Reclaiming Your Attention
Strategies to reclaim your mental space and critical thinking in an age where algorithms are designed to hijack your attention.
Distance yourself from social media. Not because you want to, but because you have to.
The algorithms have become too strong. They are terrifyingly efficient at seeding your feed with what they want you to see rather than what you actually want to see.
It gets annoying.
You hop on a feed to start your day or take a break in the afternoon. You might be in a vulnerable mood. Suddenly these ideas come at you from every direction and influence your mind before you have even had a chance to guard it.
That is why I am a strong proponent of consciously populating your feed with what you want versus how an algorithm wants you to think.
In my last post, "The Decision Economy," I talked about how important it is to think for yourself rather than having your decisions controlled for you.
You need critical thinking.
You need to find time and space throughout the day to sit back and reflect on what you are doing instead of passively walking through life.
Your Mind is a Garden
These algorithms are good.
If you choose to brain rot and allow these platforms to feed you poor quality information, that is exactly what you get.
It crosses your mind. It becomes what you think about. It infiltrates your conversations and dictates the people you attract.
The quality of input you receive affects you outwardly because it constantly occupies your mental space.
The more you think about it, the more connections you make around it.
You produce ideas around it. You behave from it. Your mind is like a garden.
Whatever you allow to enter somehow flows and springs out.
The War for Attention
I have been sick and tired of social media feeding me information. Even information I thought I wanted. It is just a massive playing field vying for attention.
Whether it is an institution, a platform trying to keep you online longer, or a personal brand trying to sell you something, everyone is competing for the same turf.
Attention is a scarce asset. Whoever is the loudest, whoever works the algorithm the best, and whoever creates the viral hit will win.
But sometimes I just want to hop on the feed and not deal with the drama. I do not care about the meme flying around. Entering those conversations feels like peeping into another person's house. I do not want to be there.
I just want the quality information extraction. That is it. Then I want to move on.
I must admit that a platform like X has incredible distribution for quality text-based information.
There is a high density of value in the communities I am interested in. But we have to find a balance between consuming that value and avoiding the noise.
Some Tactics
The first component is awareness. The second is knowing what you want. The third is being conscious and choosing when you are allowed to use these platforms.
Personally, I use tools to build a defense.
I use Opal to limit screen time. I use a Chrome extension called Block YouTube Feed to remove the distraction of the homepage. I use Pie Ad Block to stop advertisements across the web.
A lot of these agendas are pushed into your consciousness and it breaks your flow. The more I have removed myself from the feeds, the better I feel. The feeds are the most distracting part.
Building these defense tactics allows me to pull back the energy I would usually offer to an advertiser. I can keep it for myself. I can think more clearly. I can focus on work. It removes a huge barrier that adds up to a lot of wasted time.
Mimetic Theory and Imitation
At the end of the day, if you want to think and be like everyone else, just do exactly what they are doing.
Argue against the same drama. Follow the same trends. Parrot what people are talking about.
If you look into Rene Girard's work on imitation and human behavior, specifically Memetic Theory, you realize that much of what we do is just imitation.
It is an unfortunate fact but it is true. How you think, what you believe, and what you say is often just a reflection of what you have heard.
Imitation is how we learn fast. It is how we fit into groups. The biological imperative is to fit in, reproduce, and be social. Because humans often despise the discomfort of truth, we just imitate.
But when it comes to discovering truth, thinking from first principles, or having original thoughts, you have to remove the crutches.
That requires energy.
It is risky.
It forces you to enter spaces that feel uncomfortable because you are opposing the social group.
This is not a post telling you to isolate yourself, move to a cottage, and grow your own food.
It is about knowing who you are and allowing with intent what goes into your awareness.
Intentionality vs. Passivity
If you live passively, you get passive results. Passive civility leads to imitation because it is low effort.
But when you remove the garbage polluting your thinking, you gain the bandwidth to think intellectually about what you want to pursue.
The goal is to be very specific about what you want out of the world.
It is a black box, sure.
Miracles and luck happen.
But you can increase your luck.
You can tilt the odds in your favor by being intentional.
If you are addicted to social media but want to be strategic, I feel you. On one hand, I want the data. On the other, the noise sickens me.
If you aren't sure where to start, get concrete with your vision.
Have a vision. It does not have to be perfect, but have a direction.
Set goals and reverse engineer how to achieve them.
Create a system with a target and a process to hit it. And know your "why."
When things get hard, and they will, you need to know why you are doing it.
Execution over Consumption
There are different seasons in life. Sometimes you need to consume information to learn. But other times you need to cut it all out.
There have been times where I cut everything.
No books, no podcasts, no content.
You intuitively know when you have enough information. It is a gut feeling.
When you feel that urge to break away, do it.
Fill your time with execution. Build the product. Make something happen.
If you go deeper into the internet, you realize that what you see is produced by a tiny fraction of the world. The 1% Rule suggests that 90% of users are passive consumers, 9% engage slightly, and only 1% actually produce the content.
Just because you see a narrative online does not mean the whole world agrees with it.
The world is not binary.
There are entire industries and valuable people who are offline building things that do not require social media.
Your Final Defense
Fill your mind with useful information.
Be very intentional.
Some of the most successful people in the world limit how much their children consume social media. It has been reported in interviews and podcasts time and time again.
They know something we do not. They understand the impact on mental health and development.
If the people who built these systems guard their own families from them, doesn't it make sense for you to build some space and understand what it is like to think on your own?