In Alex Garland’s Devs, a quantum computer computer dubbed “The Box” contains a deterministic simulation of the universe. Characters often remark that “The Box contains everything.” I’d like to posit that your phone, though not nearly as advanced, is in some conceptual sense the same thing. We are, at all times, especially on social media, engaging both the past and the present non-linearly. A post on Instagram is, at once, a recognition of the before, and a tether to future connections. Most of what we do on the internet operates in much the same way. The delineation for many comes down to how passive the activity is. Consumption, to me, is more future-oriented. If you’re feed is curated, you might be increasingly informed or inspired. Posting is more past-oriented in that you’re reflecting on events that’d transpired. Both of these, to some degree, are linked to either orientation at the same time, in much the same way a quantum computer might entangle a bit. Scrolling can be active and posting can be passive, or they can swap, or be both at the same time.
One response to “Garland’s Box”
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I would argue a bit further, since the past/future split might even matter less than form. Generally, everything on social media is structured through the narrative form, which implies a beginning, a culmination, and an ending. As such, the narrative is inherently tied to the past, because you narrate something as a story only once it’s over. In this sense, even a post about plans or aspirations inevitably belongs to the past, because it has been structured into a closed framework, the narrative. From this perspective, the process of consumption does not really direct you towards the future, but rather demonstrates a myriad of other people’s completed pasts/narratives.
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