Several decades have passed since the media critic Neil Postman penned his influential Amusing Ourselves to Death, in which he laments the intrusion of the television and the rise of a visually stimulating but superficial entertainment culture. The image would be championed over the word, with appearance superceding substance. The American masses were sitting stupefied in front of a screens, and with it came diminished cognitive activity, laziness, and trading the active pursuit of meaning for a passive consumption of pleasure.

But what if, despite Postman’s prescience, we have now taken a step beyond the problem of “too much entertainment”? Suppose entertainment itself can’t keep up with the new forces at play?

That’s the question the music and cultural critic Ted Gioia asked recently in a Substack post. Here, he investigates the impact of the “dopamine culture,” our modern tendency to flit among tabs and scroll endlessly through fifteen-second-long video clips. He writes,

The fastest growing sector of the culture economy is distraction. Or call it scrolling or swiping or wasting time or whatever you want. But it’s not art or entertainment, just ceaseless activity.

-Ted Gioia, The State of the Culture, 2024 – by Ted Gioia (honest-broker.com)

Not surprisingly, Gioia goes on to discuss how TikTok, the social media app developed through the Chinese tech company Bytedance, embodies this frenetic, addictive kind of scrolling. TikTok, more than YouTube or Instagram, uses an algorithm that so astutely learns a users’ predilection and habits that hours can go by before one “breaks out of the dream.” Gioia continues,

TikTok made a fortune with fast-paced scrolling video. And now Facebook — once a place to connect with family and friends — is imitating it. So long, Granny, hello Reels. Twitter has done the same. And, of course, Instagram, YouTube, and everybody else trying to get rich on social media.

While distraction is lessening our interest even in visual modes of entertainment, the end of the road is addiction. Big Tech corporations know that their products are addictive but continue to advocate harmful business models. In recent years, I have noticed how friends and I rarely endure a whole movie without checking our phones. Many of these friends are on their phones throughout the entire film, suggesting that even the attention needed to watch a movie is under assault via these distractable technologies. 

Gioia’s insightful article collides with new talks about banning TikTok in the United States for its potential threat to national security. While these concerns are more than valid, lawmakers should also consider how mediums like TikTok are akin to drugs. They are designed to hook the “user” (an ominous term to use in place of “customer”), no different than nicotine or marijuana. Beyond mere legislation instituting age limits for social media, it is up to families to intervene on behalf of their kids. Per the data from people like Jonathan Haidt and Jean Twenge, the mental health of Gen Z and millions of others in the United States depends on positive change and intervention.