Unbargling
Growing up, I was a compulsive reader. Apart from a dictionary, an atlas, a set of encyclopedias, and my Dad’s old EE textsbooks, my family didn’t own many books; but twice a month we would drive over to the library where I would check out as many books as they allowed, and devour them all by the time the next trip rolled around. Any magazines left laying about were fair game: National Geographic, Science News, Analog, Galaxy (Mom’s mystery magazines for reasons unknown never attracted me). (I just now remembered that National Geographic still retained this thing from its early Society days where you had to be nominated by an existing member in order to join, so Dad nominated me when I moved out on my own so I could continue receiving the magazine.) I learned to read the funny pages upside down because my two older brothers always got to them first. At breakfast time, I devoured the backs of cereal boxes, specially printed with stories and activities for our sugar-charged brains.
I truly believe now that this compulsion is what makes me and so many like me vulnerable to doomscroll addiction.
In the early, tight-knit days of the WWW, you might find yourself confronted with a webpage proclaiming itself The End of the Internet. Turn back the way you came, it intoned, and click no further. The Internet was finite. It had a limit, an edge, an end. Be it blog, wiki article, Reddit thread or comment section, you scrolled down and in due time hit the bottom of the page. Today the socials offer the opposite experience; you scroll and scroll popping off snack after snack like a dopamine Pez dispenser and it just keeps filling up from the bottom, and if it’s not particularly nutritious at least it’s tasty, and if one morsel isn’t tasty at least there’s more.
I first joined the Book of Face in 2008 after a trip to Nepal so I could share pictures with my new friends from the Helambu Trek & village project. It was fun! I was still a voracious reader IRL, I remember taking this brand new thing called a Kindle on that trip, no longer needing to find space in my luggage for a Proust-load of paperbacks. I can’t pinpoint exactly when the shift happened, nor can I blame entirely the Feeds for swallowing my attention whole and fragmenting it into bits. I had a full-time job, a career even, one that used my brain, and when I came home at the end of the day it was easy to log on, sit back, and let the tasty snippets wash over me.
And the years go by, and not only is what little nutrition there was in the snacky snacks completely gone, they don’t even have a taste, not even a bad one; they’re just one scrap of flavorless gristle after another that we addictively gobble in the vain exercise that one of them will fleetingly provide that craved rush.
So now I find myself in my 60s, retired, and learning how to read again (like so many others trying to claw back their attention spans nowadays). I really want to talk to you about what I’ve been reading, but I’ve got to give my pseudo-sciatica a break so I’m going to wrap this up tonight and post it in the morning, and follow up with the next installment in a few days!