A reflection from Ben Follington on last week's notes.

"Engagement-maximizing software thrives on our surplus time and consumers spend money on products and services to increase surplus time, only to spend money to burn it.

Investing your attention yields either compound returns (dream scrolling) or diminishing returns (doom scrolling). The former lets us "play ourselves into being" through learning and creation; the latter reduces us to passive consumption. Both satisfy the immediate desire to spend time, but only dream scrolling creates long-term value.

The true danger isn't just wasted time, but systems appearing to empower while actually steering—creating an illusion of agency that makes us vulnerable to deeper manipulation. Optimal systems enable self-direction rather than external control."