This snippet from a conversation between Lex Friedman and Jeff Bezos sparked a thought:
Everyone is obsessed with building the next viral thing, putting out content that will go viral, products that will go viral, more so in the social space. I was obsessed with going viral, too. However, in order to do this, it translates into building and creating something for short attention spans. It's a seemingly effective way to reach a vast audience quickly. But I started to think about it morally. If your goal is to genuinely contribute to societal betterment, should you really be fueling addictive, short-span attention habits? Continually catering to and reinforcing these brief attention cycles may be effective for immediate engagement, but it also contributes to a broader, more concerning pattern. I'm fearing this trend with AI. Forget the short attention spans - people are going to forget how to use their brains! I am noticing myself becoming more and more dependent on chatgpt for tasks, specifically for helping me write. If I continue being dependent, I’m gonna forget how to write cohesively and impactfully altogether. I fear that this dependency will soon be on the rise. There's an urgent need to integrate a sense of social responsibility into the user experience design of these advanced tools.
How can we balance between the benefits of automation and the potential risk of diminishing our own ability to craft effectively and independently?
It’s harder to unlearn a habit than it is to develop a new one, and to me, taking that challenge of rewiring people’s brains to unlearn detrimental habits seems more impactful. There is more value in prioritizing the cultivation of habits like long attention span, which enhance focus and deeper engagement, even if it doesn't promise the same explosive viewership. I strongly believe guiding just 10 people out of the trap of short attention spans, and getting them to interact with the world in a more meaningful way, feels like a much bigger win than simply appealing to the fleeting interests 1M users.
