Monday, January 27, 2020

Screen Time Versus Paper Time: No Good Way Out for Now

Much research criticizes the amount of time humans spend staring at screens. Staring at screens for long hours, researchers suggest, has harmful effects independent of harmful words and images contained therein.

But contemporary paper materials stink. Ethically wise individuals must spend several hours searching to find one book ethically worth reading. They have to open dozens of newspapers to find one article ethically worth reading. Academic journals are written in poorly reasoned academese by authors more interested in career promotion than important truths.

Most arguments ethically worth reading are on obscure websites.

Our better current alternatives are to mitigate the damage of screen time by using F.lux or other programs to block blue light. Or reading on an internet equipped Kindles, though Kindles cannot download many websites and fail to replicate the look of paper. Kindles are also fragile. Somewhat ironically, if the deplatforming escalates, we will live in secret societies sharing fact facing paper writings while the masses continue to gorge on television, video games, social media, and other glitzy, hype-riddled mass media garbage.

If an accurate history of the past few hundred years is ever written, the catastrophic practices of  mass media, preoccupied with profits and totalitarian political agendas, will fill many chapters.