Taylor Lorenz’s screen time is approximately 17 hours per day

Taylor Lorenz doesn’t do that You want to touch the grass. The technology and culture journalist wrote the best-selling book Very online: The untold story of online fame, influence, and power, and she’s got the screen time to prove it. Previously a reporter for major media outlets, Lorenz has gained such a rabid following (and a legion of haters) that she’s decided to go freelance in 2024. Now, nearly 100,000 fans have subscribed to her newsletter, User magfor her inside knowledge of virality and her uncanny ability to contextualize how internet culture shapes everything.

In our first User Behavior, Lorenz defends her extreme digital diet, reveals how she’s the first to reach the AI ​​stage, and what it takes to run Meme pageAnd why isn’t she worried about any of this messing with her brain.

Phone Model: iPhone 15 Pro

I’m waiting for a decent promotion. I will upgrade when I get a better camera. I’m friends with an influential Apple marketer, and I’ve never gotten a single free product from him. It’s a disappointment. I’m not old enough to get presents!

Computer model: 2024 MacBook Pro, 14-inch

standard. Good computer. When I was leaving my job, I thought, what’s closest to my work computer? And I bought that. I also edit video. So I need more horsepower.

Average screen time across all devices:

My iPhone screen time is about 10 hours or something like that. I’m kind of terrified, but for some reason, typing is less stressful for me on my phone. So I often write the first draft of everything on my phone. I use it for work. I don’t just use moldy Instagram Reels.

I also like to listen to background noise throughout the day, because I hate the silence of downtown LA. I’m just always playing music. So my two most used apps are Spotify and YouTube. At night, I like to watch Netflix on my phone because I’m still on my family plan and can only add a few devices.

I think caring about screen time is stupid. It’s a waste of mental energy. I actually think that this moral panic about screen time will disappear in 10 years, because everything will really integrate into the world around us. If you’re talking to an AI agent all day and just telling them what to do and interacting with them, you don’t have to look at the screen. You’ll probably just be talking to some pod in your ear.

Music app: Spotify, the hype machine

I think I’m one of the last remaining users of the Hype Machine, which was very popular during the blogging era. It started in 2005 as a way to discover MP3 blogs. I think I started using it in 2010, and I feel like I’ve discovered a lot of new music there, and they have remixes and stuff. They are honestly the best, and everyone should support them. I’m always worried about them going out of business, because they’ve only been online indie for so long.

I don’t like AI playlist and AI music recommendations. I like to have music that I haven’t found before. I like the discovery aspect of Hype Machine, because it’s curated by bloggers, and there are still music bloggers out there, and they find things I wouldn’t have found otherwise.

I listen to podcasts 24/7 on Spotify, and I listen to music on Spotify. I don’t discover new music there as much. I’m subscribing to today’s top songs. I love pop music.

Number of unread emails: 15,607

I don’t believe in Inbox Zero. Just treat email like a newsfeed or Twitter feed — you’ll miss some things, but you don’t have to worry about that. You just have to let go and check in sometimes. A lot of people feel stressed about technology and like they have to complete or improve things, and I like that. If I see it, I see it. If it’s really urgent, someone will find a way to reach me.

Number of unread texts: 712

This number is very low, I was in the thousands. Since I participate in a lot of group chats, if I didn’t mark the group chats as read, it would become a really big number. But I moved a lot of my messages to Signal.

I have no worries about any of it. Who cares? There’s this whole industry built on making you check your phone and making you feel like you have to check your phone. And again, I mean, this has gotten me into trouble at work before. It’s not great behavior in a work situation, but now that I’m self-employed, I don’t have a boss asking me to check my email. It’s the only way to live. I couldn’t get my work done if I was checking text messages and email and stuff. It’s too much. Why are we in this sect?

Last person FaceTimed: Barry Segal (friend)

I don’t do a lot of FaceTime. Some friends FaceTime with me, but I’m not an extroverted FaceTime person. I mostly FaceTime for gossip. It’s great for gossiping, because it feels like you’re there with them. Gossip is a type of intimacy. You should use FaceTime to make sure no one is around. Because if you call and start gossiping, it’s a very risky endeavor.

Last thing I searched on Google: “Wall Street Journal Ahead”

This is very embarrassing. I google it every day. I don’t even know what it is, but it’s the only thing I read in the Wall Street Journal. I don’t know why it’s called A-hed. They’re all just fun stories

Last photo taken: A girl at an anti-ICE protest pulls out an ICE agent’s piñata

Courtesy of Taylor Lorenz

Amnesty International’s latest claim: “Vegetarian Hummus Recipe with Garlic, Eggplant and Tahini”

My AI record is just a random food selection. I know AI sucks, blah, blah, blah, but I use it in recipes all the time. I usually use Gemini.

Top three emojis: 💓 🫠 🙌

Heart is always my number one emoji. Then I switched between the other two based on what I was texting. I use 🫠 a lot as a response to things like “LOL.” It’s also like the world is bleak. I think I was using it in connection with Jasmine Crockett’s Super Bowl ad today.

Favorite social network: X

Ah, I’m sick. X is a terrible right-wing propaganda platform that Elon Musk has abused. I know it’s a very skewed information environment. It stimulates toxic behavior. But I love real-time information, and there is no other platform that provides real-time information at scale and can also give you such a broad view of different communities. I’m very interested in Twitter technology, but I hate them all, and I want to see what everyone is doing. I want to see the latest speech about the latest interview with Alex Karp or something. If you want to keep up with what’s happening in Silicon Valley, you should be on X.

Least favorite social network: Topics

Max Read coined the naming of topics as “Gas leak social network“, which is the perfect description. Threads is a completely alien world to some of the least media-literate people I’ve ever met. It’s crazy. It’s like a mixture of brand content, hardcore blue MAGA, and some kind of liberal conspiracy, just really wild headlines generated by AI. There’s a lot of fighting on Threads. It’s really just a giant soup of misinformation and delusion.

Favorite news source: Terrence O’Connor’s Weekly Culture Digest videos on TikTok

I love the show. It’s a lot of news I’ll probably see on PopCrave, but he adds his own analysis. He’s very good at recognizing things that are in the zeitgeist.

Favorite subreddit: r/SubredditDrama

I like to know the drama. I think modern drama is an eternal form of online content, and I love observing what happens. I also think this subreddit gives a good picture of the social dynamics happening on Reddit more broadly.

Favorite technical product: iPhone charging cable, 15 feet long

I have these ropes everywhere. Any room I’m in, I’ll bring it. I don’t like to feel connected. It’s very insulting to have to sit next to an outlet and charge your phone.

Number of burner accounts: unknown

I just make them all the time. The only way to understand a society, a trend, or a phenomenon is to enter this world. I also love Real Housewives and Bravo. So I have a lot of accounts that exist just to catch up on Summer House or Bravo, whatever. Since we don’t have any kind of cohesive tech policy that would give us control over our feeds, I feel like I just have to constantly create new feeds to get the information I want and deviate from what my personal algorithm might show me.

Nostalgic technology obsession: Tumblr, blackberry pearl

I remember I had a rule: I would never date anyone who didn’t have a BBM, because how would I connect with them? BBM is life. My best friend and I got Blackberry Pearls at the same time, and that was it for me. I remember finally being convinced to get an iPhone, and thinking, “Oh my God, I’m going to have to give up BBM.” Then I got an iPhone and never looked back. But I also loved the whole keyboard.

I had several Tumblrs. That’s how I got into the media. I was really big on single-serve Tumblrs. There was a whole trend: “Damn, bread.” “Fuck yeah, L-Train.” Or whatever. Most of my posts on Tumblrs were submission based, but I loved the discovery aspect. I deleted a lot of it, because I don’t know what I was reblogging in 2011. I don’t think it was a problem. It was just a weird age for internet content. I still have a “fuck yeah communism”.

“Technical cleanliness” rating, out of 10: 7

I don’t buy any of the classic tech hygiene stuff. Maybe I’m just a pig or something, but the movement exists to cause stress and anxiety for people. I think you should just relax a little bit and not think about it. But I try to be good about privacy. I don’t post certain things, but generally, I just have a secure password. Everything else, don’t stress about it. Everyone has our data anyway.

Last screenshot: Clavicle

I have a meme page Taylor Lorenz 3.0so my screenshots are just the content I will be posting. I’d say I take dozens, if not hundreds, of screenshots a day. My default bookmarks are Screenshot and Favorite.

Another Internet rabbit hole: Melania Meme movie plot

A few days ago I noticed this Dozens (I think actually hundreds) From Mimi Pages Everything was posted Same exact memes on Melania film. They were appearing in everything from a lot a lot Cat theme pagesto a page dedicated to Memory of the Two TowersA Millie bobby brown stan accountto the About pages boxing, astronomyand Diving adventures. no one Of the posts there was no disclosure of the advertisement. Also, the posts get bad engagement, but the meme pages keep them up, which really only happens when they get paid. After about eight hours of searching I found the agency behind it all. Then a new TikTok store E-commerce content house It popped up in my feed, and I started looking into it.

All day long I say, “Wait, what is this? What is this?” It’s fun to go down and see what’s going on in any corner of the internet. Many of them revolve around scams. “How is this platform manipulated or what scam is this person running?” I have severe, untreated ADHD, and every day I start digging dozens of different rabbit holes.