Why and how social media has made things worse this past decade

[Nether]

It's not difficult to curate your experience on social media.

By blocking relatives and friends?

 

[Alessandra Kelley]

By blocking relatives and friends?

Well...

I am not on Facebook. But according to one of my close relatives who is on Facebook, another of our close relatives "friends" anyone who asks which, I gather, makes for a miserable feed full of random vitriol.

I do not plan to ever Facebook. If Whatsisname had owned Instagram when I joined, I would not have joined that either. As it is, I don't quite understand what Instagram "influencers" are trying to do. I just show my art.

On Twitter I block accounts the moment they spout transphobia or homophobia, misogyny or authoritarian talking points, racism, Russian propaganda, hate speech, etc. I would block relatives same as anyone else if they started spouting that sort of thing on my timeline.

 

[Jazz Club]

BUT, a writer friend sells more books via TikTok than all other social media platforms combined. She says booktok is a serious sales driver. *sigh*

Yeah, I've heard it can be helpful for advertising too. Might have to look into it one day...*shudder*. I'm pretty camera-shy. But apparently you don't have to appear in the video, you can just make a creative montage or something to try to advertise your book.

In one way some of this stuff can be intimidating, but in another way it's a great opportunity. Even 20 years ago it would've been a lot harder to find critique partners etc. without the internet, and it would have been pretty difficult to break into the publshing industry from where I live. The whole UK publishing industry was very London-centric. I mean, it still is, but at least people can work from home now freelance.

Without social media, I would have a bleaker life. Yes, there are problems that must be addressed but after coming to social media late, and only Facebook because a political event I was part of was only advertising there. And now...it's part of how I feel like I can still be part of the world.

@Lyv This is such a great point.

 

[Roxxsmom]

https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2022/05/social-media-democracy-trust-babel/629369/

I agree with the passage I emphasized above. Frivolity needn’t be bad. When I was on Facebook, I often enjoyed what friends were posting about their lives — it wasn’t monumental or consequential stuff, just “Look at this flower bed I planted” or “Look at my cat / dog / kid doing something dumb”.

But when people you do expect to be, if not serious all the time, at least not overtly stupid and mendacious — I’m looking at you, much of Congress — disappoint in that regard nearly all the time, it’s well, exhausting. I’ve always been turned off by breathless coverage in certain media outlets of people who are famous for being famous, and now virtually everything and everyone is covered the same way. It’s like, “Who cares if it’s not true or insipid; we got eyeballs on the story!” Gah.

I think the change in the Facebook format for posting, not to mention which posts you see, has changed things too. I don't see the most recent posts from friends, but instead I predominantly see posts from specific friends.

Friends who post less often, or whose posts I have clicked on or liked less often in the past they tend to hide from me. They also prefer to show posts that have garnered the most likes from other friends, which is a problem again for people with smaller friends lists. My FIL, who has maybe thirty people on his friends list (family and close, RL friends) complains that no one responds to his posts anymore. That's because we don't SEE his posts on our walls anymore, unless we go specifically to his page (and who of those who have hundreds on their friends list goes specifically to friend's FB home pages anymore).

There is no way to set one's feed up so that it simply shows all posts chronologically and have it stick.

This sorting, of course, results in people being more likely to see posts from individuals who generate a lot of hype, and this includes people who love to post provocative and controversial stuff. People are also more likely to only see posts from those with whom they agree, which leads to a perception that the things one thinks and feels are normal and other views are rare. Small wonder so many Trump voters didn't fathom that he could lose. I remember seeing one of his Jan 6 goons saying in an interview that they knew the election had to be stolen, because they didn't know anyone who voted for Biden. Well, duh, since the pool of people you know is both self selected AND spoon fed to you on social media!

Sigh, I remember back when optimists thought the internet would foster empathy and understanding, because it would allow people to talk to people from different backgrounds and discuss different perspectives on things. Even before Zuckerberg etc. al. created these limiting algorithms, this prediction was failing. Forums, and news sources are self selecting too. And a few trolls can ruin things for everyone.

This is definitely an example of something capitalism can't solve.

 

[frimble3]

I would just like to thank you all for telling your experiences. I have never been happier to not be on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Tiktok, etc.

I do, on occasion, see bits and pieces. One friend sends me the occasional Tiktok of her daughter, dancing, Another sends me 'cute animal' videos. Both of which are pleasant and amusing, but I d0n't have to deal with all and sundry.

*But then, I'm not much on people IRL, either.

 

[Roxxsmom]

I may have a skewed idea of social media because my kids' Youtube and Twitter communities are so wholesome and supportive.

...

In more info about Haidt's character, still yet another academic friend quipped that Jonathan Haidt "considers himself a moderate who somehow ends up thinking the Left is to blame for everything."

Another pointed out a video lecture on "Why So Many Americans Don't Want Social Justice and Don't Trust Scientists" (link is to Haidt's actual lecture) where Haidt claims the Left and Right act exactly the same because they both deny "inconvenient truths".

The list of truths Haidt says the Right denies are : Earth is old and not created by God; evolution is real; war crimes have been committed; and climate change is real.

Haidt's list of purported "inconvenient truths" Haidt says the Left denies: That IQ measures anything meaningful; that "moral foundations" are heritable; something about "sex difference" that I suspect is a dogwhistle for biological determinism, homophobia and transphobia; evolution (? yes, I am confused as well); and that racial sterotypes are accurate.

In other words, Haidt says the Right denies facts and the Left denies stereotypes and bigotry and therefore they are morally equivalent.

And that's the sort of philosopher Jonathan Haidt is.

Sounds like a real tool. It seems like folks of this sort are becoming more common: claiming they are moderate voices of reason that favor compromise, yet somehow it's always the people associated with the Left who are supposed to do all the giving and changing.

It may reflect the normalization of far right view, I guess, but I also suspect a serious level of disingenuity (okay, why are "disingenuous" and "ingenuity" both recocnized as words, but "disingenuity" is underlined in red. Who in the heck designs these web dictionaries).

If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and always sides with the ducks, well maybe it's a ... duck!.

Funny he's even writing in the Atlantic, which is usually more left-leaning in its focus overall.

 

[frimble3]

Funny he's even writing in the Atlantic, which is usually more left-leaning in its focus overall.

Well, by getting into the Atlantic he can sort of claim to be 'even-handed', and the Atlantic can 'prove' that they aren't biased.

Also, I'd bet that if the Atlantic refused to publish any of his stuff, he'd be screaming about 'discrimination' and 'those Lefties won't even listen to my moderate views'.

 

[tiddlywinks]

Reading through some of your responses makes me doubly glad I never joined Facebook (I only have a shadow account for if I ever need one as an Author, but I don't use it).

I have to engage with social media somewhat on a professional basis given my day job is in marketing, and even that I find exhausting sometimes. I used the pandemic as a good excuse to give up on Twitter for a while. It had just become too much of a cesspool and/or pressure to post something extremely insightful / witty / etc. I try to keep up on LinkedIn enough that I don't get the side eye from my executive team; otherwise, Instagram and Reddit have become my go-tos. I love scrolling through beautiful photos and funny pet reels, and I do appreciate some of the very interesting discussions on Reddit. Like how else do you get a fan pic of Jorts before he became all famous n stuff? LOL

 

[frimble3]

Like how else do you get a fan pic of Jorts before he became all famous n stuff? LOL

See? I only even heard of Jorts the office cat because someone here posted a link!
If people were just talking about 'Jorts being famous', I would have assumed he was some sports guy or musician that I had never heard of.
Or, these days, some European politician.

 

[ElaineA]

The Atlantic hasn't been left leaning for quite a while. I attribute it to the Overton Window shifting rightward. It seems most publications are sidestepping with it.

 

[Roxxsmom]

I haven't really had many problems on facebook because I mostly use it to swap pet pictures and cute animal videos, or occasionally to survey folks on my friends list for general advice. Those are the things I put up that tend to get lots of likes from folks I'm friends with. Also I have friends and family who share pictures of life events and so on. But a lot of the folks I am on facebook with (besides closer friends and family) are from dog agility, people I've met online here, or at writers workshops back when I went to a few.

Ironically, the biggest social media spats I can recall involved some lazy-Christian* family members who proudly display their ignorance about everything from their own religion to Covid-19 on their sleeves.

As for Twitter, I haven't ever gotten the hang of tweeting anything that more than a couple of people comment on or "like," let alone having most of the folks I follow follow me back. So I mostly use it to see what people I find interesting are saying about stuff or to get general information about things I consume (like certain video games). I haven't even ever tweeted anything compelling enough to attract trolls, so...

*By lazy Christian, I mean the type (often converts to the faith) who quote the Bible as if it were literal history without understanding anything about the actual history behind it or the context in which it was written, and who use their religion to justify their bigotry towards people they hated already and to get out of doing something they don't want to do (like get vaccinated) when their religion doesn't even forbid it.

The Atlantic hasn't been left leaning for quite a while. I attribute it to the Overton Window shifting rightward. It seems most publications are sidestepping with it.

True. Even Public radio and TV have done this to some extent, when they would interview people with some really nutty views and treat them as if their ideas were plausible and not push back too hard on some of the weird stuff they were spouting.

Though they did ease up on this a bit during the Trump years, especially after 1/6/21.