Orchestrated effort.
Well said.
That's exactly what it's doing. The children I teach to read each September do not even create pictures in their heads of story.
Now, this is probably going to cause a stir but I'm not sharing this for any other reason that food for thought. It's what I've observed volunteering with the WA reading Corp. The poorer the children, the more imagination they can summon. Imho the reason is the poorer children have less access to devices. It would be interesting to study these children thru adulthood...
I've had some sort of success ignoring TV and my phone, but the internet is a lot more tricky. I can always spot when I'm watching really useless stuff by checking my suggested videos on Youtube. But I do find that if I put in a real effort to search for thought provoking content, I find myself imagining as much as I did before, if not more. I'm in my early twenties, and it seems that my generation's challenge is bombardment of all this information as @voltsrage mentioned. We have to filter out all the garbage and find what's important to us. In regards to AI, they're getting really smart. So we have to sort out our shit before they realise how badly we treat each other and the world! Don't think we want a Skynet/iRobot scenario. Ha ha. Great post, @arbitrarykitten.
I like the fact you are aware of your "suggested videos". That's a good insight you have developed.
True- if you are reading/watching "brain food" as I like to refer to it, you are forming new connections in your brain- essentially growing your mind power, if you will. And like the ball in motion, it'll keep on going in the direction you set it on until it is stopped.
I agree with you on the AI and sorting our shit before it's too late! Any scenario I can imagine in that regard will be rather unfortunate for humans!!
Thanks :)