Read “The Binge Breaker” (from the November 2016 issue of The Atlantic magazine) and write a response to it that draws on your own experiences, impressions, and ideas about media, apps, phones, attention, screen addiction, and so on.
Some possible topics:
- apps and media as junk food, loaded with the equivalent of a scientifically adjusted level of salt, fat, sugar, and crunch in order to produce maximum addiction… or even apps and media as cigarettes?
- TL:DR… are media sapping our ability to sustain attention?
- media and mindfulness
- have you ever felt manipulated by an app or electronic medium?
- changes to apps to make them more (or less?) addictive
- do tech firms owe their users a less manipulative experience—maybe one that helps them work towards more balanced lives?
- do apps/social media make a good use of our time?
- Snapstreaks (“it made me sick to my stomach”)
- do you think people would pay a premium for “organic” apps that help them monitor and/or control their usage? If so, are we headed for a mediascape in which the poor only have media junk food available, while the wealthy have the tools to consume better media (or consume media better)?