The Modern Identity Crisis
When I sit alone at a cafe and I am on my phone - I don’t even think about it. But if I have a physical book or, god forbid, I simply choose to exist without looking at anything, I immediately feel self conscious about it. The phone has become an acceptable vehicle for ‘productivity’. From the outside, nobody else knows what I’m doing on my phone. I could be working, reading, or mindlessly scrolling social media. Internally, my phone makes me feel like I am being productive in the moment. I have grown up in a generation where ‘productivity’ is everything. Being able to optimize (or rather monetize) every moment of your day is encouraged. This perpetual work mindset leaves no room for rest or play and because the so called grindset is not sustainable over long periods, we naturally look for workarounds: ways for us to feel productive without putting in that much effort (because dammit we are tired).
Enter: the scroll. Scrolling allows us to feel productive by proxy. We watch other people being productive (some more than others) and we feel as though we can absorb some of their accomplishments. Furthermore, even if we learn one thing, however stupid or inane, it can trick our brains into feeling like we ‘did something’ with this time. The irony of course is that it would probably be more beneficial for us if we actually ‘did nothing’ with that time. Furthermore, scrolling on our phones has very little up-time. If we have 3 min between meetings, we can scroll. 5 min for the bathroom? Scrolling. The ease also allows us to scratch that productivity itch, whereas getting into a chapter of a book or doodling, or most other activities take a few minutes to get into. The only alternative in these pockets of time is to sit there alone with our own thoughts. But most of us would rather die than do that, myself included.
Over the past couple months I’ve realized this is the main reason I use social media. Not because it’s providing relevant value to my life or even that I get validation from it since I post so rarely nowadays, but it’s so I don’t have to be alone with my own thoughts. Why don’t I want to be alone with my own thoughts? Because I am acutely aware that I have a limited identity outside of the productivity framework. And I think that’s true for many of my generation. We don’t know who we are.
This is partly due to the productivity framework - many of us dismissed interests or hobbies that we did not foresee any future for. But the other large piece of the equation are the algorithms that drive everything we consume. I’ve recently consumed a few deep dives into this topic (my favorite was this one) and can’t help but see the interconnectivity between the productivity mindset and the algorithm issue. We are raised with the mindset that every second of the day has to be productive, in order to achieve this, we spend a lot of time consuming media which is an easy way to feel productive, BUT this media is not driven by what we as individuals prefer to see, it is driven by what companies want us to see. In one of the video essays I linked above, the creator talks about how media content is no longer served up based on interests, it’s served up based on attention. We see this everywhere. On instagram, your friend’s photos probably make up the minority of your feed. The rest is whatever posts are most popular from influencers, and of course, ads. On Spotify, if you let the radio take over, you will almost always end up hearing a top 40 song that Spotify has deemed close enough to whatever you were listening to before. Facebook is probably the most egregious example. Facebook has been consumed with the most attention-seeking slop out there. I hardly ever see posts from my actual Facebook friends, it’s mostly clickbait links, AI images, and reels promotions. Although many of these tech companies started out under the guise of keeping people connected or enabling the discovery of new communities, the prioritization of short term growth means that they need to continuously, that’s right you guessed it, grow. This growth can really only come from one of two places: attracting new users, or keeping existing users scrolling longer.
Consequently, the prioritization of factors in their algorithms are not actually skewed in your favor. Although it may seem like your TikTok algorithm knows you better than anyone else - that algorithm is not necessarily prioritizing what you’re interested in, but what elicits the most attention from you. This attention is assessed in many different ways: how long you stay on the app, when you exit the app, if you comment, like, follow, etc. I won’t pretend to know the nuances of their algorithm but what I can promise you is that it is entirely built to keep your attention as long as possible. And the things you’re interested in and the content that holds your attention is not necessarily the same - perhaps there is a venn diagram of these but the overlap is definitely not a circle. Algorithms like these also leverage gambling reward principles. You scroll and scroll and scroll even when the majority of the content is inane because you believe that you will eventually get to view something that is particularly interesting or entertaining. Algorithms feed this by providing an endless stream of content to consume as well as intentionally spacing out content that has varying levels of potential interest for you. This, combined with prioritization of attention driven content, keeps people scrolling for the maximum time.
So what happens when all the media we consume is driven by algorithms which are in turn incentivized to hold our attention as long as possible? Two major occurrences stand out to me: 1/ Media starts to converge. It converges because there are obviously certain types of media that are bound to hold our attention longer. This is why you sometimes feel as though you’re seeing the same things over and over again when you’re scrolling or even in other media such as books or movies. As an example, because I enjoy fantasy, I often see the same fantasy books getting recommended all the time. Companies capitalize on popular ideas by simply cannibalizing them until it stops making money. For it to stop making money we need to stop paying attention to it. 2/This first occurrence is intertwined with the second which is that your own interests are subsumed by what the algorithm feeds you. We continue to read these increasingly poorly written books because we see content about them as we scroll. The more you scroll, the more you feel the need to scroll - to be fed something that will fill the void. We don’t even think about it, we simply end up consuming what we are supposed to like.
Where does this leave us? As I mentioned at the beginning of this article, many people are feeling increasingly out of touch with themselves. And when you combine this force fed media model with a priority on productivity and throw in a decrease in third-spaces (just to really drive loneliness) it’s not difficult to see how addictive the cycle can be.
I feel relatively lucky that the algorithms we are dealing with today only become prevalent when I was already in my early twenties. At least I have my childhood hobbies and interests to use as a baseline for forming my identity. But in my later adult years, I’ve struggled with building on my personal identity in the face the pressure of needing to be ‘productive' and ‘successful’. I notice I go on social media when this feeling of insecurity in my identity is particularly acute - which obviously is not the solution - but scrolling does act as a balm for my negative thoughts. However, for anyone that has grown up with these algorithms, I can’t even imagine how they are supposed to have any identity outside of what they are seeing online.
Companies are always going to try and act in the interest of their bottom lines but if this is a type of identity crisis that you’re struggling with, I think the fix is relatively simple: get a life.
I said it was simple not easy. I admit, it’s not that easy to get a life outside your phone these days, the infrastructure (at least in the U.S.) does not encourage it. But people who regularly see their friends and family, who interact in their neighborhoods, who get regular movement, who go outside, and who develop their interests are undeniably going to understand themselves more. All of these scenarios enable you to discover things for yourself. You can experience different things, have different conversations, and recognize if they resonate with you or not. Understanding what you like or don’t like and why is how you develop your identity and a strong sense of identify can help you identify what paths to take in life.
You might say all those things sound great but what if I don’t have existing friends or hobbies to lean into? Again, I didn’t say it would be easy. How do you think one acquires friends and hobbies? They work at it. You can set time limits to your social media apps. You can still spend time online but maybe instead of scrolling it’s researching a topic that piqued your interest. Think about a fun hobby you saw online and try it out for yourself rather than watching someone else do it! I don’t think it’s realistic to advocate removing oneself from social media entirely. I know many of us use it to supplement our incomes, to learn, and to disseminate important news information. But if you use it to fill every waking moment of downtime then you are denying yourself the opportunity to truly rest, play, and get to know yourself. I for one, have become very aware of how lethargic and generally awful I feel after scrolling social media for too long. I have set time limits on my most addictive apps (for me that is TikTok) and moved the apps around. Moving the location of the app on my phone makes me take one extra second in finding it which allows me just enough time to check myself and ask - is this really what I want to be doing right now? More often than not the answer is actually no.
January ‘25 Consumption Report
I’ve developed the following rating system, it’s half Michelin inspired and half of my own making.
5/5 - go out of your way to consume this, it is incredible, we will have endless discussions if you do. I’m obsessed.
4/5 - It is good. If you pick it up, I bet you won’t be disappointed
3/5 - Take it or leave it. It didn’t offend nor impress me.
2/5 - It maybe has a couple redeemable qualities. Would not consume it knowing what I know now.
1/5 - Avoid at all costs. Go out of your way to avoid it.
Here are January ratings: I feel like I should start specifying which movies are consumed on planes. Something about being on a plane makes my taste in movies randomize.
Books
The Fifth Season - N.K. Jemisin (5/5)
The Obelisk Gate - N.K. Jemisin (4/5)
The Stone Sky - N.K. Jemisin (4/5)
The Grace Year - Kim Liggett (2/5) - I will say this would have been a 4/5 for me except for the last 30 pages or so.
A Short Stay in Hell - Steven Peck (5/5)
Heir - Sabaa Tahir (4/5)
Movies
Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy (2/5)
Kate & Leopold (3/5)
Martha (the documentary) (3/5)
We Live In Time (4/5)
Godzilla Minus One (3/5)
Wonka (2/5)
My Old Ass (4/5)
Brooklyn (4/5)
TV Shows
The Morning Show S2 (4/5)
Dr. Stone (not completed but so far - 4/5)
Sex Lives of College Girls S3 (3/5)
