<story><title>Instagram Is Facebook Now</title><url>https://embedded.substack.com/p/instagram-is-facebook-now</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>epolanski</author><text>I met one of the most brilliant people in my life. Smart, passionate about art, culture, politics. Brilliant student, top of her class from elementary through college. Fluent (as in certified) C2 in English and German. Terrific career as a public servant in foreign politics already in her late 20s.&lt;p&gt;She would never, ever, miss a single episode of a “reality” about dating in tv, a show famous in Italy as “trash tv”. It was unwatchable, worse than Jersey shore.&lt;p&gt;I asked her why such an intelligent and smart person couldn’t miss an episode of something so terrible and lame and she answered me “I know it’s awful, but for an entire hour I’m able to be lobotomized and not have a single thought, I can completely detach from reality and relax”.&lt;p&gt;My current SO does the same with Instagram. Whenever she needs to detach from her thoughts she zombifies on Instagram. Might be cats or fashion bloggers but she tunes out completely and she does that intentionally knowing that’s the effect it has on her.</text></item><item><author>marcodiego</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t understand Instagram language. My GF uses it. It is full of digital influencers, people who make money because they are digital influencers. Young people with sometimes funny but generally pointless and most often ridiculous dancing moves to an equally ridiculous repetitive song. People buying expensive things, doing idiot things talking about uninteresting details of the uninteresting lives of equally uninteresting people...&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t understand the hypnotic effect it has.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>Valakas_</author><text>We are humans. We need social connection, we need soap operas, &amp;quot;trash TV&amp;quot; is just human drama basically. Our brains were not made for studying math 24&amp;#x2F;7 but they were made for social interaction 24&amp;#x2F;7. Social interaction is like driving on autopilot. It fulfills us. Doing science, solving hard abstract problems, being engaged in political events is tiring. Sometimes we just want to do what our brain is made for as its default, resting activity.&lt;p&gt;Why is it trash also? I&amp;#x27;m sure there&amp;#x27;s a lot of interesting psychology to unpack there. It&amp;#x27;s just trash if one thinks we need to dedicate ourselves to &amp;quot;higher purposes&amp;quot; and anything else is &amp;quot;lowly&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;denigrating&amp;quot;. As if whatever one chooses to do in their free time, that doesn&amp;#x27;t hurt anybody, and is just a little human drama in a watchable package that maybe we miss during day to day, as so much of a job life is dry, and that makes us connect to our inner humanity is &amp;quot;trash&amp;quot;.</text></comment>
<story><title>Instagram Is Facebook Now</title><url>https://embedded.substack.com/p/instagram-is-facebook-now</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>epolanski</author><text>I met one of the most brilliant people in my life. Smart, passionate about art, culture, politics. Brilliant student, top of her class from elementary through college. Fluent (as in certified) C2 in English and German. Terrific career as a public servant in foreign politics already in her late 20s.&lt;p&gt;She would never, ever, miss a single episode of a “reality” about dating in tv, a show famous in Italy as “trash tv”. It was unwatchable, worse than Jersey shore.&lt;p&gt;I asked her why such an intelligent and smart person couldn’t miss an episode of something so terrible and lame and she answered me “I know it’s awful, but for an entire hour I’m able to be lobotomized and not have a single thought, I can completely detach from reality and relax”.&lt;p&gt;My current SO does the same with Instagram. Whenever she needs to detach from her thoughts she zombifies on Instagram. Might be cats or fashion bloggers but she tunes out completely and she does that intentionally knowing that’s the effect it has on her.</text></item><item><author>marcodiego</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t understand Instagram language. My GF uses it. It is full of digital influencers, people who make money because they are digital influencers. Young people with sometimes funny but generally pointless and most often ridiculous dancing moves to an equally ridiculous repetitive song. People buying expensive things, doing idiot things talking about uninteresting details of the uninteresting lives of equally uninteresting people...&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t understand the hypnotic effect it has.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>afavour</author><text>It’s also a social thing. My partner and her friends watch the same reality shows, follow the same Instagram celebrities. They talk about the reality shows, what the celebrities have posted (in all honesty they seem to fill the exact same void). In that context I don’t think it’s all that much worse than, say, a group of people gathering to talk about last weekend’s football game.&lt;p&gt;I find video games fill that same “mindless” void for me. Prior to the pandemic I’d barely played any in a decade but now I’ll fire up Call of Duty every couple of days to play a few rounds. It’s dumb, I learn nothing from it and I achieve nothing. But it’s nice to switch my brain off.</text></comment>