The appeal of Instagram is, for lack of a better word, simple; the world is moving too damn fast and we don’t want the cognitive load of figuring out what we’re looking at — we just want to see simple pretty things. This simplicity is what makes services like Instagram, Twitter and Pinterest a joy versus other entertainment offerings.
The truth is that on any given day, I’d rather check in on Instagram then watch a movie. Today — from afar — I watched my friends visit Germany, take in the 49r’s vs. Giants game, traverse the Sundance festival and eat at a restaurant on my block. I probably opened the app between 10-15 times. And I watched absolutely no TV today.
Alexia Tsotsis of TechCrunch offers us the curiously conflicted reasoning quoted above. Apparently the world is moving too fast so we are drawn to "simple pretty things". However, "the simple pretty things" she is referring to are instagram photos, a service she apparently checks 10-15 times a day.
In other words, because life is becoming more hectic she soothes herself by filling every momentary break in her day with micro-consumption of simple calming images. Rather than resisting the increasing chaos in her schedule, she fills disjointed experiences with simulacrum of calming experiences.
I don't mean to criticize. This is a temptation I succumb to myself. With the potential for positive media consumption constantly available I find myself attempting to fill every vacant moment with some form of passive consumption. If I am cooking I might as well put a podcast on the background. If I'm cleaning my apartment why not watch a TED talk? When I'm eating I can pull up a show on hulu.
These modes of consumption are tempting because in each individual instance they do produce an unequivocal gain. Empty headed cleaning becomes more enjoyable and more productive when you are learning something at the same time. Yet, in aggregate the story shifts subtly.
Small tasks tend to proliferate endlessly and eventually crowd out higher value pursuits requiring larger blocks of time. The cognitive impact also mutates as you approach 100% attention utilization. When our brains are constantly receiving sensory input we unwittingly decrease our capacity to process any of that input. We can't interpret, integrate and generate new insights from the content previously consumed while simultaneously focusing on current perception.
The more closely we approach maximum attention capacity the more we begin to resemble the shallow behavioralist input/output machines described by Nick Carr. We come to resemble lab rats impulsively pressing levers, desperately searching for our next hit of sugar water. The culprit isn't, as Carr asserts, the small chunks of content that the internet offers up (at least not directly). Rather, the culprit is the lack of quiet time we allow ourselves, within which to (re)evaluate the benefits and costs of rapidly habitualized behaviors.
Micro-tasks can be sustainably productive...so long as they don't crowd out the cognitive capacities we use to determine whether, in fact, they are productive.
