Thank you for your writing, it's amongst the most memorable/useful on the site for me. This one especially so, as I've been thinking about this topic for years now. After all, I was one of the hesitant youth, prodded and pulled to download snapchat and the rest, only to become utterly trapped by them like everyone else. You're right to describe remembering to remember as the sticking point. Despite feeling uneasy about all of this for as long as I have, maintaining my path out of the labyrinth has been well... anything but straightforward.
Here are some tools that have been useful to me.
"Your Life in Weeks" -- A calendar with circles representing each of the 52 weeks in the year (to be filled out as you age)
Screen Time Blockers -- An API that allows you to selectively block access to websites and apps
Meditation -- The act of ceasing to be identified with the currents of our minds
Exercise -- The best way of reconnecting to this carbon world of ours, and ourselves
Talking to Strangers -- It lifts my mood and reminds me that there's nothing if not other people
Going for Bike Rides/Runs -- I've learned a lot more about the place where I live by seeing it
Sex -- An oldie but a goodie.
Phone Calls -- I've been trying to call a loved one every weekend
A little ball of yarn -- The ancients knew spinning the yarn was the best way out of this maze!
That was unsettling—and freeing to read. The analogy of “curvilinear mazes” captures something that’s hard to pin down but obvious when named: most of us don’t lose time to social feeds by accident; the design almost ensures it. Your point about story really sticks with me. If time feels longer when it’s part of a narrative, it’s no wonder the jumble of posts and disconnected links leaves us with fragments, not memories.
Maybe the greatest risk isn’t just how social platforms steal our present, but how they erode the threads that tie one moment to the next. Without those connections, days blur and intention thins out. It’s striking how quickly novelty gets numbed, and even the advice to “seek surprise” can become just another routine if we aren’t conscious about it.
Reading this, I’m left asking: Is the true antidote not just to cut down screen time, but to be deliberate about weaving real stories and right angles into our lives—moments that contrast with the smooth, endless scroll? I wonder if the act of noticing, of making context sharp again, is actually the best form of resistance.
As I read this outstanding piece I couldn't help but reflect on how Substack Notes has morphed into exactly the type of social media that is TikTok and Facebook. Interesting and informative articles wrapped in re-stacks are interspersed with a plethora of memes and animal videos. While this keeps people on the platform, the trivia distracts readers (well at least me) from finding new writers. That, in turn, makes it ever more difficult for good writers, trying to make a living, from getting subscribers.
Do away with the app. You can get email notifications when articles you want to read are posted.
At least thats what i did. Other than articles, i dont go "out there" much at all. Bc i saw immediately what the app was doing, and i already knew it for the trash it is.
The 'Home' feed is bad (though still not nearly as bad as TikTok/FB), but the 'Following' one is much better, as it's only Notes by those you follow. However, Substack has programmed the App to always return to the 'Home' feed, ignoring my repeatedly set preference. I assume this is deliberate, and it really turns me off of Notes.
On the website, once you click on 'Following' it remembers the setting (if that's the way you last viewed it) when you come back, so I never have to see the rubbish unless I choose to.
Same. They obviously are aping Twitter and the default home page being the feed is bad. At a minimum I'd like to see their algorithm heavily favor items that link to and/or quote longer posts and downweight Twitter style memes and jokes.
This really nails it, Jim. I am so sorry to watch Substack descend, as all social media does, into garbage and jumble. Increasingly I have to shed the shit and find the gems. Eventually I suspect those of us who care enough will move on, and the next place will experience precisely the same thing. That said, I am planning more adventures instead of more scrolling.
Gurwinder! Been a whole since I've read your work but this was an amazing topic! I've touched on this a plethora of times on my stack, but there were a few comments on your that I'm just now realizing.
1. The Normalizing of Amnesia -- This was a fascinating topic and one that I hadn't come across until now. The reference to the "lethe" is one I have to ponder on some more as I love how these ancient myths tell us information about our world today.
2. The story on Friedman and the casinos is mind blowing. I've been to plenty a casinos in my day and in reading about this, I had flashbacks as to how just a simple walk to the rest room is bombarded by machines everywhere.
Agreed with taking our time back and this is what I focus on in my work. Recently, I touched on allowing our mind to wander since that's what we've lost since every moment of 'boredom' we grab out phone. From that article we read:
"when we let our minds wander and passively watch the world go by, our brain engages in crucial unconscious processes. It helps us make sense of our lives, integrate past experiences into a coherent story, and plan for the future." (https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/what-happens-when-your-brain-has)
Love the stoicism and buddhism quotes. We have an amazing journey to live here. Let's not let it slip out of our hands.
Here's some of the work I've touched on in a similar fashion:
This reminds me of when Instagram changed it's algorithm/feed from linear to non-linear.
In the past, when you opened instagram - it would show posts in a LINEAR fashion. So, when you opened the app - the first thing you would see is a post from 1 minute ago. The second thing you would see is a post from 2 minutes ago. Then maybe a post from 5 minutes ago. So on and so forth.
Then, it changed.
Now, when I scroll on my feed, it's completely NON-LINEAR. I just checked my feed: the first picture on my feed was posted 6 hours ago, the second picture on my feed was posted 2 weeks ago, the third picture on my feed was posted 5 minutes ago.
Try it for yourself and see - it's kinda disorienting and weird. Like the casino, Instagram is designed to confuse. There's no sense of time. In the same way that casinos don't have clocks, instagram doesn't present information in a linear fashion. The term is called "temporal distortion".
Here's why it works:
If my feed of pictures/videos/memes is presented linearly - it gives me a time anchor. For instance, if I scroll long enough on instagram, eventually I will start seeing posts from 2-3 weeks ago. And I'll think to myself "damn I've looked at a lot of stuff".
BUT if the information is presented non-linearly - there's no checkpoint. There's no anchor. I have no idea how long I've been looking at posts for.
Also, I like the analogy between the casino and the phone.
But there's something much more sinister about the phone. Whereas, getting to a casino literally requires effort (get out of bed, get in your car, drive to the casino, etc), checking your phone requires no effort. It's a frictionless experience.
When you go to a casino, it is a purposeful, conscious act. But can the same be said for checking your phone? I'd argue not always.
These days I find myself aimlessly checking my phone. The second I feel momentary boredom, I reach for my phone. It's instinctual at this point. I've intentionally left my phone at home, gone for walks, and found myself reaching for my pocket several times in the span of 15-20 minutes.
These days I feel like a rat in a science experiment. The attention engineers have put me on a variable reinforcement schedule. I may not get a notification dopamine hit every time I check my phone, but maybe every 3rd or 4th time.
Even now...reading this article. I checked my phone twice - just to see if I have any notifications.
One year ago I was on Threads, Blue Sky, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, Messenger, LinkedIn and Substack. I deleted Threads, Blue Sky, Instagram, Messenger and TikTok. Don’t miss them at all. Took Facebook, LinkedIn and X off my phone. Don’t miss them, either. It’s funny — I have good friends who aren’t on social media at all. They are living full and interesting lives. I suspect they know something I’m just figuring out.
You’re back! Thank you for this thoughtful meditation, so timely. “When faced with a choice of experiences, choose the option that’s most likely to lead to a good story.” Essential wisdom.
"we’ve been strangely nonchalant as those same companies carry out the greatest heist of our time in history"
I got stuck on this wonderful line. Americans insist on inserting computers into as many processes as they can. Without asking ourselves whether they are adding or subtracting value.
I work in the medical field. When electronic health records were made mandatory, they added an average of 2 hours a day to a physician's workload. And we are paid by the patient, not a salary. "But they'll make communication about patients so much easier!", they said. Well, maybe if the different brands were interoperable...they are not. Medical clinics are one of the few places where you can find a working fax machine, so we can fax records to one another. I could go on, but I'm sure there might be examples in other industries you have seen.
Wow. Another spookily memorable reflection on modern life. I've replaced Instagram with substack and medium but sometimes wonder how much better my wellness is. How does this time warping work if the stuff your meandering through is intellectual?...and if Instagram is heroin, is substack meth?
I think I agree. But i think the new substack feed now feels like the same thing you've described. Albeit more intellectual. I guess we'll never be able to fully avoid these time warping digital environments and will need to work on ourselves and practice awareness and intentionality. Books are great but they aren't the only source of information. Good essays often live longer in my memory than average books. So the question is, is it only length, and if so, is there an inflection point at which point our brains are engaging more? Your article seems to suggest it's linked to memory. As always incredibly thought provoking. Thank you.
Thanks for posting. A couple of those Youtube channels that pivot into terminal cancer have stuck with me forever, very powerful stuff that can really change your perspective. They help me to try to have a constant sense of urgency to maximize every day; not in some sort of hustle sense necessarily but to extract something every day in case I get a cancer atom bomb dropped on me tomorrow. Good conversations with people I love, meals I appreciate or some sort of step forward. I am fortunate enough to experience time passing very slowly.
I just lost an internal struggle and picked up my phone to check substack again despite what having wasted most of the morning on it. This was the first article I saw.
Now the question is, do I start digging through your back catalogue or delete the app?
Thank you for your writing, it's amongst the most memorable/useful on the site for me. This one especially so, as I've been thinking about this topic for years now. After all, I was one of the hesitant youth, prodded and pulled to download snapchat and the rest, only to become utterly trapped by them like everyone else. You're right to describe remembering to remember as the sticking point. Despite feeling uneasy about all of this for as long as I have, maintaining my path out of the labyrinth has been well... anything but straightforward.
Here are some tools that have been useful to me.
"Your Life in Weeks" -- A calendar with circles representing each of the 52 weeks in the year (to be filled out as you age)
Screen Time Blockers -- An API that allows you to selectively block access to websites and apps
Meditation -- The act of ceasing to be identified with the currents of our minds
Exercise -- The best way of reconnecting to this carbon world of ours, and ourselves
Talking to Strangers -- It lifts my mood and reminds me that there's nothing if not other people
Going for Bike Rides/Runs -- I've learned a lot more about the place where I live by seeing it
Sex -- An oldie but a goodie.
Phone Calls -- I've been trying to call a loved one every weekend
A little ball of yarn -- The ancients knew spinning the yarn was the best way out of this maze!
That was unsettling—and freeing to read. The analogy of “curvilinear mazes” captures something that’s hard to pin down but obvious when named: most of us don’t lose time to social feeds by accident; the design almost ensures it. Your point about story really sticks with me. If time feels longer when it’s part of a narrative, it’s no wonder the jumble of posts and disconnected links leaves us with fragments, not memories.
Maybe the greatest risk isn’t just how social platforms steal our present, but how they erode the threads that tie one moment to the next. Without those connections, days blur and intention thins out. It’s striking how quickly novelty gets numbed, and even the advice to “seek surprise” can become just another routine if we aren’t conscious about it.
Reading this, I’m left asking: Is the true antidote not just to cut down screen time, but to be deliberate about weaving real stories and right angles into our lives—moments that contrast with the smooth, endless scroll? I wonder if the act of noticing, of making context sharp again, is actually the best form of resistance.
As I read this outstanding piece I couldn't help but reflect on how Substack Notes has morphed into exactly the type of social media that is TikTok and Facebook. Interesting and informative articles wrapped in re-stacks are interspersed with a plethora of memes and animal videos. While this keeps people on the platform, the trivia distracts readers (well at least me) from finding new writers. That, in turn, makes it ever more difficult for good writers, trying to make a living, from getting subscribers.
Do away with the app. You can get email notifications when articles you want to read are posted.
At least thats what i did. Other than articles, i dont go "out there" much at all. Bc i saw immediately what the app was doing, and i already knew it for the trash it is.
Seriously, just delete the app.
Yep. Same.
The 'Home' feed is bad (though still not nearly as bad as TikTok/FB), but the 'Following' one is much better, as it's only Notes by those you follow. However, Substack has programmed the App to always return to the 'Home' feed, ignoring my repeatedly set preference. I assume this is deliberate, and it really turns me off of Notes.
On the website, once you click on 'Following' it remembers the setting (if that's the way you last viewed it) when you come back, so I never have to see the rubbish unless I choose to.
Good tip - thanks!
Same. They obviously are aping Twitter and the default home page being the feed is bad. At a minimum I'd like to see their algorithm heavily favor items that link to and/or quote longer posts and downweight Twitter style memes and jokes.
This really nails it, Jim. I am so sorry to watch Substack descend, as all social media does, into garbage and jumble. Increasingly I have to shed the shit and find the gems. Eventually I suspect those of us who care enough will move on, and the next place will experience precisely the same thing. That said, I am planning more adventures instead of more scrolling.
Gurwinder! Been a whole since I've read your work but this was an amazing topic! I've touched on this a plethora of times on my stack, but there were a few comments on your that I'm just now realizing.
1. The Normalizing of Amnesia -- This was a fascinating topic and one that I hadn't come across until now. The reference to the "lethe" is one I have to ponder on some more as I love how these ancient myths tell us information about our world today.
2. The story on Friedman and the casinos is mind blowing. I've been to plenty a casinos in my day and in reading about this, I had flashbacks as to how just a simple walk to the rest room is bombarded by machines everywhere.
Agreed with taking our time back and this is what I focus on in my work. Recently, I touched on allowing our mind to wander since that's what we've lost since every moment of 'boredom' we grab out phone. From that article we read:
"when we let our minds wander and passively watch the world go by, our brain engages in crucial unconscious processes. It helps us make sense of our lives, integrate past experiences into a coherent story, and plan for the future." (https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/what-happens-when-your-brain-has)
Love the stoicism and buddhism quotes. We have an amazing journey to live here. Let's not let it slip out of our hands.
Here's some of the work I've touched on in a similar fashion:
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/the-0-app-thats-stealing-your-most
https://unorthodoxy.substack.com/p/the-perfect-tool-to-control-you-and
Omg! This is possibly the best thing I ever read at exactly the right moment I needed it. Thank you.
This reminds me of when Instagram changed it's algorithm/feed from linear to non-linear.
In the past, when you opened instagram - it would show posts in a LINEAR fashion. So, when you opened the app - the first thing you would see is a post from 1 minute ago. The second thing you would see is a post from 2 minutes ago. Then maybe a post from 5 minutes ago. So on and so forth.
Then, it changed.
Now, when I scroll on my feed, it's completely NON-LINEAR. I just checked my feed: the first picture on my feed was posted 6 hours ago, the second picture on my feed was posted 2 weeks ago, the third picture on my feed was posted 5 minutes ago.
Try it for yourself and see - it's kinda disorienting and weird. Like the casino, Instagram is designed to confuse. There's no sense of time. In the same way that casinos don't have clocks, instagram doesn't present information in a linear fashion. The term is called "temporal distortion".
Here's why it works:
If my feed of pictures/videos/memes is presented linearly - it gives me a time anchor. For instance, if I scroll long enough on instagram, eventually I will start seeing posts from 2-3 weeks ago. And I'll think to myself "damn I've looked at a lot of stuff".
BUT if the information is presented non-linearly - there's no checkpoint. There's no anchor. I have no idea how long I've been looking at posts for.
__________________________________________________________________________________
Also, I like the analogy between the casino and the phone.
But there's something much more sinister about the phone. Whereas, getting to a casino literally requires effort (get out of bed, get in your car, drive to the casino, etc), checking your phone requires no effort. It's a frictionless experience.
When you go to a casino, it is a purposeful, conscious act. But can the same be said for checking your phone? I'd argue not always.
These days I find myself aimlessly checking my phone. The second I feel momentary boredom, I reach for my phone. It's instinctual at this point. I've intentionally left my phone at home, gone for walks, and found myself reaching for my pocket several times in the span of 15-20 minutes.
These days I feel like a rat in a science experiment. The attention engineers have put me on a variable reinforcement schedule. I may not get a notification dopamine hit every time I check my phone, but maybe every 3rd or 4th time.
Even now...reading this article. I checked my phone twice - just to see if I have any notifications.
One year ago I was on Threads, Blue Sky, Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, X, Messenger, LinkedIn and Substack. I deleted Threads, Blue Sky, Instagram, Messenger and TikTok. Don’t miss them at all. Took Facebook, LinkedIn and X off my phone. Don’t miss them, either. It’s funny — I have good friends who aren’t on social media at all. They are living full and interesting lives. I suspect they know something I’m just figuring out.
They know what real life is. And real life can be incredibly fulfilling.
Any fulfillment you get 'here', as gurwinder pointed out, is gone as soon as you leave. Nothing here is real.
You’re back! Thank you for this thoughtful meditation, so timely. “When faced with a choice of experiences, choose the option that’s most likely to lead to a good story.” Essential wisdom.
Just an incredibly powerful and beautiful piece that genuinely has changed how I think. Thank you.
"we’ve been strangely nonchalant as those same companies carry out the greatest heist of our time in history"
I got stuck on this wonderful line. Americans insist on inserting computers into as many processes as they can. Without asking ourselves whether they are adding or subtracting value.
I work in the medical field. When electronic health records were made mandatory, they added an average of 2 hours a day to a physician's workload. And we are paid by the patient, not a salary. "But they'll make communication about patients so much easier!", they said. Well, maybe if the different brands were interoperable...they are not. Medical clinics are one of the few places where you can find a working fax machine, so we can fax records to one another. I could go on, but I'm sure there might be examples in other industries you have seen.
THIS IS THE END OF THE FEED
You can stop scrolling now, although the actual end might be a few minutes further down — or you might never reach it if you're viewing this on Notes.
I wonder what would happen if social media users started posting similar warnings about the end of feeds.
An amazing article that changes your perspective on time, social media, and perception.
Thank you!
Wow. Another spookily memorable reflection on modern life. I've replaced Instagram with substack and medium but sometimes wonder how much better my wellness is. How does this time warping work if the stuff your meandering through is intellectual?...and if Instagram is heroin, is substack meth?
As long as you use Substack to read long-form narratives rather than just idly scrolling through Notes, it can be a medicine rather than a narcotic.
I think I agree. But i think the new substack feed now feels like the same thing you've described. Albeit more intellectual. I guess we'll never be able to fully avoid these time warping digital environments and will need to work on ourselves and practice awareness and intentionality. Books are great but they aren't the only source of information. Good essays often live longer in my memory than average books. So the question is, is it only length, and if so, is there an inflection point at which point our brains are engaging more? Your article seems to suggest it's linked to memory. As always incredibly thought provoking. Thank you.
Personally i dont think it matters what you meander through, smart stuff or dumb. Articles are great and all, but its still screen time.
I suggested reading real books to fulfill your intellectual needs. They still work the same way they always did.
Thanks for posting. A couple of those Youtube channels that pivot into terminal cancer have stuck with me forever, very powerful stuff that can really change your perspective. They help me to try to have a constant sense of urgency to maximize every day; not in some sort of hustle sense necessarily but to extract something every day in case I get a cancer atom bomb dropped on me tomorrow. Good conversations with people I love, meals I appreciate or some sort of step forward. I am fortunate enough to experience time passing very slowly.
Exactly what I needed to read. Logging off for now to reflect on what was said, instead of scrolling mindlessly like I am used to.
Goddamn.
I just lost an internal struggle and picked up my phone to check substack again despite what having wasted most of the morning on it. This was the first article I saw.
Now the question is, do I start digging through your back catalogue or delete the app?
Substack is a source of great stories, so it's a good way to dilate (retrospective) time!
"If years were letters, the average human lifespan would not be longer than this sentence." oooooffhhh man, that was intense