To all of you internet addicts like me, I hereby gift you with this marvelous piece by Chris Hayes in the NY Times. He talks about The Attention Economy”, which is the subject of his new book.
Gifted link: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/01/03/opinion/chris-hayes-msnbc-attention.html?unlocked_article_code=1.mU4.ly68.9KHcNYTwqgCS&smid=url-share

An excerpt:

In the wake of Donald Trump’s second electoral victory, a viral tweet from October 2016 once again started circulating: “i feel bad for our country. But this is tremendous content.”

That probably seemed funnier before child separation and Covid. (Indeed, in 2020 Darren Rovell, who wrote it, posted, “Four years later. There is nothing tremendous about this content. I’m just sad.”) But for many millions of Americans, perhaps including the crucial slice of swing voters who moved their votes to the Republican nominee in 2024, Mr. Trump is the consummate content machine. Love him or hate him, he sure does keep things interesting. I’ve even wondered if, at some level, this was the special trick he used to eke out his narrow victory: Did Americans elect him again because they were just kind of bored with the status quo?

I have no doubt about it! Yes, Trump voters are bored with normal politics (I think we all are to some extent, but most of us kind of like it that way.) That’s especially true of the “inconsistent” ones who only come out to vote for him, see him as a celebrity and they vote for him the way they would vote for “American Idol” or “Dancing With The Stars.” His star status is definitely a huge part of his special sauce.

But that’s not Hayes’ point. He’s talking about the feeling of boredom in modern life and I confess that I have never felt it in my life until the last few years and I think it’s solely a result of my massive amount of time spent on the internet. I can almost feel the neural pathways in my brain changing.