Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
nytimes.com
Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
1–10 of 119 posts
Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
#2NYT requires a digital subscription.
Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
#3As a liberal that subscribe to The NY Times I wonder why they always have to make these issues so politicized, even when they are making a good observation. The problem they describe, violent reaction to opposing views, seem present amongst all sides of the political spectrum and it does not seem limited to extreme opinions.
The article seems in a very indirect way to make argument that violent reaction to and ostracizing of people that hold opposing opinions is ok when you hold the correct opinions and not when you don’t, and I strongly believe all sides should be held to the same standard of discourse.
Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
#4As a liberal that subscribe to The NY Times I wonder why they always have to make these issues so politicized, even when they are making a good observation. The problem they describe, violent reaction to opposing views, seem present amongst all sides of the political spectrum and it does not seem limited to extreme opinions. The article seems in a very indirect way to make argument that violent reaction to and ostrac…
Sadly your view, which is the same as kind, seems to be seldom held by our peers.
Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
#5As a liberal that subscribe to The NY Times I wonder why they always have to make these issues so politicized, even when they are making a good observation. The problem they describe, violent reaction to opposing views, seem present amongst all sides of the political spectrum and it does not seem limited to extreme opinions. The article seems in a very indirect way to make argument that violent reaction to and ostrac…
You make a good point - they appear to make themselves part of the problem, which in my view is the increasing polarization of topics. There no longer seems to be any middle ground in the public discourse, instead everyone is entrenched on their respective poles. It's immensely frustrating.
Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
#6I’m pretty sure it’s just revealing the dumb, at scale.
Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
#7It shows how far the US has shifted to the right when the NYT would describe Pinker as a liberal. Twenty years ago his views were considered more center-right (in the US at least). But, I am off-topic ...
The biggest problem with social media is that it massively amplifies radical (and, often ignorant or misguided) opinions. This especially disturbs me, because I sort of helped cause it. As a kid, I wanted the more radical, fringe perspectives to have greater influence in the mainstream. But, in an age when content is free (I.e. paid for by ads), the loudest and most extreme make the most money.
Now, I cringe. There’s little discussion, dialogue, or dialectic - less prefrontal cortex and lots more amygdala and limbic. And, if we think of the PFC as what makes us most human, most intelligent - then yes, we dumb.
But, don’t lose hope. There are still plenty of moderate and reasonable people out there. It’s just that they’re not normally the raucous, crass ones. A rule of thumb for me is to shun the loudest most aggressive voices, because they almost always know very little.
Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
#8This book comes to my mind.
https://www.amazon.com/How-News-Makes-Dumb-Information/dp/08...
Sommerville argues that news began to make us dumber when we insisted on having it daily.
Now millions of column inches and airtime hours must be filled with information--every day, every hour, every minute. The news, Sommerville says, becomes the driving force for much of our public culture. News schedules turn politics into a perpetual campaign. News packaging influences the timing, content and perception of government initiatives.
News frenzies make a superstition out of scientific and medical research. News polls and statistics create opinion as much as they gauge it. Lost in the tidal wave of information is our ability to discern truly significant news--and our ability to recognize and participate in true community.
I used to consume news daily, obsessively even when I was younger. I was that addict that used to refresh cnn.com compulsively every few minutes at a stretch. Now, I come to HN and a few other niche sites for 'information' or 'news'. But I no longer visit cnn or NYT as much any more.
Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
#9As a liberal that subscribe to The NY Times I wonder why they always have to make these issues so politicized, even when they are making a good observation. The problem they describe, violent reaction to opposing views, seem present amongst all sides of the political spectrum and it does not seem limited to extreme opinions. The article seems in a very indirect way to make argument that violent reaction to and ostrac…
There's a phenomenally interesting article that goes into details on this very question: "The Bad News About the News" [1] by Robert Kaiser. Kaiser is a 50 year veteran of the Washington Post having worked as a reporter and editor over the decades. He chose to retire shortly after the newspaper was purchased by Bezos.
There's enough nuance and detail that I think cliff notes would likely just mangle the points made. One related thing I would observe is that there are plenty of level headed articles that try to view things impartially and without bias or prejudice. Yet these articles seem to rarely gain traction and visibility in social media, which is where those all so valuable clicks derive from.
[1] - http://csweb.brookings.edu/content/research/essays/2014/bad-...
Re: Social Media: Making Us Dumber?
#10As a liberal that subscribe to The NY Times I wonder why they always have to make these issues so politicized, even when they are making a good observation. The problem they describe, violent reaction to opposing views, seem present amongst all sides of the political spectrum and it does not seem limited to extreme opinions. The article seems in a very indirect way to make argument that violent reaction to and ostrac…
> The article seems in a very indirect way to make argument that violent reaction to and ostracizing of people that hold opposing opinions is ok when you hold the correct opinions and not when you don’t
I'm having trouble seeing how you got this impression.