4 ms·

>Social media exists as a way to facilitate communication online over a long-distance, i.e. old friends who now live in different places. This is a very specif

by mk89 8y ago

>Social media exists as a way to facilitate communication online over a long-distance, i.e. old friends who now live in different places. This is a very specific use case. I doubt that "fishing girls on Facebook/Tinder" fits the need of communication with people living far away. Some problems that we think are unique in social media exist in real life as well. The difference is about "access", which makes it scarier and more dangerous. Back then only people with good connections were able to shape and manipulate public opinion. Now it takes a blog or a Facebook account.

astrocat 8y ago
Totally agree, and I think this is where so much discussion gets off track - few problems are ones that haven't been seen before in human history. But when something comes along that suddenly facilitates or exacerbates a problem in a uniquely powerful way, we need to really examine that. I'm like full of weird analogies today, (see other posts on this thread) but, like, take the modern diet. It's not as though obesity, or diabetes, or heart failure, or whatever, never existed until now; but some things changed in how we create, package and distribute food over the past century: food processing and preservation, artificial flavors and fillers, pesticides and antibiotics, sugar... sugar EVERYWHERE. And yeah, all of these things have come with ENORMOUS benefits. But we're also starting to realize the cumulative effects these new processes are having on the public health. We already KNOW there are massive negative side effects of Social Media use for individuals - especially with depression and bullying, and unhealthy self-image. And collectively we're starting to see the effects of such a singularly huge network with no accountability or oversight and how that can shape public opinion and knowledge. All this noise about Social Media is just us as a society trying to figure out just what to do about it all.

by mk89 8y ago

astrocat 8y ago

Totally agree, and I think this is where so much discussion gets off track - few problems are ones that haven't been seen before in human history. But when something comes along that suddenly facilitates or exacerbates a problem in a uniquely powerful way, we need to really examine that. I'm like full of weird analogies today, (see other posts on this thread) but, like, take the modern diet. It's not as though obesity, or diabetes, or heart failure, or whatever, never existed until now; but some things changed in how we create, package and distribute food over the past century: food processing and preservation, artificial flavors and fillers, pesticides and antibiotics, sugar... sugar EVERYWHERE. And yeah, all of these things have come with ENORMOUS benefits. But we're also starting to realize the cumulative effects these new processes are having on the public health. We already KNOW there are massive negative side effects of Social Media use for individuals - especially with depression and bullying, and unhealthy self-image. And collectively we're starting to see the effects of such a singularly huge network with no accountability or oversight and how that can shape public opinion and knowledge. All this noise about Social Media is just us as a society trying to figure out just what to do about it all.