The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media
newyorker.com
The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media
1–10 of 142 posts
Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media
#2Am amused that the repeat posting of "extremely normal website" on twitter has, from here at least, made twitter the current top google result for "extremely normal website".
Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media
#3Social media does away with the good ole natural moderation that happens if someone belches out a self centered monologue in a public space and immediately receives glares and scoffs from strangers within earshot.
Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media
#4> Sample bummer-based sentence: “Your identity is packified by bummer.” Sample marginalia, scrawled by this reviewer with sufficient desperate emphasis to literally tear the page: “Please stop saying bummer!”
That was a fun line to read in a serious article.
Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media
#5It's turning out that social media is like nuclear fission: it's not that it's inherently bad, and a smarter species than us probably could use it safely with no problems. But our stupid ape brains with their tribalist tendencies and short reward circuits weren't ready for it.
Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media
#6Social media does away with the good ole natural moderation that happens if someone belches out a self centered monologue in a public space and immediately receives glares and scoffs from strangers within earshot.
Ever been to a large meeting when there's a hot political issue? People can be nasty in person too, unless there is very good moderation, and sometimes even then.
Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media
#7" you know that you could leave at any time and you know that you will not."
I have no problem.
The press needs to take more responsibility for this as they are the primary enablers of Twitter.
Tweets are presented all the time in articles as expression of legitimate opinion, and often used as the basis for some kind of rally bad straw-man argument the author wants to make.
I think Twitter will wane but it won't go away as those who make their business making noise, either celebs or those who report on them, will just keep going with it.
It may become purely PR providence though - I can see regular people giving up the notion of actively tweeting entirely.
Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media
#8" you know that you could leave at any time and you know that you will not." I have no problem. The press needs to take more responsibility for this as they are the primary enablers of Twitter. Tweets are presented all the time in articles as expression of legitimate opinion, and often used as the basis for some kind of rally bad straw-man argument the author wants to make. I think Twitter will wane but it won't go a…
Yep.
I find Twitter useful by following accounts which tailor to my taste in information consumption. They typically broadcast very useful information, and stay clear of politics and especially stay clear of politicizing for brownie points.
Now, I can see Twitter being a very annoying place if all you are following are accounts which are looking to "engage" their audience and get retweets and mentions, etc., and try to be cool, set tone, influence, and throw signals --all of these mostly add noise.
Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media
#9> The problem is the business model based on the manipulation of individual behavior.
I don't think this is the right target to blame. The much deeper reason is people ARE stupid, while think they are clever and correct. You, me, all the others included. And at the same time, the education once applied to us, failed. Simply put, it's not a technology problem, it's a sociology problem.
Around the year 2002, when I was connected to the Internet for the first time, I thought it was a magic place where you can discuss with people on a topic until the truth emerges and learned, then everybody come to a conclusion and live happily ever after.
That thought was the very first few which been destroyed. Because I instead found people are more likely to turn discussion into a "clan war" and mob each other instead. And that was long before Twitter or even Google is a thing.
Here is a book that many people may already read, The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind: https://www.amazon.com/Crowd-Study-Popular-Mind/dp/143410055...
Re: The Deliberate Awfulness of Social Media
#10> The problem is the business model based on the manipulation of individual behavior. I don't think this is the right target to blame. The much deeper reason is people ARE stupid, while think they are clever and correct. You, me, all the others included. And at the same time, the education once applied to us, failed. Simply put, it's not a technology problem, it's a sociology problem. Around the year 2002, when I was…
I think Jaron's argument is that there was a choice to either "take payment for internet services" or "have them free and market". The later won out and now its not just marketing it manipulating to keep engagement so they can market more.
that's my takeaway of Jaron's points in his Tavis Smiley interview. (The transcript seems to not be there anymore)
part 1 https://wgby.org/episode/57812 part 2 https://wgby.org/episode/57813
edit:payback has the transcript (click to show)
https://web.archive.org/web/20180206043916/http://www.pbs.or...
https://web.archive.org/web/20180214180024/http://www.pbs.or...