. Some buzzing. Some bleeping out audible alerts (because we all have friends that either think it’s still 2012 or think they are 85 years old).  

It starts with one friend checking a message while the rest of you talk. Later in the conversation, maybe two or three friends are checking while the rest of you talk. And at some point – be honest, we’ve all experienced this – everyone at the table is staring at their phone. Which is to say, nobody is really at the table at all. They are all off in the ether of Instagram feeds, text messages, and news alerts.  

What started as a gathering of friends ends with each person siloed in their own world, unable to maintain basic respect and connection with fellow human beings for more than a few minutes at a time.   

We wonder why there is a mental health crisis. One that started long before the pandemic. It exploded a few years after the launch of the iPhone. Right around the time Facebook went all-in on their mobile app.  

This was the launch of the Attention Economy.  

A Battle Was Waged For Our Mind (Spoiler Alert: We Lost)  

In the Attention Economy, you are the product. Your time and attention is a valuable asset.  

Platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok are cornerstones of the Attention Economy. The business model is simple – and devious. As summarized in an article in The Guardian: 

Facebook, Twitter and other companies use methods similar to the gambling industry to keep users on their sites,” said Natasha Schüll, the author of Addiction by Design, which reported how slot machines and other systems are designed to lock users into a cycle of addiction. “In the online economy, revenue is a function of continuous consumer attention – which is measured in clicks and time spent.

As a result, we spend more time distracted, more time “multitasking”, and more time comparing ourselves to others. This has a number of damaging effects. A study from University of London found that multitasking actually lowers IQ. A study from University of Sussex found that multitasking is correlated with damage to the region of our brain responsible for empathy and emotional control. 

But the worst part is that a number of studies indicate a link between social media use and depression, anxiety, and in some cases, suicide. 

These issues are summarized well in this video: 

You Are The Product 

By using platforms like Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, we’re seemingly making a simple trade. We get to use a “free” platform to connect with people, find inspiration, and express ourselves. In exchange, those platforms feed you some ads so they can pay their bills. But it’s not that simple.  

They are actually building a detailed dossier of sorts. A dossier of information about you. Some of the information you volunteered, such as your name, your age, where you live. But the real value comes from tracking your activity. What posts you like, what videos you watch, what links you click. That tracking doesn’t end when you leave the platform. As David Neil describes in Wired magazine:  

Facebook's tentacles stretch out across other websites and services, into the various apps you're using on your phone, and to the places you physically visit in the real world—especially if you decide to check in on Facebook while you're there.

What he says about Facebook applies to every social media platform. Big Tech is watching you 24 hours a day and collecting every last detail.  

They say this information is fundamentally used to better target which ads you see. But let’s be honest about what that really means: Big Tech compiles massive amounts of information about everything you do so they can bundle that information and sell it to the highest bidder. 

And since that information commands a really good price, these platforms will stop at nothing to hijack your attention and keep it. In fact, they have whole teams dedicated to this.  

 A Wealth Transfer More Valuable Than Money 

Big profits were an obvious motive for capturing your attention and selling it. But the game has shifted into something deeper. The only thing more valuable than capturing your attention is the ability to decide what goes into your mind. 

Tristan Harris was a product manager at Google and is now critic of Big Tech. He’s an insider who knows how the game works. In an interview with Wired, he said:  

Technology steers what 2 billion people are thinking and believing every day. It’s possibly the largest source of influence over 2 billion people’s thoughts that has ever been created. Religions and governments don’t have that much influence over people’s daily thoughts.  

It’s clear that a handful of Big Tech companies recognize the power they have. And they intend to use that power to conform the world to their liking.  

 Example #1: The 2016 group counseling session that Google executives had with employees following Donald Trump’s election. Leadership was openly upset about the result and so were employees. Ruth Porat, CFO, promised to “use the great strength and resources and reach we have to continue to advance really important values.” 

Example #2: Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube continue censoring citizens and medical doctors from sharing published research about the effectiveness of vaccines, Ivermectin, and masks. We now know this censorship was coordinated and backed by the power of the US Government. And we also know that Big Tech companies were, in fact, the ones guilty of spreading disinformation.  

Eric Schmitt @Eric_Schmitt

For a refresher on how we got here and documents that already show a vast censorship enterprise between the Biden Administration and Big tech — check out this thread.👇 More to come…

Eric Schmitt @Eric_Schmitt

🚨In May, We filed a landmark lawsuit against top ranking Biden Admin. officials for colluding with social media companies to censor free speech. We have already received documents that show their cozy relationship, and now we’re demanding more. 🧵

September 6th 2022

735 Retweets2,658 Likes

Example #3: In response to the Dobbs Supreme Court decision sending abortion policy back to the states, Google – under pressure from employees and US government officials – altered their search algorithm to demote crisis pregnancy centers. Apparently they can’t stomach the possibility a pregnant woman might decide to keep her baby.   

Mark Warner @MarkWarner

I’m extremely disappointed we haven’t been able to codify Roe – but I’ve been looking for ways to ensure women have access to care, and I successfully advocated that Google improve their search results so fewer women are lured to scammy “crisis pregnancy centers.”

August 31st 2022

47 Retweets357 Likes

That’s just a taste. If you really want to take the red pill, ponder the idea that Big Tech is powerful enough to sway elections. They were caught red handed doing just that in 2020. Without leaving a paper trail. It’s genius - and evil. But they were caught because a researcher and his team of 700+ field agents was watching. If that seems like too much to believe, then definitely don’t watch the video below (starting at about the 5 minute mark).  

We’ve Seen Enough 

It may have started innocently. Steve Jobs seemed like a good guy who wanted to bring convenience and innovation to our lives. Maybe Mark Zuckerberg in all of his creepy, robotic wisdom really thought social media would help people get more connected and bring us closer together. And perhaps Jack Dorsey – oh, never mind about that one.  

Regardless of their original intentions, none of that matters at this point. We know the truth now. These devices and platforms have hijacked our lives at a deep level. They’ve changed our brain, our relationships, and our priorities.  

We gave away our time. We gave away our attention. We gave away connection.  

We became part of the algorithm. First, we were used so others could accumulate profit. Now we’re being manipulated so others can accumulate power.  

It’s not worth it. Let’s get back what we lost.  

All of it.  

This is the way.  

God bless and God bless America, 

-Jeff and Luke