I think your line "It’s also more fun" sums it up. Social media is about dopamine. As for the art of persuasion, while it might be marginalized in the current o

I think your line "It’s also more fun" sums it up. Social media is about dopamine. As for the art of persuasion, while it might be marginalized in the current online environment, I'm encouraged when I hear people acknowledge that rational arguments have never been the best tool for changing people's minds, especially not in the short run. I think more often they come in handy after the fact, to rationalize people's feelings and memberships. But that's not to say we should throw up our hands and give up on reaching people. There's the alternative of delaying rational debate until a foundation of decency and emotional goodwill has been established--again, pretty tough to do online. There was an episode of Yascha Mounk's podcast from 9/4/20 where these two approaches are discussed. Elizabeth Anderson offers this critique to Mounk's project (called, oddly enough, "Persuasion"): "This is why I think I have some slight reservation against your Persuasion project, because it's all about argument. I don't think Americans in general are ready for argument, what we have to have is testimony. That's where people just sit down and talk about their lives, and open up in ways that other people can actually listen, and hear what the experience of others is like. Where people are speaking from the heart, about their experience. It's not about larger scale, policy arguments about principles; it's just about experience."