Surgeon General's Warning Implemented on Social
Government steps in as social media creates a health crisis
Clutching my oversized foam finger that's as blue as my expectations for the Leafs, I settled in for another playoff game in a timeline not too far away. It's like being trapped in a parallel universe where they never win. I mean seriously, if someone out there finds a timeline where they pull off a victory, do drop me a line.
So, amidst my sighs and the occasional 'not again!' shouts at the janky time machine’s onboard display, I grabbed my mobile to indulge in a bit of doomscrolling. You know, to distract myself from the impending defeat. But the universe had other plans. Every few posts, tweets, stories, even cute cat memes, I was confronted with these alerts. There seemed to be no escape.
Seems like social media has spiraled a bit (more) out of control. The message is loud and clear: if I interact with fellow humans, I risk the mush-brain situation.
Congratulations to my paid subscriber Dan M from Ottawa for winning a Work Kit of Design Fiction from the other week’s giveaway.
I’ll be shipping that out to you when I return to my primeline.
Dré - really enjoyed today's post. Almost a decade ago, I approached Netflix to see if they'd consider introducing 'health break' prompts for folks that had been binge-watching episodes on autorepeat for a certain (high) number of hours (I was working for a government agency mandated to fight chronic diseases, including sedentary behavour - I even offered to pay them per message, as a sort of A/B test to see which messaging was most effective). It took me a while to even find their Canada rep (they were only represented in Canada through a lawyer); they graciously took my call and heard my pitch - then about a week later they responded and said such an intervention would interfere with the user experience and thanked me very much. I can see a near future where ChatGPT4 would insert prompts to users that chat it up for hours on end - could even be personalized, like "hey, you often tell me about your friend Tom - you've been talking to me for a few hours now, why don't you give Tom a call and see if he'd like to hang out?"