I love my mom, and to some extent I accept this, but I usually get antsy after 30 minutes of viewing. The reason not only the sense of uselessness. Sure, there is time for TV, and yes mom of course I could binge Breaking Bad (again).
The reason I am antsy is the influence. Someone, somewhere, created videos that caught six hours of my mom's attention today. It's wild. She is totally enraptured by someone who is simultaneously enrapturing millions of people just like her with a story they totally invented.
The power law of influence is real. Influence is a product of creativity and network. I sense today's highly influential people A) create often and B) develop a wide network to distribute creations.
Having A and not B makes you hard to notice. The gifted artist who cannot market herself is nowhere to be found.
Interestingly, it seems like network is starting to beat creative output. Elon musk today tweeted "." and reached one hundred million people. TikTok creators do weird ASMR stuff like chewing gum and get millions of views. And yet a real painter cannot find a buyer.
We need smart people to create stuff they think will help other people. Owing to increased access to information feeds, I sense many smart people are consuming when they could be creating. Myself included (hold the smart).The truth is most of my intelligent friends do not write their ideas or share them.