Why_are_we_hypnotizing_ourselves-_ATeggin-1.pdf

I’m excited to finally share my research from last year on the hypnotic effects of mass media and digital platformization. This study explores how our attention is influenced through YouTube’s audio-visual content. Key points:

- **Objective:** Examine the hypnotic side effects of media on attention.
- **Focus:** Sound and visual experiences on YouTube.
- **Methodology:** Mixed digital approach with quantitative and qualitative analysis.
- **Findings:** Observations on techniques in attention-based economies and their cognitive impact.
- **Implications:** Considerations for future research in media and mind interactions, especially within OSINT-oriented communities.

Curious about the details? Check out my slide deck and let’s discuss the future possibilities.

#Research #AttentionEconomy #YouTube #DigitalMedia #MediaStudies #VisualNetworkAnalysis #HypnodelicMedia

1. WHY ARE WE HYPNOTIZING
OURSELVES?
A Mixed Digital Methods Approach
to Exploring The Hypnotic and
Psychedelic Use of Focus-Related
Content on YouTube.
Alexander Teggin

2. As a result, precisely at
the point where a new
media-induced
environment becomes all
pervasive and
transmogrifies our sensory
balance, it also becomes
invisible.”
(McLuhan 1969)

Narcissus narcosis, a syndrome
whereby man remains as unaware
of the psychic and social effects of
his new technology as a fish of the
water it swims in.

3. Mindless VS Mindful Media
There have been several studies focused on how dopamine systems are exploited
through sensory stimulus, leading to acts such as ‘mindless’ doomscrolling, or
addictive-like consumption of video games, pornography, or “binge” worthy
television (Macit et al., 2018).
Media consumption can thus be seen to have many ‘hypnotic’ properties, as the
act of consumption is often done so through unaware, mindless, or routine
behaviour - exploiting sensory stimuli to increase attention. Considering this,
however, new media artifacts are also utilizing similar hypnotic tropes to offer
increased focus on mind-body awareness, through rituals like meditation, yoga or
psychedelic introspection. In this way, new media technologies can prove a vital
tool for improving focused attention or uncovering subconscious frameworks.

4. TABLE OF CONTENTS
Theoretical
Framing
How do we position
the research
Methodology
How do we treat our
media objects?
Findings
How do we interpret
the output and affects?
01 02 03

5. Theoretical Framing
Which disciplines does this
research contribute towards?
01

6. Critical Frameworks of Importance
Platformized Media
Technical Affordance
& Affect
Attention Economies
How we perceive
media and monetize
mindfullness
Psychedelic Revival
Ritual and shamanic
applications of
sound and
meditation
Cognitive Ecologies
Neurological based
assemblages

7. YouTube’s Platformization of Audio Media
Platformized content (Poell & Nieborg 2009)
Convergence Culture (Jenkins 2006)
Technical affordances of retention
Algorithmic Culture
Platform Manipulation

8. YouTube’s Platformization of Audio Media

All top 10 YouTube
Videos of all time are
music related.
(6 are nursery rhymes
for Kids)
Top Content
80M
YouTube Music and
Premium reached 80
Million paid subscribers
in 2022.
10.1% share of global
music streaming market
Highly lucrative
7/10
-Song
-DJ
-Dance
-New Song
(Besides Tik Tok,
Minecraft & Cartoon)
-
7 Top Searches
10/10

9. Attention Economies and Focus Media
Market Oriented Metrics of Attention
From Information abundance to Attention
Poverty (Terranova 2012)
Ambient Intimacies (Van de Ven 2020)
Attention as multi-functional, cognitively
nuanced
PsychoSocial Technologies (Stiegler 2008)
ASMR studies

10. Modern media as ‘tertiary retentions’ or ‘mnemotechnic technologies’ which
concretize modes of ‘psycho-power’ affecting the relation of self to
self and self to other. Attention is the name for that relation between
‘retentions’ and ‘protentions’, that is, between the movement of
consciousness that retains the trace of that which has just passed and
its expectation of that which is to come. For Stiegler, in modern
societies, the relation between retentions and protentions is
mediated by those specific instances of tertiary retentions that are
the media as psychotechnologies.
(Terranova 2012; Stiegler 2008)

11. Psychedelic Revival & TechGnosis
The Market of Mindfulness
Psychedelic Rituals and Awareness
Spiritual / Shamanic guidance
Managing our minds through Media
Assemblages
TechGnosis: media consumption situated
through both the uptake in mindless,
unaware use; or as tools of ‘narcissus
narcosis’; in contrast to mindful
stimulation and psyche-revealing rituals
(Davis 1998)

12. Methodology
02
How can we effectively analyze a
content platform with 800 000
videos and 2,6+ billion users?

13. YouTube Content Network Analysis
Sample Collection
Natively digital data
gathered from YouTube
search and referral
algorithms
Mixed Digital
Methods
Using available metrics
to dissect platform
mechanics and usage
Visual Analysis
Creating a visual video
network using Gephi

14. Digital Methods Approach to YouTube
Mixed Digital
Methods
Critical Diagnostics of
platform through
available platform
metrics
Layered
Approach
Quantitative analysis of
platform metrics +
qualitative
categorisation /
analysis of output
Natively Digital
Data

a)Algorithmic
recommendations
b)User Upload &
Viewing Behaviour

15. Quantitative Network Analysis
Sample Collection
How did we collect the
data specifically?
4548 Nodes,
73500 edges
2 iteration crawl
depth
(Recommended
videos)
Most Views all
time, manually
selected top 5
Understanding
focus culture
Seed
Selection: 5
YouTube
Data Tools
Keyword:
“Focus”
Search
Exploration

16. Method Limitations
Limited Computational Power
Limited API access
Language and Algorithmic Nuances
Time and Scope

17. Quantitative Network Analysis
Visual Analysis
Creating a visual video
network using Gephi

Force
Atlas 2
Layout
algorithm
Ranking
algorithm
Grouping
Algorithm
Manual
identification
Betweennes
s Centrality
Modulatio
n
Categorizatio
n

18. Findings
03
How do we re-conceptualize the
data and media objects?

19. Full video network

20. Full video network (labeled)

21. Ambience, Relaxation & Calm
ASMR
Placed next to natural
sound ambience
White / Brown Noise
Including Hz specific /
Space theme

22. Stimulation and Concentration

23. Two Distinct Outliers
Psychedelic / Drugs
Visual and hallucinatory
aesthetics
Baby Calming Sound
Lullabies and natural
ambience

24. Two Distinct Outliers
Psychedelic / Drugs
Visual and hallucinatory
aesthetics

25. Two Distinct Outliers
Baby Calming Sound
Lullabies and natural
ambience

26. Central (Hz) Meditations
Between Mindful and
Mindless
Manifestation for
intelligence, love,
money

27. Overall Focus Themed Dichotomy
Psychedelic /
StimulateMindful Focus
Hypnotic / Relax
Mindless ambience and
distraction
Hypno/Psyche- delic Overlaps

28. Discursive Key Points of Findings
Self-Induction Mindfull/less Ness
Psychedelic
Practice
Anxiety Relief
Ambient
Affordances
Platform
‘TechGnosis’

29. Sound Media and Mind Management
PSYCHE -delic HYPNO -genic
From Greek hupnos ‘sleep’
+ agōgos ‘leading’ (from
agein ‘to lead’).
From Ancient Greek
ψυχή (psukhḗ, “mind,
soul”) + δῆλος (dêlos,
“manifest, visible”)
Hypno-Delic
To manifest or see into
sleep and calming the
mind.

30. mediating our
awareness between
both relaxing and
stimulating affordances.
Productive of anxiety relief &
mental stimulation. Inward Focus
through Outward Control


Work vs Sleep
Psychic attention & distraction
Exploitations
Dopamine and Anxiety
Relief
Fulfing wishes & Spiritual
meaning
Opportunities
For managing pervasive
media ecology and
psychic awareness of
subconscious habits
Hypnodelic Properties

31. Further Research Objectives
Different Query
Analysis
Analysing queries such
as Relax, ASMR, Hz,
Binaural - or different
ways to scrape seeds.
Sound VS Visual
affordances
What do the visual and
audio qualities afford
different
Different Platforms
How is music similarly
adopted through
platforms such as
Spotify, TikTok, Radio
etc.
User-Focused
Approaches
In what context are these
media being used? Who
is creating them?

32. I hope you have lots of questions
Thank you
for focusing
And not falling asleep