01/10/2017

The archive contains older posts which may no longer reflect my current views.

# Liked: Seth's Blog: The pleasure/happiness gap...

”Marketers usually sell pleasure. That's a shortcut to easy, repeated revenue. Getting someone hooked on the hit that comes from caffeine, tobacco, video or sugar is a business model. Lately, social media is using dopamine hits around fear and anger and short-term connection to build a new sort of addiction.”

The pleasure/happiness gap is larger than ever and while social networks may swear blind they are not intentionally marketing fear as a shortcut to dopamine fuelled reliance they themselves rely on our base desires and repulsions to feed their streams.

This is why I stopped using them.

But old habits die hard.

We seek new avenues, new niche networks, check stats, and relish comments. It’s hard not to stop there but instead use it as part of something bigger, something more long term and fulfilling.

That is the real challenge we face.

1 comment: click to read or leave your own Comments

# It's always strange when old posts suddenly get an influx of traffic.

It's understandable that a search might unearth a particular post for someone and result in them clicking through, but when there are a number of visits to the same post within a short period I often wonder why.

It's things like this, rather than the number of visits, that cause me to persist with stats: curiosity as opposed to vanity.

# It's hard to believe it's October already - this year so far has just flown by.

I'm half inclined to think it's because my normal routine has been interrupted by two stints of illness, causing me to lose track of exactly where and when I am.

But there's been more: my youngest daughter passing her exams which meant she could go (and is now going) to college chief among them.

The focus has been on individual events, or sequences thereof, and the flow of time gets lost in the process.

I'm not sure if this is a good or bad thing.

What I am sure of, however, is that I need to focus more of the long term rather than the short; more on the happiness and less on the pleasure.

I've always wanted to build something more meaningful but never knew what or how, and I think that being in the wrong mindset has held me back.

They say you can't teach an old dog new tricks but I'm willing to try.

1 comment: click to read or leave your own Comments