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The Blindness of Social Wealth
- abnry 9y ago"It’s that Facebook and other social media companies are feeding this epidemic of loneliness and social isolation." This is less about Facebook and more about people on the internet.
- quxbar 9y agoYeah, I was socially isolating myself online WAY before facebook!
- lainga 9y agoI see now: /r9k/ posters were internet hipsters, creating reality-distorting bubbles of isolation and despair around themselves before it was cool.
- daodedickinson 9y agoI managed that before r9k debuted... and I'm still socially bankrupt. There is no escape.
- km3k 9y agoExactly. You can keep going back and it was always happening on the Internet. I was doing this on various forums before 4Chan was a thing. People were doing it nearly a decade before I was born, on BBSes in the late 70s.
- graphitezepp 9y agoIt just steadily became more common. Turns out replacing real in person socializing with digital distraction is just not a good idea/
- whatyoucantsay 9y agoThe future was already there. It just wasn't evenly distributed yet.
- malvosenior 9y ago"I was really struck by this last week, when Mark Zuckerberg came through Washington. Most of the questions he faced at the congressional hearings and most of the analysis in the press were about Facebook’s failure to protect privacy. That’s the sort of thing that may be uppermost on your mind if you are socially wealthy, if, like most successful politicians and analysts, you live within a thick web of connection and feel as if your social schedule is too full." Or you know, because they were there to discuss privacy and not try to regulate away loneliness, which obviously isn't the role of the government anyway.
- chongli 9y agoIf it's not the role of government to solve problems that are tearing apart the fabric of society, then whose role is it? Who is going to do it? Maybe no one. Maybe we're all screwed.
- fogzen 9y agoHere’s a radical idea: don’t use Facebook if it makes you feel bad!
- daodedickinson 9y agoQuitting Facebook doesn't cure the social bankruptcy, though. The only cures seem to be joining cults and gangs and militaries and other groups with high costs and low standards.
- steve_musk 9y agoYeah those are the only cures... Or you know, get off the internet and make some friends in real life.
- tangent128 9y agoEasier said than done. The people who know where in meatspace they could expect to regularly meet people who share interests... tend to be the people who don't have loneliness problems. "Go make some friends" is too vague for somebody who does not already have a bootstrapped social circle.
- LandoCalrissian 9y agoDavid Brooks is the worst.
- dang 9y agoMaybe so, but could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN? The site guidelines ask you a bunch of things in this department—here's one: "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- thisisit 9y agoThere is a growing culture of reaction videos on YT. People watch other people watching and reacting to stuff. That never sat well with me. And I always wondered - are people so alone or insecure that they need to watch other people's "reaction" to feel better? Given the rise of reaction channels on YT, I guess the answer is resounding - Yes.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- ghostbrainalpha 9y agoI often wonder if "Kermit The Frog reacts to 2 Girls 1 Cup" was the sole reason reaction videos became a trend. I guess the answer is resounding - Yes.
- tdb7893 9y agoPeople are naturally social and people's reactions can be interesting and fun. I don't watch reaction videos but I know at least that my friends are really funny when reacting to things in person so it's unsurprising that an Internet personality can be also.
- psyc 9y agoYes, a lot of people are insecure. They need people to agree with them, and feel like them. Validate them. They need to see people the same gender, color, size and shape as them do things.
- hrktb 9y agoI don’t know for most viewers, but I assume the bread and butter of these videos is to see reactions of people you don’t get to see otherwise. For instance a kid watching a Charlie Chaplin movie for the first time, a US veteran play Doki Doki Litterature Club, or an indian gramma watching Baby Driver. It shouldn’t be predictible nor relate to you in particular.
- WhompingWindows 9y agoI don't think it's about insecurity. I think it's that YT is usually consumed alone, and having someone with whom to share a reaction enhances the experience. For me, it's about emotional contagion: if others are laughing, you're going to laugh more, too. So, pile on top of this a charismatic personality that attracts people, and its entirely sensible you have commentators/reactors to video game streams or live streams, rather than just the base content which is devoid of social experience.
- pwaivers 9y ago"In America today you would say that the clans have polarized, the villages have been decimated and the tribes have become weaponized." This is an interesting statement, but doesn't really have any facts backing it.
- WhompingWindows 9y agoI agree that the article is oddly bifurcated. It starts with numerous statistics listed out in a laundry-list fashion. Then it proceeds into unfounded speculation with no statistical backing. The traditional and more effective argumentative approach is to make a Claim, then provide Evidence to support it, and Reasoning to tie them together logically. Here, the author starts with heaps of evidence, then moves into unrelated claims/reasoning. Lack luster writing, which I have come to expect from David Brooks, a writer who is so out of touch with the currents of mainstream America that he is forced to be some strawman Republican writing on a left-leaning NYC newspaper who few from either side agree with. Time to replace him with a more skillful and adept opinion columnist.
- CmdrKrool 9y agoThis article makes some decent points but it's a shame that it had to be weakly and opprobriously framed as a kind of 'wealth' struggle. As the article itself says, "the tribes have become weaponized", I guess.
- evanwise 9y agoIt's interesting and rather revealing that your first reaction to a critique which draws an analogy to material wealth is to defensively frame it as nasty or distasteful.
- bsder 9y agoI wonder if there are any lessons to be learned from other times and places. "Cry, the Beloved Country" seems to spring to mind ...
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- asherwebb 9y agoThere certainly is a crisis that social media and greedy online platforms (greedy for your time and ad dollars) prey upon. And yes the breakdown of social relationships with family, community and neighbors is certainly a big part of this. But consider historical factors in the USA. The breakdown of church - this was the de facto center of many communities for generations up until the post-vietnam era and the culture wars that have ensued. Combine this with the loss of farms - from more than 6 million in 1935 to roughly 2 million in 2012 - farms have gotten bigger. When agriculture dominated the rural economy having closer knit ties with neighbors was not so much a choice but a necessity. Also we are a country that embraced the idea of moving - be it from the city to the suburbs or the American South to the industrial American north. We have not done a very good job replacing those connections and it is breeding an epidemic of loneliness and addiction - not only to digital media but also to opiates. There is not an easy fix of course but folks should certainly consider the intrinsic value of these things before they decide to write off their family or community because of a difference of opinion or worldview. And another factor is that capital is increasingly accumulated at the top percent or 1/10th percent of earners. The folks in the middle and lower class find they have to work more to have a quality life than they did a generation or two ago. We are so busy working and driving to work and running our kids around that we barely have any time for friends and that is truly a shame.
- rdiddly 9y agoYou touch on an important factor: land-use and transportation policy. The lack of "walkability" in the typical suburban neighborhood is certainly not helping. I don't mean the ability to go out and take a walk for the exercise, I mean being in a place where walking is the best way to get to useful places and do things... the grocery, the doctor, the hardware store, and ideally, your job. Dense cities have this, to some degree. Rural areas don't, but they usually have a small town nearby with a main street (if Walmart hasn't decimated it). But in the suburbs you're generally inside a car to get anywhere at all, and how much incidental, accidental contact are you going to have with your neighbors from behind a glass pane at 25 MPH?
- bitwize 9y ago
- trgv 9y ago> Weak social connections have health effects similar to smoking 15 cigarettes a day Uh huh
- ranie93 9y agoSo when the youtube comments say that the video gave them cancer, they aren't exaggerating!
- seem_2211 9y agoIn modern Western culture we've killed God and I think we're learning what the consequences of that mean.
- velp 9y agoSource connecting the two? I think most here would argue the the decline in magical thinking (at least as it influences policy and society on the whole) is a good thing
- drblast 9y agoThe original statement is ridiculous but the decline in magical thinking does lead people to stop going to church which has no obvious replacement. Atheists and agnostics don't get together every week to talk about God not existing. There are meetup groups and such now but usually there is some common interest, activity, etc. which is a higher barrier to entry than "I'll come and say we mostly believe in the same thing that neither of us can prove." A church community does have the unique characteristic that anyone can participate regardless of age, personality, or talent.
- Broken_Hippo 9y agoOnly recently have some churches begun to welcome different sexual orientations. 20 years ago it was basically unheard of and it is still limited in scope. Many churches still have little to no female clergy. Some have dress codes, some don't. And what you have to choose from depends on where you live: They all might be pretty conservative. Your barrier of entry is set too low. It isn't that we say we mostly believe in the same thing: It is that you must act like you believe it and not be any of these sorts of people. If you don't fit in the mold, you can't be yourself here. This makes it a bit difficult to form bonds with others if you aren't in their mold.
- seem_2211 9y agoI don't think there's a decline in magical thinking. There's a decline in conventional religion, but I think a lot of people have swapped God for the universe, or fate, or karma or what have you. San Francisco isn't religious, but I don't think it's a stretch to say it's without a lot of spiritual people.
- marikio 9y agoWrote an article about addressing this just days ago... https://medium.com/@marikhazan/should-tech-have-nutrition-facts-eb9ead1dbb2b https://medium.com/@marikhazan/should-tech-have-nutrition-fa...