Thanks for posting an excerpt from The Atlantic piece on social media (bit.ly/TheAtlanticonSocialMedia). My wife has long been railing about how the Twitterverse is ripping apart our society, but I still hung in there. Muted people I didn't want to hear. Tried to send messages of peace when tempers flared. But one person - ten persons - a million persons cannot fight the algorithms that monetize outrage. So this AM, I deactivated my Twitter account. I simply will not participate - even with the best of intentions - in the destruction of our civil society.
I have never been on Twitter, but I could see how people become addicted to it. I have enough social media with FB. And of course the courteous give and take with all you wonderful people.
Agreed all. The problem I have is that I am still a FB and IG user, for promotional content for a business I have. That makes me part of the problem, but the reason social media has been such a problem is that there's simply no substitute for it--everyone's there, everyone's listening. I'd love to hear a discussion of how its power can be reduced, even if it costs me, which it certainly will.
Haidt’s piece went into explanatory detail as to why/how social media has been so destabilizing to our society. There has been a growing acceptance that social media has become “bad”, but understanding the mechanisms behind that was a powerful reinforcement. I hope our legislators all read it, because it helpfully included possible correctives.
Definitely no guarantees there! I’ve heard that our Congress is way behind the population in tech literacy. How can they possibly solve a problem they are so clueless about? But that’s why they have staff, etc hopefully.
But, Haidt’s solution ideas are an educated start. Personally, I didn’t have a clue what a social media fix would even look like, short of censorship. He had realistic proposals.
I deactivated Facebook in mid-2020 because it was just too much. With the Ukrainian War, I find Twitter to be immensely useful. However, I only follow journalists or people who I respect their opinions. It's worked well. (Plus, the ability to see things in a time-based order instead of an algorithm-based order is huge.)
Thanks for posting an excerpt from The Atlantic piece on social media (bit.ly/TheAtlanticonSocialMedia). My wife has long been railing about how the Twitterverse is ripping apart our society, but I still hung in there. Muted people I didn't want to hear. Tried to send messages of peace when tempers flared. But one person - ten persons - a million persons cannot fight the algorithms that monetize outrage. So this AM, I deactivated my Twitter account. I simply will not participate - even with the best of intentions - in the destruction of our civil society.
I have never been on Twitter, but I could see how people become addicted to it. I have enough social media with FB. And of course the courteous give and take with all you wonderful people.
Agreed all. The problem I have is that I am still a FB and IG user, for promotional content for a business I have. That makes me part of the problem, but the reason social media has been such a problem is that there's simply no substitute for it--everyone's there, everyone's listening. I'd love to hear a discussion of how its power can be reduced, even if it costs me, which it certainly will.
Haidt’s piece went into explanatory detail as to why/how social media has been so destabilizing to our society. There has been a growing acceptance that social media has become “bad”, but understanding the mechanisms behind that was a powerful reinforcement. I hope our legislators all read it, because it helpfully included possible correctives.
i dunno... it's sooooo many words! and they're soooo busy doing <gestures wildy>
I try sharing stuff like this, but if it can't fit on a meme, 99% of America tunes out, which is exactly the problem...
I love your depiction! Sad humor. And true.
Definitely no guarantees there! I’ve heard that our Congress is way behind the population in tech literacy. How can they possibly solve a problem they are so clueless about? But that’s why they have staff, etc hopefully.
But, Haidt’s solution ideas are an educated start. Personally, I didn’t have a clue what a social media fix would even look like, short of censorship. He had realistic proposals.
I deactivated Facebook in mid-2020 because it was just too much. With the Ukrainian War, I find Twitter to be immensely useful. However, I only follow journalists or people who I respect their opinions. It's worked well. (Plus, the ability to see things in a time-based order instead of an algorithm-based order is huge.)