A one-track mind is an idiom used to describe someone who thinks, talks, or cares about only one particular subject or goal, ignoring everything else.
I was just watching footage of the flooding and landslides in Nepal and how horrifically powerful nature is. And the more we screw up the environment, the more volatile it is going to get.
Just before watching that, I was reading a story about Meta giving up on defending its case against US states about purposefully making their platform addictive, and agreeing to an 18 billion settlement paid out over ten years. That is nothing for them. And, they will only pay the full amount if other platforms like TikTok and YouTube implement similar measures and pay similar amounts.
But these two stories got me thinking again about what the problem is with news and the platform feeds, because they are very much unrelated. Sure, relationships can be made about the state of society, how we consume, behave and treat the environment and how it all has an effect - but for me right now, sitting here in this chair - the stories are unrelated.
Yet, both of them take my attention.
And this I think is one of the key problems with the way we consume information today, because it is short content that skips from one topic to another, without those two data points being related to each other. One piece grabs our attention for a moment, and then the next piece grabs it, with no connection between the two. Just two random bits of information, no sinew or story between.
While no one truly has a one-track mind, someone who is very interested in a single topic tends to be a relative expert in it and surrounds themselves with information that broadens and deepens their knowledge. They not only think about it, but seek out supportive content. They become hyper-focused on what they are interested in and stick with it, over and over again.
However, people who consume a lot of short-form, random content like on the "social" feeds have interests that grab their attention from moment to moment, pulling it this way and that, but never really fleshing out any depth. It is like the people who used to read only headlines from the newspaper, and then believe they knew what it was all about. Except, very little of what people are consuming is actually relevant to their daily life at all, it is just filler for avoidance of discomfort or boredom.
It could be though that instead of being hyper-focused on one topic, what is happening is we are micro-focused on many topics, with each giving us the dopamine hit we crave from the things we enjoy and are interested in. Except, watch people's faces as they scroll and tell me, do you see enjoyment and interest? No. They are focused, but they aren't enjoying the process and often appear more in pain than anything else, perhaps as they scroll through drivel in the hope to find a little bit of something that makes them laugh.
The news itself has changed a lot in the last few decades especially, but it has been happening for a while. I always imagine news starting as a bulletin board at the church a few hundred years ago, where a note was left for Mary who was unable to attend, that there are wolves roaming about so watch the cattle. It was all pretty relevant to their life, because news didn't travel far very fast, and there was no point sharing what wasn't relative. It had to be "new" and useful.
But now, with the speed of communication, we can get videos of a landslide in Nepal almost while it is happening, as well as the result from a court case in the US, news that Tim Curry died, and the results of a sporting match simultaneously. But when it comes to our daily lives right now, none of these things are really relevant or will have an impact on us directly. The only people impacted directly, are those on location. But how much of what we consume is actually from where we are and relevant to who we are, what we are interested in, and what we want to do with our lives?
We should be a little more focused on what we want to accomplish, how we are going to accomplish it, and doing what we need to make it happen. Right?
It is good to have a broad understanding of the world, but I do not think it is healthy to have no focus within our daily lives on what we are looking to do with the potential we have. This doesn't mean we can't consume, but perhaps we should have a little more of a one-track mind and identify what we want to do and surround ourselves with the content that helps us achieve that end, or at least, take that journey.
For a long time I have written and talked about just this topic, where I think we have to be careful with what we surround ourselves with, because we are what we eat. If we want to accomplish something, we need to design our environment to feed us what facilitates our actions toward that goal, and remove what doesn't as much as possible. Yet, it appears that instead of flooding ourselves with the right content, we are surrounding ourselves with unfocused and random pieces of information that do not create a coherent story, let alone clear action toward our goals.
No wonder we fail to meet our goals.
We don't have goals. Not real goals anyway. We want things and want to have more things, but we don't really solidify what that is going to look like, what needs to be done, or how we are going to get there. So, all the scrolling of news and feeds doesn't set off the trigger that we are doing the wrong thing to meet our wants and needs. But if we were to actually surround ourselves with the content that does help us, we will be constantly reminded to stay focused.
Something, very few people seem to be able to do these days.
The feeds are not linear, they are not a story. They are an algorithm feeding random bits of information designed to keep us scrolling, instead of doing what makes us satisfied.
Taraz
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I have to wonder who actually reads headlines from a newspaper (or news feeds as it may be now) and thinks they're "well-informed"? Like I do that a lot (read headlines and bylines and carry on because I have no interest in the article) and there is no delusion of being "informed" there, just a vague idea that something is happening somewhere.
Technically but I imagine anyone not immediately local but who had family or friends in that area at that time would be secondarily affected.
What is the thought process behind that like? Genuine curiousity from someone who has always known what they wanted to do from birth (okay maybe 7 or 8 XD) and is still trending in that general direction with several detours despite no hope of success at this point :)
My dad would. He would hear one line from something and then change his behaviours :D
Yes, so the news might be relevant for a small amount of people outside - but is broadcast globally and 8 billion people consume it. For what reason?
I think most people today (maybe always) occupy their minds with what doesn't actually support what they want or need to the point that they don't spend any time really evaluating their true wants and needs. It is all vague, cloudy - and therefore what needs to be done is not concrete.
Oh my. My mum would at least read the entire article ^_^; But then again if someone from some reputable looking tv program said something...right I think I get it now XD
I tried answering this a few ways and actually don't know how to interpret it. Broadcasts by nature just hit whoever can/wants to receive them and if it's interesting to you for some reason you pay attention and if it's not you don't.
Hmm, it is our nature to always find something to do at our leisure time. You could imagine people busy scrolling through the internet especially saying that they were busy. It is just what it is. A lot of us have imbibe the culture of watching content while going on with our daily activities. It has become part and parcel of us. Nowadays, you don’t need to talk or engage in meaningful conversation before you will be preoccupied for the day with a lot of information ready to be absorbed. You will see people navigating through Facebook to TikTok, X and even instagram without a specific purpose of what they are likely to see.
They are just doing it to feed their eyes and possibly ego if I may say.
How much leisure time does it take before it becomes detrimental? It is in our nature to like sugar too.
Do you think that after the humanity will be gone after some time dinosaurs could return(evolve from other species)?In other words is life going in circles as well as crypto?
I don't think so. But something will come, right? Maybe we are just the next dinosaurs.
Maybe the concept of goals varies: for some, doing social or environmental good is a personal goal; for others, saving up to buy themselves a snack might be the most important goal. In both cases, they follow their goals according to their own lifestyles.
Sure it varies - but who would choose the lifegoal of consuming short-form content that is irrelevant to life? :D
It's easy to say, the new generations consume short content, that's why TikTok along with YouTube Shorts have a lot of reach. The difference is huge compared to the long, useful content that previous generations consume.
I think this is part of the reason I don't watch a lot of short form stuff myself. Really if anything I watch videos about disc golf or BBQ and that's about it. I don't even spend a lot of time on YouTube unless I am watching a music video or trying to learn how to fix something. I can't wrap my head around the people who sit and watch YouTube for hours on end.
We have to get used to social media being a part of our lives
I think news is another form of entertainment. I don't watch any short content other than fifteen minute videos on YouTube for the fun of it. The scrolling I do is on YouTube to find what I want to watch.
Thanks