This article argues that social media platforms are intentionally designed to accelerate our subjective perception of time, effectively stealing time from our lives by making our experiences less memorable. It explores the psychological mechanisms behind this phenomenon and offers strategies to reclaim control over our time and attention.
Key Arguments and Findings
- Time Perception is Linked to Memory: Our retrospective sense of how long a period was is determined by the number of new memories we formed. Social media, through its repetitive and desensitizing nature, impairs memory formation, causing hours of scrolling to feel brief and become quickly forgotten (a phenomenon the author calls the “Lethe effect”).
- Engineered for Passivity: Social media design borrows manipulative techniques from casinos and supermarkets to induce a state of passive consumption. Features like infinite scroll and autoplay are “curvilinear paths” that eliminate decision points, while algorithmic feeds act as “mazes” that cause users to lose track of their original intent (the “Gruen effect”).
- Fragmented Narrative: The human brain understands time by organizing events into stories (“emplotment”). A social media feed is the opposite of a story—a disjointed, non-chronological jumble of unrelated content that resists being formed into a coherent memory.
- Negative Consequences: This constant digital distraction fragments our attention even when offline, leading to stress, poor sleep, and mental health issues. The article cites research suggesting a link between high screen time and accelerated biological aging.
Conclusions and Takeaways
To counteract this effect and make life feel longer and richer, we must actively choose experiences that are memorable. The author advises seeking out novelty, making intentional choices rather than acting on habit, and pursuing experiences that can be formed into stories. A key challenge is remembering to stay conscious of time’s value. The article concludes by recommending the use of modern memento mori (reminders of mortality)—such as reflecting on life’s fragility—to maintain the motivation to live presently and intentionally, rather than losing time to forgettable scrolling.
Mentoring question
The article suggests breaking routine to create richer memories and slow down your perception of time. What is one small, intentional change you could make to your daily or weekly habits to introduce novelty and create a more memorable experience?
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