He's right - that phrase evokes what he means better than many alternatives.
But this feels like an article where you get all the useful info in the title. The rest is just a rant about the modern internet being bad for your brain.
"All fixed, fast-frozen relations, with their train of ancient and venerable prejudices and opinions, are swept away, all new-formed ones become antiquated before they can ossify. All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses, his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind."
synthetic, pure, overly stimulating, taps into base mechanics of joy creation, prone to abuse but on the same time you still want it and tell yourself that you can control it. and sometimes you really do.
I dunno, I love hating modern thing as much as the next guy, but this is just people being hyper sensitive. Your average 80s action comedy quips the same as any Marvel film.
Humanity was fracking dopamine from art by first painting on cave walls, then oil on canvas, and eventually we got cinematography and video games. Author sounds like a luddite. Feel free to paint on cave walls. Nothing's happening to real strawberries either.
But this feels like an article where you get all the useful info in the title. The rest is just a rant about the modern internet being bad for your brain.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2026/jan/18/how-can-we-def...
1. Refinement, where things are made super-concentrated and pure
2. Supernormal stimuli, where the effect becomes unnaturally intense
3. How easy it becomes to consume the result
Something like 'dopamine super-refinement'.
synthetic, pure, overly stimulating, taps into base mechanics of joy creation, prone to abuse but on the same time you still want it and tell yourself that you can control it. and sometimes you really do.
I dunno, I love hating modern thing as much as the next guy, but this is just people being hyper sensitive. Your average 80s action comedy quips the same as any Marvel film.
I enjoyed the article. It was very evocative.
“It’s not what it looks like! Gawd, just leave me alone mom!”