Exhaustification

Exhaustification, noun

A manufactured exhaustion that derives from a sharp increase in the enshittification of everyday tools and processes.

I read an essay by Terry Godier today that beautifully encapsulates this:

What if the exhaustion everybody feels isn’t a moral failure but the ==completely rational response to being made responsible== for an ecosystem of objects that never stop asking?

You carry all of this below the surface. ==A low hum of open loops== that never become urgent enough to resolve and never fully let go.¹

[!QUOTE] You will pick up your phone eighty, ninety, a hundred times today.

Here is what nobody tells you about those pickups:

• Dismissing a notification 22%
• Intentional use 20%
• Checking something that pinged 18%
• Replying to a person 15%
• Updating, configuring, or fixing 12%
• Unlocking, forgetting why 8%
• Managing a subscription 5%

Screen time you chose: 35% Screen time your devices chose for you: 65% ¹

Your phone is not a slot machine. It’s a to-do list that writes itself.¹

And when we sit down with our phones or our computers, confronted with all those little numbers telling us how behind we are, we should feel free to ask the only question that really matters:

Is anyone actually waiting?²