The Age of Reaction

Tech companies have spent nearly two decades ensuring the internet economy is built on attention. They want our eyes glued to their platforms to capture as much data on us as possible so they can sell ads that are so hyper-targeted that we swear our phones listen to our conversations. And it worked.

We trust the tech platforms’ fancy algorithms to show us The Best Stuff™ and keep us endlessly entertained. Those algorithms, needing something to judge what is popular, looked at engagement — how many people commented on or shared or reposted the content. Because if something is highly engaging, it’s clearly accurate and popular. Right?

We’re all learning the hard way about the consequences of all this. As Ryan Broderick puts it, we’ve entered “Post World:”

“Article World” is the universe of American corporate journalism and punditry that, well, basically held up liberal democracy in this country since the invention of the radio. And “Post World” is everything the internet has allowed to flourish since the invention of the smartphone — YouTubers, streamers, influencers, conspiracy theorists, random trolls, bloggers, and, of course, podcasters. And now huge publications and news channels are finally noticing that Article World, with all its money and resources and prestige, has been reduced to competing with random posts that both voters and government officials happen to see online.

People see things online, they engage with it, and then more people see it. That’s the way our society works now. The problem is most of the nonsense people see online anymore is designed only to generate a reaction. Who cares if it’s real or true so long as it generates a reaction? If you’ve ever seen a gross recipe video or someone who seems to be a 22-year-old expert in geopolitics, you know what I’m talking about.

Reaction isn’t always a bad thing. As Nike designer Tinker Hatfield once said, “If people don’t love or hate your work, you just haven’t done all that much.” Driving people to react typically means they care or they learned or experienced something worth sharing. But what happens when all we do is react? What happens when the algorithms we’ve put our trust into force us into a never-ending reactionary loop without time to learn or grow? What happens when the only thing we experience online are quote posts or reactionary videos?

Simply reacting to content is training our brains only to expect the realities presented by the people we trust. And, let’s be honest, we trust them because they say what we want to hear. As a result, we start to distrust the people they’re reacting to or about. We’re building up an “us” vs “them” mentality where the people we agree with are always the heroes fighting for justice. This, of course, makes everyone else the villain.

Now, don’t get me wrong, there will always be times when we have clear villains worth standing up against and we sure do have our fair share right now. But, it isn’t everyone who doesn’t look or think or love like us. When we fall into the trap and believe that is true, the world becomes a very small, scary place.

The unfortunate reality is that we love reacting to drama. It’s why reality TV and car crashes capture our attention and don’t let go. We want to see what happens. That’s why Ernie Smith’s fantastic look back at Gamergate coined the term “dramascroll:”

People love drama, and capturing it is a consistent, cost-effective way to make money online. All you need is time and a camera. While some doomscroll, plenty of others dramascroll. It seems to crop up even in places where it might not have existed previously.

We love to react, and when we do, the algorithm feeds us more. We get stuck into the loop, perpetuating the us vs them mentality by only listening to the people we want to hear from. When we’re stuck in a reactionary loop like this, we lose all ability to reason.

Last year, I asked, “Is Reading Dying?” It was a hyperbolic question highlighting shortening attention spans and the dramatic drop in book sales. But it was a recent comment on the article that finally tied everything together for me:

In Al Gore's book The Assault on Reason (2006), he talks about the decline of reading and the different parts of the brain that are stimulated in reading/listening versus watching. Moving images stimulate the amygdala, the ancient brain, that processes fear and fight or flight responses. So people who watch news rather than read it, are more fearful and more likely to react. Reading on the other hand, stimulates multiple areas of the brain at the same time, an integrated response that happens in our more recently evolved brain areas. The point he makes is that reading leads to reason where watching leads to reaction.

Reason dies when we give in to reaction.

When all we’re doing is spending time watching videos that cause outrage or reacting to the things happening on our phones, we give up our ability to reason. We give up our chance to learn something new or experience a new perspective. And we give in to finding enemies everywhere we look. And maybe that was the whole point.

Benjamin Sledge recently explored the geopolitics of that horrific White House meeting with President Zelensky. Unlike the random online college students who think they understand world affairs, Sledge has a vast history in the field. In his piece, he shares an excerpt from Aleksandr Dugin’s The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia published in 1997:

Russia should ‘introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social, and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements — extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S. It would also make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics.’

Check, check, and check… And now amplified and powered by tech company algorithms.

We’ve fallen into the division and separation trap because the reactionary dramascroll is so much more satisfying than reasoning or learning. And now we’re paying the price. So, how do we escape?

It’s time for a new Age of Enlightenment.

It’s time for an era where education and ideas are celebrated, healthily debated, and implemented for the betterment of society as a whole — not just the people in power.

It’s time for new leaders who understand that community needs are more important than personal or political ones; and it’s high time these leaders learn how to quickly and succinctly convey that message.

It’s time we collectively support, encourage, and share enlightening content that helps us think, learn, and grow; we should share it not to generate a reaction but to engage in conversation with others.

It’s time we individually challenge ourselves to step outside of the reactionary bubbles we’ve built for ourselves and find ways to engage with the greater world.

None of this will be easy, and none of it can be done alone. It will require a community-minded effort that requires us to work together, no matter our differences.

I view my small platform as a way to spread ideas and engage in conversation. The email responses and comments from readers help evolve and shape my own viewpoints, which I then share with you all. It’s a way to collectively grow together.

That’s why I know we can do this. It’s the vision of the internet that I wholeheartedly believe in. Will you join me to help usher in a new Age of Enlightenment, one of creativity, inclusivity, and a return to reason?

Let me know your thoughts and how you will help usher us into a new age.