It’s been one hell of a coke binge so far hasn’t it? Smart phones, social media wars, Silicon Valley tyrants rearranging our lives as they try to squeeze out every last second of our attention. When will it end?

I don’t know about anyone else, but I’m feeling rather strung out at the moment.

There’s a phenomenon scuba divers have to watch out for called nitrogen narcosis. Below certain depths, the nitrogen in your body becomes an intoxicant.

Rapture of the Deep, they call it. You can get so out of it, you’ll try to offer your regulator to a fish, swim down, when you need to swim up, etc.

Not that I ever went scuba diving, but I think it’s comparable to what we’re all doing here on land. Doomscroll Narcosis. Rapture of the Screen. You’re in too deep, but you just keep diving deeper and forget to come up for air.

I’m as guilty as anyone. I tear myself away from the phone, take icons off the home screen, set alarms and rules, try to instill a little self-discipline then I find myself doing it again. From content to content, switching between Facebook, YouTube, Mastodon and back again.

By the time I snap out of it, half the day is gone and I can’t string words into a coherent sentence.

“This is your brain on technology… Any questions?”

I am seeing some signs that we might overcome this mess. I’m seeing some really substantive YouTube channels that seem to be growing, slowly.

All this dopamine seeking behavior isn’t giving any of us the meaning we seek.

I have a hope that enough people have enough of the mindlessness and go looking for the real deal. The stuff that helps us figure out who and what we are, that make a hard life worth putting up with.

People like John Vervaeke with his Awakening from the Meaning Crisis series on the development of Western philosophy, Damien Walter with his thoughtful critiques of science fiction storytelling.

I think they’re onto something. It takes effort to explore their work, but it’s worth it. There’s spiritual food to be had online from people not obsessed with overnight success. Eventually people will quit binging on internet candy and go looking for it.