Tag Archives: Media

THE ADDICTIVE DISTRACTION OF DIGITAL DOPAMINE

We’ve all seen them. Those walking zombies aimlessly lost with their face in their phones and utterly oblivious to the forest, the trees, and the traffic. They’re devastatingly distracted by the Kim Kardashian of happiness molecules—dopamine—hopelessly and unknowingly addicted to their next rush of digital downloads fixed by non-stop scrolls.

This is a relatively new phenomenon, and it’s married at the hip to digital information dictated by the internet; digital devices and internet content controlled by the tech giants gaining ground on the entertainment industry. It’s here, and it’s not going away. At best, the digital dopamine addiction can only be controlled.

What’s sad is this dopamine distraction is harming society’s young. So many teens and twenties are hooked on their smartphones. Statistics say youths around the world spend far more time connected to the web than playing with their peers. The digital pandemic is so sick that it’s created an industry of wellness trying to treat digital dopamine addiction.

It’s also radically changed the entertainment world as well as the online support systems where Big Tech carries market cap values into the trillions of dollars. And those Big Tech titans are intentionally designing their algorithms to purposely distract viewers from facing reality. We’ll get into what’s going on in Tech, the downfall of the entertainment industry, how algorithms work, what dopamine is, and what motivates psychopath billionaires like Mark Zuckerburg to digitally prey on innocent and unsuspecting tweens.

What got me going on this piece was an article by Ted Gioia (The Honest Broker). The title is The State of Culture, 2024. These opening lines grabbed me. “Not much changes in politics. Certainly not the candidates. So, forget about politics. All the action is happening in mainstream culture—which is changing at warp speed. 2024 will be the most fast-paced—and dangerous—time ever for the creative economy. I want to tell you why entertainment is dead. And what’s coming to take its place.”

Mr. Gioia continues on to explain how the bigger entertainment shark once ate the little art fish. Then how the huge distraction whale swallowed the shark which, in turn, was devoured by the colossal addiction monster. He equates it to a cultural food chain and demonstrates it with these graphics:

It’s always been hard to be an artist. In the entertainment business, the primary artist is the content producer or concept developer. We were once called writers.

Until recently, the entertainment industry had been on a growth roll. So much so, that any content considered artsy was crushed as collateral damage by the forces of ever-needed new shows—regardless of if the productions were good or not.

That’s suddenly changed. It won’t help the art fish and it won’t help the shark. It won’t even help the whale because the whole online world is moving to a distraction model. And that’s to serve the phenomenon of dopamine addiction caused by the short and extremely fast pace of stimuli like reels, toks, clicks, instas, tubes, pushes, autoplays, variable rewards, and infinite scrolling. It’s an addictive distraction game, and it’s played colossally well by the Big Tech algorithms.

The fastest growing sector of the culture economy is distraction. Call it scrolling or swiping or wasting time or whatever you want. But don’t call it art or entertainment. It’s just ceaseless activity and is highly addictive because each short piece causes a dopamine release. Yes, the tech builders know it and it’s planned that way.

The key to the distraction model is that each stimulus only lasts a few seconds. To maintain the dopamine rush, the stimuli must be repeated. Over and over and over and over.

Gioia’s article says this is not just the hot trend for 2024. It can last forever because the distraction model is based on body chemistry, not on fashion or art. Our brains are wired to reward brief bursts of distraction by smoothing us with a dopamine hit. He calls it the Dopamine Loop and it looks like this:

This is the familiar cycle of addiction. Now, through the online distraction model, it’s being applied to the culture and creative world—and billions of people. They (we) are unwitting volunteers in the biggest social engineering experiment ever unleashed in human history.

Tech wants to create a world of junkies where Tech will be the pushers and dealers. Addiction is the goal. They don’t say it openly. They don’t need to. Just look at what they do.

  • Everything is being designed to lock users into an addictive cycle.
  • Platforms are shifting to scrolling and reeling interfaces.
  • Algorithms punish you for leaving sites.

There’s more. Apple, Facebook, and others want you to wear their virtual reality goggles. They are specifically made to swallow you through stimuli like the tiny fish in the food chain charts. You’re invited to live as a passive recipient of make-believe like a pod slave in The Matrix.

This is the new culture, and it’s here in 2024. Instead of movies and TV shows, we’re being served an endless stream of seconds-long vids. Instead of symphonies, we’re satisfied with sound bits, usually accompanied by a slick little pic.

The most striking feature of the new culture is the absence of culture. It’s mindless entertainment—escapism—of compulsive activity. It’s the dopamine culture.

Here’s where the science gets ugly. The more addicts rely on stimuli for their fix, the less pleasure they get. At a certain point, which our brains are designed for, this cycle creates anhedonia. That’s the medical word for the complete absence of enjoyment.

Dopamine deprivation takes over and the addict is broken. The scrolling cycle causes pain, not pleasure, and the pain causes more pain as the addict scrolls. It becomes a hopeless cycle and a spiraling downfall.

To quote Ted Gioia, “Some companies get people hooked on pills and needles. Others with apps and algorithms. But either way, it’s just churning out junkies. That’s our dystopian future. Not so much Orwell’s 1984. It’s more like Huxley’s Brave New World.”

Dr. Anna Lembke is a world-leading addiction expert. She’s Chief of Staff at Stanford University’s Dual Diagnosis Addiction Clinic which deals with patients who have multiple addiction issues. Dr. Lembke wrote a recent book titled Dopamine Nation that topped the New York Times Bestseller List.

She calls the smartphone the modern-day hypodermic needle. As the doctor puts it, “We turn to it for quick hits, seeking attention, validation, and distraction with every swipe. Since the turn of the millennium, behavioral (as opposed to substance) addiction has soared. Every spare second is an opportunity to be stimulated, whether by entering the TikTok vortex, scrolling Instagram, swiping through Tinder, or binging on online porn, online gambling, or online shopping.”

Dr. Lembke refers to a World Happiness Report that clearly shows many people in high-income countries are far less happy than they were a few years ago. She blames this on the scroll-and-dopamine culture. “We’ve forgotten how to be alone with our thoughts. We’re forever interrupting ourselves for a quick digital hit, meaning we rarely concentrate on taxing tasks for long or get into a creative flow. The zone.”

Dr. Lembke continues to explain that addiction is a spectrum disorder. It’s not as simple as being an addict or not being an addict. Addiction is deemed worthy of clinical intervention and care when it significantly interferes with someone’s life and functioning ability. When it comes to digital addiction, she says, the effect is pernicious.

To understand addiction, you must first understand dopamine which she dubbed “The Kim Kardashian of molecules” owing to its mainstream prominence. Dopamine is a chemical often called “The Feelgood Hormone” and its molecular structure (resembling an insect with dual antennae and an offset tail) has even become a popular tattoo.

Rather than giving us pleasure itself, dopamine motivates us to do things we think will bring us pleasure. Like reading a fantastic book or watching a top-notch film. As the brain’s major reward and pleasure neurotransmitter, dopamine drives us to seek food when we’re hungry and sex when we’re horny. But there’s a side effect. The higher the dopamine release, the more addictive the thing.

“We experience a hike in dopamine in anticipation of doing the thing as well as actually doing it. As soon as it’s finished, we experience a comedown or dopamine dip. That’s because the brain operates through a self-regulating process termed homeostasis meaning for every high there’s a low. What we really want is that second piece of chocolate cake or to watch another episode but if we’re not severely addicted, the craving will soon pass.”

Scientists first identified dopamine in 1957. It’s a precursor to addiction with 50% due to genetics and 50% due to environmental excesses. The human brain hasn’t changed since 1957 but our access to additive things has incredibly increased. Exposure to the internet, for instance.

Where back in the ‘50s the focus was on family and work, reading and sports, today’s world gives you unlimited pleasure at the click of a mouse or loading an app. When we over-download pleasure, homeostasis causes our brain to bring us lower and lower. We sink into a joy-seeking abyss called anhedonia.

Immediate gratification defines the dopamine culture. It means we’re constantly living in our limbic brain which possesses emotions rather than in our pre-frontal cortex that plans for the future, solves problems, and develops personality. When we depend on our digital companions to help us escape life’s issues, the limbic system loves the distractions.

We need time away, Dr. Lembke prescribes. She recommends a 24-hour unplugging once a week or a least locking the phone in a drawer for an hour. I’m not a doctor, but I strongly prescribe Dr. Lembke’s book Dopamine Nation. Here’s a screenshot of its blurb on Amazon:

So, medically, what is dopamine? This natural drug that seduces and intoxicates addicts? Let’s use the web itself for a quick distraction.

Dopamine is a type of monoamine neurotransmitter produced by your brain to act as a reward center. It regulates functions like memory, movement, motivation, mood, attention, and more. Like happiness and escapism. It’s the chemical messenger connecting your nerve cells.

Dopamine plays a role in your fight or flight syndrome. It’s designed, from an evolutionary perspective to reward you when you’ve done well. As humans, we’re hardwired to seek pleasure and avoid pain. Dopamine is good in the short term but bad in the long.

We’ve talked about the drug, and we’ve talked about the addiction. We’ve talked about the culture, and we’ve talked about the change. Now let’s talk about the technology and who controls the algorithms that have changed the culture and sell the dopamine drug of addiction.

The word “algorithm” is everywhere. In print, online, and in AI—Artificial Intelligence. Facebook knows when you’ve been naughty, and it knows when you’ve been nice. Google knows more about you than your spouse does. ChatGPT? Like The Carpenters sang, “We’ve only just begun.”

So here I go again with Chat. (Sorry, Chat is here until AGI arrives and then…) I asked the tool-bot to explain, clearly and simply, what an algorithm is. It replied:

Algorithms are step-by-step instructions or procedures for solving a problem or completing a task. They’re like recipes for computers telling them what to do to achieve a specific goal. Here’s a breakdown of how algorithms operate:

  • Input — Data, numbers, texts, habits
  • Process — Organizing into logic
  • Output — Results, conclusions, actions

It told me algorithms can be simple like processing numbers or extremely complex like algorithms used in AI programs such as ChatGPT. I also asked it how algorithms track our online behavior. It said:

  • Data Collection — Watches and records what you’re doing
  • Data Processing — Extracts meaningful information to its purpose
  • Pattern Recognition — Figures out where you’ve been
  • User Profiling — Figures out who you are
  • Behavioral Prediction — Calculates what you want
  • Feedback Loop — Checks to see if it’s right

Sound spooky? It does to me. Think of every time Facebook showed you something that aligned with your thoughts. I asked Chat how algorithms do this. What tools they use. It said:

  • Cookies
  • IP Address Tracking
  • User Accounts and Profiles
  • Pixels and Scripts
  • Social Media Activity
  • Browser History

During my chat with Chat, that insightful bot said something that made me think. It said, “User engagement and monetization can contribute to addictive patterns of behavior. It’s essential for tech companies to balance their business interests with ethical considerations and prioritize the well-being of their users.”

Tech companies own the internet. They have complete control over a user’s feed. Ultimately, their minds. Let’s look at the top five tech companies and their worth. As of yesterday, 23 February 2024, here are their stock market capitalization standings:

5. Meta — $1.21 Trillion

4. Amazon — $1.74 Trillion

3. Alphabet — $1.77 Trillion

2. Apple — $2.80 Trillion

1. Microsoft — $2.99 Trillion

Let’s not overlook Nvidia on this list of distraction builders. Nvidia makes the chips (the brains) that allow the techs to invent algorithms that addict their users to online dopamine dependence. This is Nvidia’s $1.72 Trillion stock market performance over the past five years:

It’s not only money that motivates Big Tech to mess with people’s minds and devastate their lives. It’s more than that. It’s power. Control. Manipulation. Dominance. Marketplace position. Not just stock market growth and capitalization.

As a distraction—maybe a digital dopamine hit—watch this four-minute clip of Mark Zuckerberg getting smoked over the coals of justice in a recent US Congressional hearing about harming children online. It’s worth the price of admission.

 

THE CIRCUS TRIAL OF THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY — THE HALL-MILLS MURDERS

On September 14, 1922, illicit lovers Edward Wheeler Hall and Eleanor Reinhardt Mills were murdered near New Brunswick, New Jersey. Hall, age 43, was a married Episcopalian minister. Mills, age 34 and married to a different man, was a soprano in his church choir. Three people—Hall’s legal wife and her two brothers—were charged with the crimes but acquitted. One hundred years later, few alive today have heard of the Hall-Mills murder trial but, back then, it was a media circus on par with the 1990s O.J. Simpson fiasco.

Normally, I write original material for the Dyingwords blog. Today, however, I’m going to plagiarize a bit because this description from The Yale Review says more about the sensational Hall-Mills side show than I can do justice to:

This steaming porridge of lust, murder, and scandal proved irresistible to the tabloids. As one eminent chronicler of the period outs it: “The Hall-Mills case had all the elements needed to satisfy an exacting public taste for the sensational. It was grisly, it was dramatic (the bodies being laid side to side as if to emphasize an unhallowed union), it involved wealth and respectability, it had just the right amount of sex interest–and in addition, it took place close to New York City, the great metropolitan nerve-center of the American press.”

The frenzied coverage turned the old Phillips farm, where the bodies were found, into a major tourist attraction. On weekends, the crime scene became a virtual carnival with vendors hawking popcorn, peanuts, soft drinks, and balloons to the hordes of the morbidly curious who arrived “at the rate of a thousand cars a day.” Within a few weeks, the crabapple tree, under which the bodies were lying, had been completely stripped of every branch and bit of bark by ghoulish souvenir hunters, while one enterprising individual peddled samples of the dirt surrounding the now-infamous tree for twenty-five cents a bag.

Back to the story of what happened, who probably did it, and why. Let’s start with the case facts.

The Reverend Ed Wheeler was born in Brooklyn and received his theology degree in Manhattan. He moved to New Jersey in 1909 and was tenured at the Evangelist Episcopal Church in New Brunswick. Here he met Frances Noel Stevens who was eight years his senior and filthy rich, being an heir to the Johnson & Johnson fortune. They married in 1911 and had no children.

Eleanor Mills did have children. She was married to James E. Mills who was a sexton in Hall’s church and a rather n’er-do-well. Eleanor was an attractive and vivacious lady with an exceptional voice. She was a core member of the church and became Hall’s mistress.

It was no secret in New Brunswick’s society that Mills and Hall were having an affair. In fact, they were quite open about it. Many in the congregation gossiped and disapproved—not just of a clergy-parishioner relationship but the societal misalignment. Hall’s wife and family were upper class while Mills belonged with the working poor.

On September 16, 1922 (two days after Hall and Mills disappeared) a young couple walking through an orchard happened upon the bodies. Mills and Hall were lying side-by-side on their backs with their feet facing a crabapple tree. Hall was to Mill’s left with his arm touching hers while Mill’s arm was stretched, touching his. Hall’s Panama hat covered his face while Mills’ scarf wrapped her neck. Between the two were ripped-up love letters that Mills and Hall had previously passed back and forth. Notably, Reverend Hall’s calling card was set at his feet.

Autopsies showed both had been shot with a .32 caliber handgun. Hall received one gunshot wound to the head with the bullet entering above his right ear and travelling downward, exiting the left rear of his neck. Mills had three gunshot wounds. One was in the center of her forehead two inches above the nose. A second plowed through her right cheek. A third pierced her right temple.

There were minor bruises on Hall but couldn’t be conclusively linked to a struggle. Mills, on the other hand, had her throat slit from ear to ear, practically decapitating her. Her tongue had been extracted and was missing.

The initial investigation was How Not to Process a Crime Scene 101. The police failed to secure the area and a mass of onlookers had access not only to view the bodies but in handling evidence like the love letters and the calling card. The story quickly spread and became the frenzied craze described in the Yale Review excerpt.

From the onset, Hall’s wife—Frances Stevens Hall—was the prime suspect in setting up the murders. Not committing them, though, as that suspicion fell on her two brothers, Henry Hewgill Stevens and William “Willie” Carpender Stevens. The district attorney quickly took the case before a grand jury theorizing that Frances was the jealous mastermind while Henry and Willie were the obliging gunmen.

The grand jury didn’t buy it due to a lack of evidence. They rejected an indictment and the case went dormant for four years. In the legal system, that is.

In the news system, the Hall-Mills murder case was far from forgotten. The early 1920s was a vibrant time. Americans were recovering from a war and a pandemic. They wanted a release. The media gave it to them with the birth of American-style tabloids which rejected the stiff-collar, upper-crust reporting style of the New York Times.

William Randolph Hearst began publishing British-like papers targeting sensationalism. Hearst’s New York Daily Mirror competed with the already established tabloids New York Daily News and the New York Graphic. Hearst, being the cunning entrepreneur he was, looked to one-up the competition. He found one story that had it all—love & sex, money, and murder. Throw in a philandering clergyman and he had what Americans of the Roaring Twenties wanted to read.

The NY Daily Mirror resurrected the Hall-Mills murder case in 1925. Investigating reporters dug up “new evidence” which was so publicized that the New Jersey officials couldn’t ignore it. There were a few overlooked items from the 1922 investigation that showed up on the tabloid covers.

One was that Willie Stevens owned a .32 caliber pistol. Two was that Willie Stevens’s fingerprint was on the calling card found at the dead feet of Ed Hall. Three was the “Pig Woman” who claimed to have seen the murders go down.

This time, the New Brunswick grand jury indicted the three original suspects. The trial started on November 3, 1926 in neighboring Somerset, New Jersey. And if the original crime scene was a media gong show, that held nothing compared to the trial. At least three hundred news reporters covered the 33-day debacle.

The Pig Woman was the star prosecution witness. Now, there’s a story behind this pig lady. Her name was Jane Gibson or Jane Easton or Jane Upson, depending on what she wanted for the day. Jane got her pig woman name from being a farmer who kept hogs on the property next door to the orchard where the Hall and Hills bodies were found.

The Pig Woman never surfaced in the 1922 investigation, but she miraculously appeared when the tabloid coverage began. Jane stated that on the evening of September 14, 1922, her dog began barking and indicating toward the orchard. Being curious, Jane rode her mule over to the site and witnessed the three accused Stevens siblings there with the victims. As she was leaving, she heard gunshots, then went back to see Mrs. Frances Hall weeping over her dead husband’s body.

Now credibility is an important issue in witness testimony. It doesn’t help a jury’s impression when the witness’s mother (Jane’s own mom) kept yelling from the back of the courtroom while her daughter was testifying, “She’s a liar. A liar. A liar.” Nor does it create a reassuring picture when the star witness, who’s being called a liar, testifies from a hospital bed that had to be wheeled into the packed-to-over-capacity courtroom.

The three accused, Frances Stevens Hall, Henry Stevens, and Willie Stevens, all took the stand and testified on their own behalf. Frances, the stoic, denied any motivation, means, and opportunity. Henry’s defense was “Prove it. I have nothing to hide”. Willie was a special case. He was known as “Nutty Willie” in the community and probably had high-functioning autism. Apparently, he played the prosecutor like a hooked fish.

To use the cliché “in the end”, the jury acquitted Frances, Henry, and Willie. Their dream team defense counsel turned the trial into a class war where Ed Hall stooped to be with a common cheating wife like Eleanor Mills and they deserved what they got. Here’s a quote from a Rutgers pdf paper titled The Hall-Mills Murder Case: The Most Fascinating Unsolved Murder in America:

Frances Hall was presented as a paragon, along with her two brothers. “Have they been thugs?”, her lawyer asked the jury. ”Have they criminal records? Are they thieves? No. They are refined, genteel, law-abiding people, the very highest type of character, churchgoing Christians, who up to this time enjoyed the perfect admiration and respect of their friends and neighbors.”

When the jury acquitted Frances, Henry, and Willie the media manic trial was over, but the tabloids milked it until another sensational case came about. In 1932, famed aviator Charles Lindbergh’s baby was abducted and murdered. The tabloids finally closed the Hall-Mills case.

Over the last century, there’ve been numerous books written and articles submitted that looked at the Hall-Mills murders. There’s a guy named Julius Bolyog who came out 47 years after the murders stating he was a middle-man between the Frances and Willie connection and the hired killers. I seriously question his credibility. His account doesn’t pass the smell test, but you can listen to a 9-part recording produced in 1970 documenting Bolyog’s claim.

Then there’s the exhaustive work by Gerald Tomlinson titled Fatal Tryst: Who Killed the Minister and the Choir Singer? This author somehow concludes the Ku Klux Klan did it. Whatever.

So, what do I think? What an old murder cop thinks? Someone who’s been there, done that in murders?

The first thing to mind is the body positions. This was ritualistic. Hall and Mills were placed on their backs, touching each other, facing the crabapple tree with their torn love letters between them for a reason. These murders were all about infidelity.

I don’t think they were killed at this site. Rather, they were shot elsewhere and transported to the orchard knowing full well they’d be found, and the statement made. The killers wanted their victims publicly presented and a message sent.

I say killers (plural) because I don’t believe Hall and Mills were done at the dump site. It’d take two people to load, transport, and display the bodies. Handling a limp dead body by yourself is a tough go. Believe me. I was a coroner, and I know about the challenges in handling dead bodies.

I find the gunshot wounds telling. Ed Hall was shot from above and downward. From his upper right to his lower left. Eleanor Mills was shot three times, and it seems to me the shooter had to work on her. I’d say the first shot caught her struggling and zipped through her cheek. The second was more controlled and went through her temple. The third was a finish-off through the forehead after she was face-first controlled.

Control. This crime speaks to a planned control. The killers and plotter had to find the two—Ed Hall and Eleanor Mills—together and take control so they would initially cooperate. This might have been in a vehicle as it’s had to quickly get out of a vehicle when things go deadly fast.

I speculate the killers sucked Hall and Mills into the back seat of a car. Hall was on the rear driver’s side. Mills was on the rear passenger’s side.

By sucking in, I mean blackmailing. Somehow, the killers got Hall and Mills attention to get them controlled. Blackmailing will do that.

The gunshot patterns are telling. I speculate the shooter was in the passenger front position. The other killer was behind the wheel. The shooter first pulled the trigger on Hall which explains the downward, right-to-left trajectory.

I speculate Mills immediately turned left toward Hall when he was shot, exposing the right side of her face to the gunman. The shooter turned the pistol on her and got the first bullet through her cheek as she was moving to her left. The second shot to Mills got her in the right temple which would be a natural trajectory. The third shot was a fate-de-complete in her forehead. Probably this was post mortem in the orchard because the exhibit list records one .32 casing found at the death site.

The throat slit? I speculate this was also symbolic, but I don’t speculate this was done in the car. Too hard to do and too messy—too much blood. I’d say this was done post-mortem, in the orchard after the bodies were placed. The throat-slit and de-tonguing symbolism? Something about a message not to talk, I’d guess.

Who do I speculate were the mastermind, shooter, and wheelman?

I use two homicide investigation principles I’ve known for years. One is Occam’s razor—where when presented with two opposing hypotheses, the simplest answer is usually the correct answer. The Ku Klux Klan? Or within the family?

Two is the time-tested principle that the stranger the case, the closer the answer is to home. The Ku Klux Klan or the family?

So who, in my old murder cop opinion, planned it, carried it out, and why?

Frances Stevens Hall ordered it to send a message to New Brunswick’s society. She’d had enough of her cheating husband embarrassing her with a low-class floozie. She needed to send a strong social statement to maintain her wealth and power status.

I’d say Henry pulled the trigger while Willie was behind the wheel. It’s just a guess. But I’d say Willie, with his autistic creativity, staged the dump scene.

Then, again, who am I to speculate 100 years after the fact.