PSA: Online posting represents the most diminished versions

Jul 21, 2024, 12:08 PM

of ourselves prior to any other outside influences.

Anything viewed and interacted with on an electronic device, including this post, consumes a significant portion of your brain’s left hemisphere – the logical and analytical side in comparison with our more open and artsy right hemispheres. It takes significant brainpower to simply form the image you see in an understandable way, and that creates an imbalance.

Electronic media isn’t a simple flat image as it looks – it’s millions of tiny pixels lighting up in millions of different locations at a speed and pattern that our minds can make sense of. Problem is, this mental process is incredibly intensive and requires much of your logical mind to remember where a pixel was, project where it’s going to be next, and fuse all of this together for the words, pictures, or video elements you perceive. It’s only gotten worse as technology has added even greater and greater ‘definition’ to the image. Just means more behind the scenes work in the left cranium going on.

What’s left from a reasoning standpoint after is our more emotional and gullible side. The side that has the most faculty to tell you to get up and away from your TV or computer, or put your phone down, is too busy simply allowing you to experience what’s in front of you. That’s also the side that tells you what you’re likely seeing is bunk – or that you should know better. But alas, your right brain is instead controlling the inner narrative and that filter is gone.

What happens from there in social media is then a greater and greater diminished feedback loop. You have less reasoning capacity entering in. Responses to topics are an additional level of mental degradation as the original material was received with less mental faculty. Others then are getting something twice diminished, and if responding it’s once again another level down. Each layer is more diminished than the one prior, driven level after level by greater emotion and less reason.

Print is vastly different. The words you’re reading are fixed – much less strain on your brain to simply see them as it's only static, reflected light. Sure, you need some computing to assemble the symbols into meaningful material to consume, but that’s required via electronic media also, yet without the additional diminished capacity.

As we see discourse of all kinds in the world of electronic media become more and more inane, divisive, insensitive, and just plain ignorant, keep in mind this is a physiological effect going on - we are doing it to ourselves by simply turning on and tuning in, with half our minds dropping out in the process.

Enjoy, and Go Tigers!

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PSA: Online posting represents the most diminished versions

TLDR, but good show ole chap!***

Re: PSA: Online posting represents the most diminished versions

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