You won't have time to read this ...

... because who has time for reading when there's a new Tik Tok to upload!

Sure, some of us still read things longer than a text. But the "hot trend" these days, observes culture critic and "Honest Broker" Ted Gioia, is compulsive activity. Distraction.

Or call it scrolling or swiping or wasting time or whatever you want. But it’s not art or entertainment, just ceaseless activity.
    The key is that each stimulus only lasts a few seconds, and must be repeated.
    It’s a huge business, and will soon be larger than arts and entertainment combined. Everything is getting turned into TikTok—an aptly named platform for a business based on stimuli that must be repeated after only a few ticks of the clock.
    TikTok made a fortune with fast-paced scrolling video. And now Facebook—once a place to connect with family and friends—is imitating it. 'So long, Granny, hello Reels.' Twitter has done the same. And, of course, Instagram, YouTube, and everybody else trying to get rich on social media. ...

And you thought artists had it tough back in the day?
    Even the dumbest entertainment looks like Shakespeare compared to dopamine culture. You don’t need 'Hamlet,' a photo of a hamburger will suffice. Or a video of somebody twerking, or a pet looking goofy.
    Instead of movies, users get served up an endless sequence of 15-second videos. Instead of symphonies, listeners hear bite-sized melodies, usually accompanied by one of these tiny videos—just enough for a dopamine hit, and no more.
    This is the new culture. And its most striking feature is the absence of Culture (with a capital C) or even mindless entertainment—both get replaced by compulsive activity. 

His answer to this is surprising. It's ritual. Being there.

Genuine ritual is always embedded in a time and place, and cannot be uploaded or downloaded. Go ahead, get married online, [attend a funeral online], or conduct your graduation ceremony via Zoom, but these experiences will feel hollow. The virtual world creates a hunger for real ritual in an actual physical community of human beings. No website or app can satisfy this hunger on its own.What can you do about it? Gioia's answer? Ritual.

'Cos there's nothing like being there, is there ...