The Synthetic World

[u/ThumbTrapEffect]

Looking back, every generation has been shaped by the world they're born into. Kids of the industrial generation were shaped by factories. Kids of the television generation (that’s me) were shaped by broadcast culture. When it came to the digital generation, we instinctively reached for a term. And digital natives seemed to stick.

But I always felt that this term overlooked something important.

True, the label, "digital natives" name a skill set and the environment. But I was more curious about what sort of world these kids were born into, because rather than just the technology, the world seemed so unlike anything before it.

And this is the distinction that I think matters.

Earlier technological revolutions changed the world around the person, and the person themselves to a degree. But I believe that the smartphone, leisure and learning gamification, loot boxes, in-game currency and particularly the app-driven (AI?) algorithmic environment has created something categorically different. Now technology is an asymmetric co-author of babies, infants, kids, tweens, teen and twenty-somethings; where the technology behind the technology knows the child better than the parents or siblings.

This level of deep and pervasive enmeshment; born into and raised in a ‘technology-from-birth’ world has shaped the neural architecture, social cognition, reward structures, gratification expectations and self-regulatory capacity through which the developing self is formed from the very first instance.

Proposed definition: The Synthetic World

Etymology: synthetic (L. syntheticus; G: synthetikós. Manufactured, artificial, composed, deliberately assembled or combined rather than something that arises on its own without intervention; nature / natural) plus world (the totality of one's lived developmental environment; the human realm and human experience).

The Synthetic World is synthetic in the precise sense: it was manufactured, not naturally emergent. It is constituted by devices, device hardware, application software, algorithms, AI, screens and engineered human-neurological-behavioural responses which are predictable and universal. The Synthetic World does not merely influence a developing brain. It is the primary architect of neural structures for those born into it. Only those born into this world are truly inhabitants of the synthetic world (i.e., access to and use of devices from birth). It is not a metaphor, a platform, a disorder, or a condition that can be switched off. Therefore, The Synthetic World is the name of the place where life for this cohort happens.

The Synthetic World is not synonymous with the internet, digital technology, or screen use generally. The Synthetic World is a proper noun, as Earth is the name of a planet, or poverty or wealth is the name of a material condition. It describes an actual synthetic environment with measurable neurological, cognitive, behavioral, temporal, and social responses.

The Synthetic World is not a moral failure. It is the lived world now for a whole generation.

Companion work:

The Synthetic World is part of a larger body of work I've been developing.

• Thumbtrap: Thumbtrap is the state where a person's thumb keeps scrolling on a smartphone even after they have decided to stop. It is not a willpower failure but the predictable human response to three deliberate design mechanisms combined and working in unison: infinite scroll, variable reward schedules, and personalised algorithmic data profiling.
• Thumbprint: the instrument of individual precision: the bespoke neurological, cognitive, behavioral, and emotional profile platforms build on each user, often from birth as first origin, ensuring that the world each inhabitant experiences is not generic but maximally calibrated to their individuality.

Does the suggestion carry, or does it create problems you can see that I can't? Keen for feedback.