Bonum Certa Men Certa

Things Not to Fear Missing Out on

posted by Roy Schestowitz on Aug 23, 2026

Muddy Waters of Rend Lake Southern Illinois

Life is too short to play in or pay attention to social control media

Some people are afraid that if they have no presence in social control media, then not many people will notice them. Well, not having pneumonia reduces one's chance of being hospitalised, so what?

The idea that people should attract unwanted attention for attention's sake or that people should get addicted to social control media as if it's inevitable (many notifications distractions all day long) is what some "special interests" want everybody to adopt. Likewise, they try to get us all addicted to chatbots (based on false assumptions of "intelligence") and sometimes embed chatbots in social control media, knowing many are already addicted to it, hence it has people's attention, a form of cognitive persistence.

Fear is not a good thing. Yes, it can be a survival instinct, but peer pressure isn't. The latter is about conforming to the selfish expectations (or desires) of others.

Based on public data, social control media usage is waning. The same is happening to chatbots because people get sick of them. Sometimes literally.

The main thing maintaining inertia there is the fear of missing out, or the idea that being "out" of "the loop" would be worse than remaining in it. As if nothing else exists outside this "loop".

People have a limited attention span. They should not devote the little attention they have to social control media. █


Image source: Muddy Waters of Rend Lake Southern Illinois


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