this has always been true, and might be a real reason to have public standards?
Rather, what will happen is a bunch of us will willingly stop participating and stepping away from the technological singularity. A bit like the Amish, this time not for religious reasons. Let the urbanites enjoy their AI-generated virtual realities, with work, sex, and food from the comfort of your phone, competing for fewer and more bullshit office jobs creating more addictive apps; I just want to live on a farm with solar panels, grow tomatoes and write code for fun.
"It’s hard to quantify just how widespread the phenomenon is, but certain notably offline hobbies are exploding in popularity."
That does seem like a really big assumption though.
The article almost encourages this interpretation, although I'd praise it for at least acknowledging the "performance" part.
It seems to mash consumerism, commercial Social Media and GenAI into one though.
Still, I try to see the positive side, and I think there certainly could be such a trend.
No idea if it's just a small part of people going against the grain, or a broader shift.
Regarding media addiction, there is a pattern that would be kind of similar, the large cohort of elderly people who are addicted to media and the commercial web, compared to the comparatively smaller portion of younger people falling victim.
Among my "elder millenial" friends, I can only say that abstinence from doomscrolling and modern tech (especially smartphones and SM) seems to correlate with integrity and smartness.
Also, "knitting kits" were not a thing for most of my life. You'd just buy yarn needles and yarn. This is not some kind of a craft where you need dozens of implements.
The kit is pretty much a product of the TikTok / YT influencer era. Indeed, a typical kit will often contain needles, yarn, and a... link to a video you can watch:
https://www.amazon.com/Complete-Knitting-Kit-Beginners-Acces...
Social Media and E-commerce + dropshipping, optimized supply chains etc brought it to a new level though, in all kinds of domains.
Audio equipment, musical instruments, sports or home accessories, for example.
If the AI industry takes a hit because people are returning to offline hobbies, it’s a signal we’ve been building the wrong things.
I think AI is just a tipping point and an easy target.
From new reports it seems Denmark is rolling back a lot of e-learning/screen usage. I hope the same comes to pass in the US. My daughter gets an iPad for her high school and while its locked down it is incredibly distracting. It is also restrictive. You can't read your notes and make summaries and write your own interpretation of what you've read without switching context between apps. As a whole I think its a bad option for learning.
Anecdotally, I have friends who have recently bought turntables out of the blue and gotten into vinyl. Other friends who never had any interest in my analog cameras are asking about film. My wife has even switched from scrolling Instagram at night to working on a crossword book with a pencil.
None of them have put it exactly this way, but in divisive times, I think social media is just exhausting. And now you can't even really tell what's real.
PlatoIsADisease•1h ago
I'm not sure I'll ever click a CNN link again.
1123581321•1h ago
There might be a browser plugin to automatically do this, like exist with old.reddit.com.
treetalker•1h ago
```
javascript:window.open('https://archive.ph/newest/'+location.href.split('?')%5B0%5D,...')
```
HN cuts it off. Full line ends "%5B0%5D,'_blank')"
latexr•18m ago
pessimizer•15m ago
CNN still doesn't have much worth reading, certainly not this. This isn't a real trend, this is a party a friend of the author threw.