It’s never been easier to create digital content, and these low barriers are leading us to low-quality standards. What happens when the volume goes up, the quality goes down, and our ability to use any of it disappears?
It seems like nearly every digital content creation tool I have access to also offers me an AI-assist tool. Some of this is a way to upsell me to pay for additional features, but some of it is presumably because someone — the developers or some customers — are asking for these things. No one wants to appear slow, fall behind, or miss out on an opportunity, which is another reason why (I suspect) these tools are added. I rarely use these tools. It’s not because I have any specific principled objection to using AI assists — I use them all the time for certain tasks — but because I question the value it brings.
I worry we are (content) producing ourselves into oblivion. We are doing this by allowing our attention to be stolen and are left with scanning what’s left.
Attention Theft and The Scan
I recently returned from travel abroad, and that afforded me a lot of time to ‘people watch.’ What that taught me was, much like my native Canada, people are deeply attracted to and engaged with their handheld devices. They take pictures, scan pictures and videos of others, sift through messages, and surf through content. Rarely was anyone seen deep into their work (or whatever they were looking at). When pressed up against others on a tram, it’s impossible not to see what some people are scanning through on their devices, which would give pause to anyone who thinks that their latest Instagram shot or TikTok video is savoured by their ‘audience‘. Looking at others’ behaviour, it’s easy to see this torrent of content and all of it scanned.
Travelling also means that I’m not on top of my email, which brings me to all the content that I receive voluntarily and otherwise. Reading these through the lens of a vacation break, I’ve come to realize how little value most of them offer (particularly newsletters). By that, I don’t mean the content, but that the formula for how the content is organized is almost repeated over and again. I’ve written about this in other posts. When you read ten or twenty articles in succession you can see it. There are a handful of writers that don’t follow an obvious template that resembles others.
So not only does this encourage me to scan, it’s almost the only responsible way to manage the content because it’s so bland in its delivery. I’ve few illusions about how people engage with my content, but at least I try to write in a way that doesn’t follow a formula. Or worse, I don’t write using generative AI when composing my posts. I use Grammarly and have for years as an editorial assistant for issues like catching typos, but I don’t generate my original content created by AI. I’m not against the use of AI as a writing tool, but there’s a tone, style, and flow to text that’s been AI-generated that I’ve seen emerge in the past 18 months that feels hypergeneric when read in bulk. (I also disagree with many of Grammarly’s recommendations because, while technically correct, it offers recommendations that makes your writing much more generic).
And that’s part of the problem: the bulk.
Sort, Sift, and Sadness
In the mid 00’s and early 2010’s blogs were relatively new, few in number, and the number of “tips” and “tricks” along with the optimization algorithms were limited. This led to an originality to the writing and the style that reflected the diversity of the writers. Now? Things look the same. They read the same. There are fewer authors and forums who write in an original** manner that engages me. My exposure to ideas is exponentially greater than it was ten years ago and yet, my retention and engagement with these sources is far lower than it was at the same time. It’s all feeling the same. That’s what happens when you’re exposed to so many sources of content, and so are your audience(s), and so the expectation and sources of inspiration become more funneled.
** Guided by the author’s ideas, experience, and sources of inspiration not primarily about search and view optimization.
This is all spread by innovations in digital technology, algorithms, internet access, and speed of connections, and the myriad ways in which technology companies seek to embed signals into their messaging. If you use anything on social, the volume of advertisements and sponsored posts you’ll see now compared to ten years ago would probably shock you. When I think back to ten years ago, I am shocked and saddened by what I recollect. This, as I dodge the dozens of people seeking to create ‘influencer’-style videos and pictures of the beautiful places they (and I) were.
The more I think of this, the sadder I feel. My information landscape is becoming the worst of an all-you-can-eat buffet of content made up of industrial-scale-produced filler that is devoid of soul, context, and originality. But wow, does it get produced fast. And this volume means that it takes more effort to sort, sift and assess the validity and usefulness of what it is that I’m seeing.
Intellect and Ideas By Proxy
I have purchased both of these books and read one of them. The other, is often quoted and cited and found on the bookshelves of many of my colleagues. It’s written by a giant in the field of psychology and economics and serves as the foundation for hundreds of podcast episodes, blog posts, and videos on behavioural economics and cognitive science. Thinking Fast and Slow is an intellectually important book, but not all that interesting of a read. Had I not had access to the various social feeds and content streams, I might have persevered and finished it, not out of an obligation, but because reading provides an opportunity to think and reflect and, ironically, do it fast and slow.
That’s what writing does, too. It enables me to think and you, the reader, to think, too. Maybe you’ll agree, maybe you’ll have something to add, or perhaps you’ll disagree with some points. But you will engage. And if we are to address the biggest issues facing us we’ll need those skills and the originality of the thinking — fast and slow — that we need to address them. Otherwise, we’ll scan and swipe our way to oblivion.
Photos by Patrick Tomasso on Unsplash, Romain Vignes on Unsplash, Annie Spratt on Unsplash, and Lala Azizli on Unsplash