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On Charlie Kirk and Saving Civil Society

calnewport.com

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Re: On Charlie Kirk and Saving Civil Society

#11

Post by Fricken »

rwmj wrote: post #6
uejfiweun wrote: post #3

Completely agree with Cal but this just isn't going to happen. People's livelihoods depend on these platforms. They're extremely addictive. If one side retreats it only amplifies the voice of the other side. The only way something like a mass exodus from these platforms is possible is through legislation. But the platforms are so powerful and well funded and well lobbied that this is next to impossible. Expect things…

Reminds me of the environment. Large companies would rather blame individuals for "not doing enough to save the planet", when in fact we'd be better off with coordinated, collective action through legislation.

Corporations, governments and citizens all love passing the buck on climate change. It's a serious matter and also it's somebody else's job.

Re: On Charlie Kirk and Saving Civil Society

#12

Post by b_e_n_t_o_n »

I agree that these platforms are an issue, but I think it's also a matter of how you use them. I spent a couple years on Twitter/X and regret every minute, whereas my time on Instagram has been great. That's because I fed my X algorithm all sorts of rage bait and political content through my interactions and follows, and likewise my Instagram is full of friend's posts, comedy skits, and poetry/literature due to mindful interactions with content. I'm not saying the platforms aren't at fault, because they definitely are, but it's also possible to curate your feeds for stuff that's healthier.

That being said, we shouldn't have to put effort into curating our feeds to ensure we don't become mentally unwell. I'd be happy if every social network disappeared and we went back to chatrooms and maybe 2013 Instagram / some way to share photos with friends.

I'm an older gen-z and I see my younger peers starting to become mindful of the harms of social media. I don't know if it will ever be seen as harmful as smoking, but I have a feeling that the younger crowd is ready for a more mindful form of social media. Anecdotal, but it feels like my generation mostly uses Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok, FB and X are more for millennials. We're aware of doomscrolling and stuff, perhaps in the near future we will drop our usage of TikTok and a new, more mindful form of social media will emerge.

edit: just realised I wrote "mindful" 50 million times

Re: On Charlie Kirk and Saving Civil Society

#14

Post by thijson »

uejfiweun wrote: post #3

Completely agree with Cal but this just isn't going to happen. People's livelihoods depend on these platforms. They're extremely addictive. If one side retreats it only amplifies the voice of the other side. The only way something like a mass exodus from these platforms is possible is through legislation. But the platforms are so powerful and well funded and well lobbied that this is next to impossible. Expect things…

The addiction to these platforms is real in the younger generation. I try to reduce their screen time, they resist it, they claim they need it to relax.

Re: On Charlie Kirk and Saving Civil Society

#15

Post by dv_dt »

mmastrac wrote: post #4

Social media is 90% outrage farming by nation states and individuals with agendas. I think the experiment failed. Humans in large groups are so trivially manipulated by algorithms. Our ape brains at large just can't deal with a firehose of manipulation. We're just giving bad actors a key to our subconscious to destroy the fabric of our civilization, and those bad actors are using it as much as they can. This article…

I think the outcome here is we tried nothing, and now conclude nothing works. Ok, we tried privacy breaking "protect the children" nonsense. We used to have a much more of public announcement/education system for aspects of society for civil education (School House Rock), for nutrition, for public health (vaccination). All of it has since been deemed frivolous public expenditure - maybe because it worked too well and the need became invisible.

Re: On Charlie Kirk and Saving Civil Society

#16

Post by wenc »

mmastrac wrote: post #4

Social media is 90% outrage farming by nation states and individuals with agendas. I think the experiment failed. Humans in large groups are so trivially manipulated by algorithms. Our ape brains at large just can't deal with a firehose of manipulation. We're just giving bad actors a key to our subconscious to destroy the fabric of our civilization, and those bad actors are using it as much as they can. This article…

For me

Twitter: anger

Instagram: vanity

Facebook: pride

Of those, I hate anger the most so I am off twitter, even though it’s still a great place to overhear the latest in the business, geopolitics and tech zeitgeist. You literally hear about things before anyone else. But I decided that life is too short to be angry all the time.

I like instagram because it’s entertaining (and am of the age where I can ignore influencer antics). This is not true of younger folks for whom instagram is a mimetic model (there’s so much bad advice on it — especially on how to be a man or a woman today). As an older person, I want to tell young people: don’t get relationship advice off instagram. They’re so shallow and make you so entitled — “if your guy doesn’t do this, you’re too good for him” is pretty toxic.

Facebook used to be this political rage bait place but everyone’s left so I’m still hanging around with my geezer friends in their 40s. It’s become a place to share travel photos and pictures of kids.

Tiktok: I’m too old for Tiktok but I hear young people use it for news.

Google: I still use Google but young people are now increasingly abandoning Google and search on ChatGPT.

Re: On Charlie Kirk and Saving Civil Society

#17

Post by uejfiweun »

thijson wrote: post #14
uejfiweun wrote: post #3

Completely agree with Cal but this just isn't going to happen. People's livelihoods depend on these platforms. They're extremely addictive. If one side retreats it only amplifies the voice of the other side. The only way something like a mass exodus from these platforms is possible is through legislation. But the platforms are so powerful and well funded and well lobbied that this is next to impossible. Expect things…

The addiction to these platforms is real in the younger generation. I try to reduce their screen time, they resist it, they claim they need it to relax.

Man, I'm so glad I was born in the era where kids just played video games instead of this crap. I feel my brain is better off for having sunk so many hours into video games... whereas the modern generation is walking away with deep propaganda brainrot and no attention span.

Re: On Charlie Kirk and Saving Civil Society

#18

Post by [deleted] »

mmastrac wrote: post #4

Social media is 90% outrage farming by nation states and individuals with agendas. I think the experiment failed. Humans in large groups are so trivially manipulated by algorithms. Our ape brains at large just can't deal with a firehose of manipulation. We're just giving bad actors a key to our subconscious to destroy the fabric of our civilization, and those bad actors are using it as much as they can. This article…

[deleted]

Re: On Charlie Kirk and Saving Civil Society

#19

Post by alchemical_piss »

mmastrac wrote: post #4

Social media is 90% outrage farming by nation states and individuals with agendas. I think the experiment failed. Humans in large groups are so trivially manipulated by algorithms. Our ape brains at large just can't deal with a firehose of manipulation. We're just giving bad actors a key to our subconscious to destroy the fabric of our civilization, and those bad actors are using it as much as they can. This article…

[dead]

Re: On Charlie Kirk and Saving Civil Society

#20

Post by jauntywundrkind »

Regardless of what social media is, my hope & desire is that we can get better at it. If we can layer in more context to the things we see online, if we can provide digestible context on who it is posting, I think a lot of the harm and damage could be ameliorated.

But we need to be in a position where folks can build & develop the social networks, where we can experiment more broadly. There's very social technologies available where humanity is afforded some hooks to improve their social media-verses.

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