But this feels like an article where you get all the useful info in the title. The rest is just a rant about the modern internet being bad for your brain.
I see this structure:
* introduce dopamine fracking
* the wonderful strawberry analogy to what we loose, personally, by giving in to the substitue for the real thing
* how they (the author) managed to in baby steps turn down attempts at fracking _their_ dopamine: through awareness of what's happening and what were missing because of it
so until there is some bigger scale solution, we can at least self regulate.
and overall the article is a positive note in difficult times.
I especially loved the strawberry analogy.
* some parts of it imply it's about higher intensity, 'bigger' dopamine hits * while other parts talk about commodification, i.e. making these 'dopamine hits' as cheaply as possible, with as little other substance as possible
Not the same thing. There's a connection - reducing 'substance' make it more 'pure' dopamine, also there's some loudness war between different sources. But still, in the end people generally don't feel anything intense when scrolling tiktok, it's just enough to grab attention.
I guess more direct analogy with fracking might work better: it squeezes dopamine hit out of things which normally don't warrant attention.
I believe I have superior taste in this where I don't take selfies but instead take pictures of people and environment just doing stuff. The moment someone says "smile for the camera!", thats an inferior, fake situation that does not bring me any joy. I don't like looking at those pictures because I know everyone is faking it. I know because the moment the picture was taken, they would immediately sighed and drop the smile.
I went and sorted through all my photos and printed out the best ones to pin up on a board. I love looking at them and everyone who comes over finds it interesting to look through the photos on the wall too.
The old flash photography combined with candid authentic expressions is really refreshing to see again. The phone camera and look is just so overdone that it’s boring. Taking photos with an old tech and different focal length feels fresh and fun. I don’t post these on social media, I just print them and share the pics directly with the person, everyone has loved it.
There’s also a delayed gratification aspect. I can’t just post these from my phone as soon as I take them. I have to go home, take the sd card out, and copy them over before I can share them. I think there’s something to be said for just slowing down and enjoying the limitations.
I'm a bit more intentional now: I don't pull out my (phone) camera all that often, but I try to look for something that will represent - not record (that's impossible), but spark a memory of - the moment later. By the way, people are more important for this than things, or "the thing" itself. I actually think the selfie brigade are on the right track, for all that they may become annoying by overdoing it.
I'd also say that's most likely a healthy kind of dopamine usage, as it's leading one into a life of exploration, learning and wonder.
But you're right, taking a true in-the-moment picture is a skill.
I appreciated the unintentional honesty: time and time again you see kids being told to smile for a camera, when they’re young enough that society hasn’t yet ingrained in the social necessity of doing so.
Ephemeral communication?
It's fun; Gets a group together; They touch for a moment; Look at it together; "Oh my good I look so fat"; ...
GP conflates selfies with posed photos.
Maybe you're not far enough removed from them yet. Looking back on a group photo years later, especially if some of those people have died, is a very pleasant experience. The point isn't "look at us all smiling" when you know that it was posed, the point is "remember all of those people there that day, we were together, we did x etc". It reminds you of the entire event, not the specific moment of taking the photo.
Edit: Sit with a parent or grandparent and go through their photo albums. Almost all the photos are posed and you'll see how great that can be.
I felt old.
I've wanted to write an article about mulberries (long before this article), and the reason why they are not sold in grocery stores, is because of their precious shelf life and tendency to stain with gendle handling.
I recently read about CERN transporting antiprotons to another facility.
I then thought, if CERN can move antiprotons, surely someone can figure out how to sell mulberries at the local grocery?
Of course, not everything needs to be commercialized. Some of the best things in life are free.
The search itself is the dopamine hit. I think the author, if anything, meant endorphins, it's just that there's so much misleading pop science about this, that everyone blames poor old dopamine for their woes.
Now that I think about it adrenaline was the previous go-to chemical which somehow explained all human behaviour.
Similarly, Dopamine now just means "a short hit of instant gratification" to the average person. I also don't like it, it leads to misinterpretations of scientic texts (which are usually very strict about word usage, and consequently differ from the "popular" meanings of a word, or in this case, molecule).
¯\(ツ)/¯
On the other hand i'm wondering if that's just an implementation detail. A temporary imperfection in simulating the real thing due to constraints in (chemical) engineering and cost, not a hard limit.
Neural Networks are universal function approximators. Throw enough resources at them and they will mimic the most complex function to an arbitrary level of detail.
If you are sympathetic, or even curious, about the advantages of commercial society Deirdre Mccloskey's bourgeoise trilogy is an excellent place to begin.
German culture is more or a romanticist "Sturm und Drang" kind