4 ms·

I really don't quite get this nihilistic look at social media. Yeah, it can be very annoying and it has plenty of downsides. But it also provides plenty of info

I really don't quite get this nihilistic look at social media. Yeah, it can be very annoying and it has plenty of downsides. But it also provides plenty of information sources, often good ones, lets you connect to people easier. And no, I don't mean the superficial connection, I mean getting to know someone, exploring their interests and hobbies, meeting up in real life, etc. While I don't get the appeal of sites like Foursquare or apps like Snapchat, I think the real problem with social media is data harvesting. The rest - the social aspects which many find vapid - are totally fine in moderation. It's just that people, as always, took an idea to the extreme and corrupted it. Even Hacker News has the bones of social media but, thanks to proper moderation and good etiquette, it's not as divisive as most sites.

Mediterraneo10 7y ago
> I mean getting to know someone, exploring their interests and hobbies That might have been true of the first decade of the new millennium, when Last.fm was in its heyday, Goodreads was more popular, and Facebook had a very different algorithm for its feed. But today, Facebook's interface does not really highlight that kind of depth in your peers, and much of the younger generation has moved to Instagram which is centered around the uploaded photo and so misses out on those interests in life that are not so photographable.
- WilTimSon 7y ago
  Facebook and Instagram are just the two most popular examples but stuff like forums, group chats, reddit, Twitter, tumblr, they're all social media (or social media-adjacent, I guess) and people make friends there all the time. I do think Facebook might be beyond the point of no return but even Instagram has these huge communities of people posting book photos or pets, which is vapid but innocuous and harmless, at the very least.
  - Ntrails 7y ago
    Every single stranger I developed an online based friendship with was a small community. I don't understand how you can do anything meaningful in a conversation with 2000 people - but 20 people in a chatroom/forum/etc mucking about? Sure.

Mediterraneo10 7y ago

> I mean getting to know someone, exploring their interests and hobbies That might have been true of the first decade of the new millennium, when Last.fm was in its heyday, Goodreads was more popular, and Facebook had a very different algorithm for its feed. But today, Facebook's interface does not really highlight that kind of depth in your peers, and much of the younger generation has moved to Instagram which is centered around the uploaded photo and so misses out on those interests in life that are not so photographable.

WilTimSon 7y ago
Facebook and Instagram are just the two most popular examples but stuff like forums, group chats, reddit, Twitter, tumblr, they're all social media (or social media-adjacent, I guess) and people make friends there all the time. I do think Facebook might be beyond the point of no return but even Instagram has these huge communities of people posting book photos or pets, which is vapid but innocuous and harmless, at the very least.
- Ntrails 7y ago
  Every single stranger I developed an online based friendship with was a small community. I don't understand how you can do anything meaningful in a conversation with 2000 people - but 20 people in a chatroom/forum/etc mucking about? Sure.