4 ms·

They don't mention the other issue - Whatsapp and similar are, if anything, the worst form of social media. You have shallow conversations that dribble your att

by ppf 6y ago

They don't mention the other issue - Whatsapp and similar are, if anything, the worst form of social media. You have shallow conversations that dribble your attention away throughout your entire day, yet you have not gained any meaningful interaction.

iamben 6y ago
But on the flip side I have shallow conversations that dribble my attention away throughout my entire day. The first time I worked for myself - pre social media - was really, really lonely. This pandemic and lockdown is really, really lonely. I can silence my phone, I can turn the screen away from me. I can focus when I want to. But it's truly a blessing knowing I have WhatsApp groups with friends just bantering away throughout the day. Doesn't have to be meaningful, it's just great having that "water cooler" interaction.
- ppf 6y ago
  That should frighten you. If Whatsapp went away tomorrow, would you have any friends?
  - iamben 6y ago
    I would, in exactly the same way I had friends the first time I was working from home. There's precisely nothing that stops me calling any one of them and having a "proper catch up". But sometimes we just need background chatter. Friendship is not defined by membership of a WhatsApp group. So no, it doesn't frighten me in the slightest.
Strom 6y ago
This does not match my experience at all. There's no limit to the amount of text I can send and it's not ephemeral. Thus there's really nothing preventing me from typing out thoughtful messages, which I do. As for attention, anything can suck away attention if you let it. I don't find WhatsApp (or other similar chat apps) to be any worse than e-mail or snail mail. I look at them when I want to and no more. Again, there's no real rush, because the messages aren't ephemeral. [1] There are social media sites that truly lead towards shallow conversations, like reddit where a quick joke gets more upvotes, or twitter where you have a tiny character limit and your message gets immediately drowned by everyone else's latest angry tweet. What's more, I've seen plenty of shallow conversations face to face. Thus I think it depends very much on the specific human to human match whether they will have any meaningful deep conversations. If the humans are capable of it, they can do it on WhatsApp as easily as face to face. [2] -- [1] Unless of course you specifically configure them to be ephemeral, e.g. in Signal. [2] Yes I realize that face to face has the benefit of body language, but WhatsApp has the benefit of remoteness and asynchronicity. Thus I'll call it a wash.
Retr0spectrum 6y ago
I don't know how to phrase this without it sounding unnecessarily mean, but maybe you're just talking to shallow people? Other than platforms with character count limits like Twitter, I don't see why the platform itself should have much affect on the depth or meaningfulness of conversations.
- ppf 6y ago
  The textual content of a conversation is the tip of the iceberg in the information that is shared during a face-to-face conversation. If you include "face to face" in your "platforms", then it absolutely blows anything else out of the water in terms of depth and meaningfulness of conversations (on average). I left Whatsapp (and Signal) a few weeks ago, and feel like a better human.

by ppf 6y ago

iamben 6y ago

But on the flip side I have shallow conversations that dribble my attention away throughout my entire day. The first time I worked for myself - pre social media - was really, really lonely. This pandemic and lockdown is really, really lonely. I can silence my phone, I can turn the screen away from me. I can focus when I want to. But it's truly a blessing knowing I have WhatsApp groups with friends just bantering away throughout the day. Doesn't have to be meaningful, it's just great having that "water cooler" interaction.

ppf 6y ago
That should frighten you. If Whatsapp went away tomorrow, would you have any friends?
- iamben 6y ago
  I would, in exactly the same way I had friends the first time I was working from home. There's precisely nothing that stops me calling any one of them and having a "proper catch up". But sometimes we just need background chatter. Friendship is not defined by membership of a WhatsApp group. So no, it doesn't frighten me in the slightest.

Strom 6y ago

This does not match my experience at all. There's no limit to the amount of text I can send and it's not ephemeral. Thus there's really nothing preventing me from typing out thoughtful messages, which I do. As for attention, anything can suck away attention if you let it. I don't find WhatsApp (or other similar chat apps) to be any worse than e-mail or snail mail. I look at them when I want to and no more. Again, there's no real rush, because the messages aren't ephemeral. [1] There are social media sites that truly lead towards shallow conversations, like reddit where a quick joke gets more upvotes, or twitter where you have a tiny character limit and your message gets immediately drowned by everyone else's latest angry tweet. What's more, I've seen plenty of shallow conversations face to face. Thus I think it depends very much on the specific human to human match whether they will have any meaningful deep conversations. If the humans are capable of it, they can do it on WhatsApp as easily as face to face. [2] -- [1] Unless of course you specifically configure them to be ephemeral, e.g. in Signal. [2] Yes I realize that face to face has the benefit of body language, but WhatsApp has the benefit of remoteness and asynchronicity. Thus I'll call it a wash.

Retr0spectrum 6y ago

I don't know how to phrase this without it sounding unnecessarily mean, but maybe you're just talking to shallow people? Other than platforms with character count limits like Twitter, I don't see why the platform itself should have much affect on the depth or meaningfulness of conversations.

ppf 6y ago
The textual content of a conversation is the tip of the iceberg in the information that is shared during a face-to-face conversation. If you include "face to face" in your "platforms", then it absolutely blows anything else out of the water in terms of depth and meaningfulness of conversations (on average). I left Whatsapp (and Signal) a few weeks ago, and feel like a better human.