How Facebook makes us dumber

I tried their test of googling for "guns" as usual, in incognito mode and using another browser. Identical results. Dunno if I'm doing it wrong?

Or: people were always tribal and concerned more with shibboleths identifying the in-group than truth. Facebook (and Tumblr and Reddit, etc, even HN) just automates it.

It would be interesting to study Simulacra and Simulation when it comes to social media and memes.

People tend to align themselves with other people and communities who share similar beliefs. You can often see this where people Like and Share these meme images with some "profound" message (eg. "A real man/woman ...") when they like, agree with or find interesting for some or other reason.

So, what IMO would be interesting to see is how these things changes their world view and self-image. Are they replacing the reality of life with a simulacra (the meme; Social Media "friends" I supposed can be argued to be another simulacra)? How much more likely are they to like/share to share posts from others who they perceive to have similar world-views, even if they know very little about the topic? How likely are they to defend ideas which they only have by virtue of their social connection to other people?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulacra_and_Simulation

Yes, everybody has always been like this, but tech has changed the social nature of interaction. It's not just Facebook. Any online community (including HN) has a desire to limit conflict -- you want people enjoying themselves and contributing. That means "Don't show me stuff that I disagree with"

There's a natural conflict of interest. In the real world, we are forced to live with and confront those of widely varying opinions. Many times this is a huge pain in the ass. But it's good for the species overall. Over time, initially unpopular and ugly opinions get vetted: about one in a 100/1000 turn out to be a critical evolution in the way all of us think about ourselves.

In the virtual world, no such limits exist. We cannot afford to have the 1% folks who destroy discourse, so we just magically make them not exist. People share and promote emotional things which the vast majority can agree on. Instead of the outliers driving change, we begin to norm down those farther and farther out on the bell curve.

So people turn inward to their phones and tribes. We physically live next to each other, but we don't actually live with each other. Instead of a diverse and accomplished species, we are slowly becoming one large, comfortable mob.

> Can anything be done?

Should anything be done?

Entertain the possibility that what is observed is not really about the "facts," but intragroup signalling serving to maintain group cohesion.

But yeah, since we all hate those groups...