Sensationalism compounds exponentially and notifications propagate endlessly. If there's one word that effectively describes consumers of today's hyper connected world, it's overwhelmed.
The proliferation of social media in the last decade has granted business innumerable opportunities to reach new audiences, but those prospective consumers—inundated by others doing the same—have developed a rigid shell of indifference. You can reach them, but you can't connect.
Communication isn't connection.
We live in the 📝Notification Age; a time when everything is deemed 'important' and the definition of the word itself becomes more distorted with every ding, ping, and chime.
“Our devices and technology have gotten to know us so well that we now need devices and technology to protect us from them.” ~ 📝Neil Strauss, 📝Tribe of Mentors
In 1970, Vice President Spiro Agnew declared:
We're reaching a point when our senses and minds won't respond to moderate stimulation.
**Subtly is lost. **[1][2]
While he was peaking to those we now identify as Baby Boomers, similar observations were made by Horace and Aristotle in the 1st and 4th Centuries. [3] As Jean-Baptiste Alphonse Karr said in 1849,
"The more things change, the more they stay the same." [4]
Every day, people awaken from the dopamine driven haze of social media—they begin to redefine the ways they engage with the world and seek new protections and distributions of their attention.
The frustration with this "noise" has catalyzed a new designation; 📝Feed Cutters—those who mitigate compulsions embedded within their behavior by user experience designers through the use of protective technologies. Their attention is focused on the protection of their sanity.
On the opposite side of these walls—slowly being raised—are those who seek to forge new, more meaningful, connections. Businesses, organizations, and individuals who recognize an opportunity to develop their profits by developing their character—using the principle of 📝Digital Empathy.
Become the lighthouse in the storm; focus your message into a beam and rotate you beacon across the horizon and persist through the night. Illuminate the certainty of your position; trust that others will choose and pursue their own path at or away from you with the information you broadcast.
When we lose subtly, we must have certainty.
In a world plagued by sensationalism, the most radical idea is to remain calm, concise, and 📝Cogent.
References
- Spiro Agnew: Berkeley Social Activism Sound Recording Project, berkeley.edu
- Toyboy & Robin, Groove Talk [Downtempo Rexmix of Agnew's Speech], youtube.com
- A Collection of Complaints About the Youth Throughout History, reddit.com
- Plus ça Change, Plus C'est la Même Chose, wikipedia.org