3 ms·

I've been saying to my friends for some time that social media is the new smoking.

• doodlebugging 5y ago
  True. Except that smoking causes cancer in the individual and those unlucky enough to have to breathe that second-hand smoke. Social media causes cancerous decay in whole societies. and is a much bigger threat to all of us as a result. We could choose not stand close to a smoker, not to share a ride in their car, etc. but it is very difficult to avoid having to interact with someone whose world-view has been bubbled up by their social media activity.
  • black_puppydog 5y ago
    actually, the basis for most regulation to curb smoking is based on exactly the kind of societal argument you bring up for social media. The freedom of the individual to harm themselves had stood pretty strong, but the societal cost (mostly health care) eventually outweighed it.
    • doodlebugging 5y ago
      I wonder what happens to Facebook, Reddit, and other social networks if they are eventually forced to pay reparations for the societal damage in much the way the tobacco companies had to pay billions to re-educate Americans about the real dangers of smoking. We see that Big Tobacco has pivoted to owning other parts of the consumer economy and they are still quite strong and healthy companies though their tobacco operations have shifted overseas where there is little to no education or regulation. Should Facebook have to sponsor educational initiatives designed to pivot users away from social networks and/or pay restitution for teen suicides, family break-ups, politically motivated crimes committed by their users? That would be great but we tend not to hold anyone accountable for anything nowadays. The worst penalty our society applies tends to be banishment from social networks or public shaming of participants. It reminds me a bit of the oil and gas business. In college we learned about the creation of the Texas Railroad Commission and how it was given control over oil and gas operations in the state at a time when over-production was driving oil prices down and boomtowns were lawless. The Railroad Commission created the guidelines that established minimum well spacings in producing fields, production rates, etc and they were given control over how to handle spills and most anything related to oil and gas operations. The big brag in the course was that this was such a comprehensive set of rules that it became the model for the world in how frontier operations were managed. Basically the oil and gas industry wrote the regulations that they would need to follow and used those as a blueprint for operations globally in countries where there were no established laws. As time went on, industry tailored the rules to the sophistication level of the judicial system of the operating country allowing them to produce other nation's assets at the most favorable rates, in the most industry-favorable manner using rules they modified so as to maximize their own profits and minimize their own liability. I'm not sure how I got off on that but it is late here and I go on tangents sometimes but it seemed relevant in the sense that Facebook and others have O&G industry levels of influence, they have no incentive to hamstring their own operations or to do anything that would diminish or negatively impact the future value of the massive amounts of data they have collected on everyone so it seems like they will get to write the rules about how their own operations are regulated since, just as the O&G industry did back in the day, they can portray themselves as the experts who are the only ones who really know how to fix the problems they themselves created. Anyway. Sorry for the long-winded reply. Not sure if it adds any value to the conversation.