Content, content, content

Content, content, content:

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Content, content, content.

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Everywhere you look, content.

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Here, content.

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There, content.

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You get content. You get content. Everyone gets content. (Oprah voice)

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We’re always plugged in.

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Plugged into our algorithm.

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Plugged into content we enjoy.

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Always watching.

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Always paying attention.

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Always keeping up to date with the world.

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But are we?

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Are we really?

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Are we really smarter than we were thousands of years ago?

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I’m reading a book right now about Ancient Romans.

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Where, you know, time went backward rather than forward.

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You know this right?

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Where 100 went to 99 to 98 to 97 instead of the other way around?

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Crazy to think we follow time based on a Christian calendar of when people believe Jesus was born.

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Anyway, I’m reading this book called ‘Storm before the Storm’ about the collapse of the Roman empire and how there are similarities to where we are now.

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As I’m reading this, I can’t stop thinking about how smart these guys were.

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How much they accomplished.

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Raising armies of hundreds of thousands of people out of nowhere.

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Surviving battles where they watch thousands of people die before them.

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But they had time.

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They had time to process.

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They had lots of time on their own.

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Lots of time to process what’s in front of them, instead of worrying about content.

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Instead of worrying about being connected.

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We need to get out of the content vortex.

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We need to get out of this constant need to be plugged in.

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I remember going to India in 2011 where we had no phones.

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3 weeks unplugged.

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No internet, no service, no cellphones.

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We disappeared from the digital world.

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It was beautiful.

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We were focused on what was in front of us.

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None of us were distracted.

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All of us were forced to be present and be there with the people with you.

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We need to experience that more often.

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Remember for almost all of history people have never had access to these devices.

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These things we hold in our hand that have access to all of the world’s information at the touch of a finger.

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Where we go from here is anyone’s guess, but from where we came from - the world is so different.

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Now it’s been a fantastic thing.

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So many more people have access to the world’s information than ever before.

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But, all of us have become zombies to our devices.

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The last 15 years since the creation of social media, mental health problems have gone through the roof.

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Is this a case of causation or correlation given more people are also reporting depression and anxiety than ever before?

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Maybe.

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Still, there’s a good enough case to be made that our young people’s brains are rotting being addicted to these digital worlds.

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How and why?

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Content.

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We can always consume endless amounts of content.

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Social media companies have designed their apps using billions of dollars to hack your brains and make sure you’re addicted.

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Addicted to the algorithm.

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Addicted to the content.

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Content, content, content.

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We need to get out of this addiction to content.

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