A thought on the ADHD and teenage anxiety/depression epidemic:

Is it not a consequence of surveillance capitalism ? As a form of extractivism/capitalism, companies will extract the resource until it reaches saturation. Like wood from a forest, fish from the ocean or oil from the ground.

In surveillance capitalism the resource is the attention to yield information about themselves, engagement.

The exhaustion happens because they can’t think on their future or maintain threads on their thoughts. The executive function power needed to maintain good mental health is higher and higher. Stand out of our light by James Willians explains in more detail what happens when people stops thinking on their future as individuals and as a society.

Louis Rosenfeld said: “facebook respects no ritual” in the context of him taking control of his daily rituals. Most people will experience a withdrawal of the rituals and other support structures, which is a direct externality of the manipulation of engagement.

As the fraction of population with issues gets higher, more people will fall on the category of “ADHD” or “anxiety” or “depression”

In Stolen Focus , Johann Hari had a small retreat for a few weeks. This is not an uncommon way to deal with the constant input of engagement we get, but also not practical for most people.

Extractivist capitalism means that whenever a resource is exhausted a metamorphosis happens. This is one of the arguments Kohei Saito explored as on why capitalism is not compatible with sustainability.

However for human attention I can’t see where this transformation will lead to, as in I don’t see which new resource of engagement can exist. Lack of imagination certainly.

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