This is our first look at Siren's Call by Chris Hayes, and it's a bit of a confession from me.
Hayes hit me pretty hard by page 4 when he equated the world around us, particularly the online platforms, to the Sirens from the Greek myth of Odysseus. Online platforms called to me via Facebook, which I haven't traditionally used, but I do organize group rides and that's the best place to let everyone know about them. Also, I check marketplace for good deals on tools or stereo equipment and that's been it for a few years.
Recently though, I noticed some short form content and it sucked me in. Not just for a few minutes once, but it has been doing it repeatedly over the last few weeks to the point that I feel gross knowing I'm killing so much time on stupid slightly funny content. Yet it's so hard to stop.
To borrow another myth, I feel like Sisyphus with my attention. I push that boulder up the hill and have control of my attention, only to have it slip and roll back down leaving me running behind trying to catch it before it gains too much speed and I loose any hope of control.
So the steps I've taken is to use the zapper in UBlock Origin. This made it trivial to select areas of Facebook I don't want to see and have them disappear. I'd love to say they're gone forever, but it wouldn't surprise me to see Facebook change things at some point in the future and I'll have to zap more stuff again.
