The TikTok ban and Donald Trump's rise to power show how fragile our social media accounts are. We must normalize and invest in decentralized social media.
There’s a big difference between sitting around a fire telling stories. And sending pseudonymous click-baity messages (I’m slightly exaggerating) across the globe.
As it’s not guaranteed anymore: Have you sit around a fire with friends?
IME it’s so much more fulfilling and less prone to hate. Healthier (apart of the smoke). There’s so much more to communication than text messages.
There’s a big difference between sitting around a fire telling stories. And sending pseudonymous click-baity messages (I’m slightly exaggerating) across the globe.
Totally agree, except that regardless of how smart a person is…all our brains are pretty dumb and easy to fool. If reading stupid click-bait messages on the internet triggers the same connections as having a talk around the fire, then to our brains it’s literally the same. And it has all the same things, just more so. Is someone more likely to lie to you for their own ends on the internet? Probably, but your best friend would like to your face if their mental maths figured that lying would benefit them more than telling the truth. Not saying that society is doomed because we’re all inherently selfish and don’t care about the welfare of anyone past ourselves. But to say that social media doesn’t fill the same function as village gatherings, the town crier exclaiming news where you might not get word, or gathering around the fire with Oogtug and Feffaguh to tell eachother about your day…in the current era, when people are more socially isolated than ever? Nah. Doesn’t track for me.
Absolutely, but I think that when we’re talking to actually smart people in person we at least subconsciously more likely believe the person that actually has to say something (i.e. really knows something we don’t). With social media a lot of these communication factors are missing, so if the text sounds smart, we may believe it. Sure you can fake and lie, etc. but I think (going back in time) we have a good instinct for people that may help us in any way i.e. through knowledge where to find food, find secure shelter etc. stuff that helps our survival, which in the end for humans is basically good factual knowledge that helps the survival of the species as a whole.
Today our attention spans are reduced to basically nothing to a large part because of social media promoting emotional (unfortunately mostly negative/anxiety/anger) short messages (and ads of course) that reinforce whatever we believe which likely strengthens bad connections in the brain.
Also the sheer mass of information is very likely not good for us. I.e. mostly nonfactual information, because well, there’s way more people that “have heard about something” than actually researched and gone down to the ground to get the truth (or at least a good model of it).
This all mixed, well doesn’t give me a positive outlook unfortunately…
There’s a big difference between sitting around a fire telling stories. And sending pseudonymous click-baity messages (I’m slightly exaggerating) across the globe.
As it’s not guaranteed anymore: Have you sit around a fire with friends? IME it’s so much more fulfilling and less prone to hate. Healthier (apart of the smoke). There’s so much more to communication than text messages.
Totally agree, except that regardless of how smart a person is…all our brains are pretty dumb and easy to fool. If reading stupid click-bait messages on the internet triggers the same connections as having a talk around the fire, then to our brains it’s literally the same. And it has all the same things, just more so. Is someone more likely to lie to you for their own ends on the internet? Probably, but your best friend would like to your face if their mental maths figured that lying would benefit them more than telling the truth. Not saying that society is doomed because we’re all inherently selfish and don’t care about the welfare of anyone past ourselves. But to say that social media doesn’t fill the same function as village gatherings, the town crier exclaiming news where you might not get word, or gathering around the fire with Oogtug and Feffaguh to tell eachother about your day…in the current era, when people are more socially isolated than ever? Nah. Doesn’t track for me.
Absolutely, but I think that when we’re talking to actually smart people in person we at least subconsciously more likely believe the person that actually has to say something (i.e. really knows something we don’t). With social media a lot of these communication factors are missing, so if the text sounds smart, we may believe it. Sure you can fake and lie, etc. but I think (going back in time) we have a good instinct for people that may help us in any way i.e. through knowledge where to find food, find secure shelter etc. stuff that helps our survival, which in the end for humans is basically good factual knowledge that helps the survival of the species as a whole.
Today our attention spans are reduced to basically nothing to a large part because of social media promoting emotional (unfortunately mostly negative/anxiety/anger) short messages (and ads of course) that reinforce whatever we believe which likely strengthens bad connections in the brain.
Also the sheer mass of information is very likely not good for us. I.e. mostly nonfactual information, because well, there’s way more people that “have heard about something” than actually researched and gone down to the ground to get the truth (or at least a good model of it).
This all mixed, well doesn’t give me a positive outlook unfortunately…