Arthur Freitas

Eu tava procurando um livro aqui na minha estante. Acabei encontrando um desenho que uma amiga minha, que eu não vejo há mais de uma década, fez pra mim.

Atrás do desenho tinha uma dedicatória, “Da Bibi pro Atum”. Ela foi a única pessoa a me apelidar de “atum”. Eu esqueci completamente que, um dia, alguém já me chamou assim.

Foi estranho de lembrar da Bibi e do apelido e daquele tempo que essa amizade durou. A gente perdeu o contato. As redes sociais e os mensageiros instantâneos que a gente usava pra se comunicar deixaram de existir nesse meio tempo. O desenho ficou.

“I always have a book next to wherever I put my phone,” Escoto tells me. “So if I have the urge to check my phone for another useless doomscrolling session, I physically can see the book there. Nine times out of 10, I will choose the book, because I know what’s in store for me if I get on my phone.”

— How to fall back in love with reading

Some studies have suggested that reading fiction can increase empathy. But a perhaps even more surprising finding comes from researchers who discovered a short-term decrease in the need for “cognitive closure” in the minds of readers of fiction. In brief, the researchers write, those with a high need for cognitive closure “need to reach a quick conclusion in decision-making and an aversion to ambiguity and confusion,” and thus, when confronted with confusing circumstances, tend to seize on fast explanations and hang on to them. That generally means they’re more susceptible to things like conspiracy theories and poor information, and they become less rational in their thinking. Reading fiction, though, studies have found, tends to retrain the brain to stay open, comfortable with ambiguity, and able to sort through information more carefully.

— How to fall back in love with reading

The vague but ominous disruption promised by artificial intelligence fogs this process, justifying where it needs to justify and serving as a sort of jeering threat everywhere else; that this AI doesn’t yet really do anything well, and has the unfortunate habit of eating its own excrement until it goes insane, has not really damped this cohort’s enthusiasm for it. Which fits, because that appeal is more ideological and aspirational than practical. What all of these businesses—creative industries, social media platforms, online commerce—have in common is that they need people. They need people to make them, and they need other people to pay attention to them. The super-class that sits atop all this, gloating, does not like that very much.

— They Don’t Want Us And We Don’t Need Them Defector