18 ms·

One of my pet theories for why social media is such a cesspool is that it exposes us to the whole of someone else. If I play boardgames with Sue, that's enough

One of my pet theories for why social media is such a cesspool is that it exposes us to the whole of someone else. If I play boardgames with Sue, that's enough. We meet, enjoy a beer and play some Catan and go our separate ways. That's a fine relationship. If I follow Sue on social media, now I know her politics, religion, sex life, drug usage, opinions on every little thing.. and frankly, I don't care or want to. I'm happy just playing some Catan once in a while. Historically you didn't need to know everything about everyone. Your friends will always have opinions or lifestyles you will find disagreeable - that is the nature of human existence. Humanity either needs to "agree to disagree" on wide swaths of things we care a whole bunch about (abortion, firearms, lgbtq, etc) or we need to go back to not discussing those things in public or polite company. My $0.02 is that it's easier to fall back to rules of polite conversation than fix our compulsive need for agreement.

wanda 5y ago
Yes, social media is essentially a wall of noise. It's someone throwing their ego into sharp relief. Instead of a handshake and an opportunity to judge a book by its cover, you're greeted by a literal and loud book cover of the person along with blurb. Except... is it their ego? Or is it some surrogate persona? It has always struck me as more of a performance. And that's the problem with social media. Rather than encouraging an individual to be themselves and arrive at their own values independently, it on the contrary encourages inauthenticity -- perhaps not intentionally by the developers of the websites in the beginning, but it emerges through behaviour of the users. Rather than accepting of all people, people with deviant-discourse views are vilified very publicly, and either remove themselves from the platform or instead surround themselves with supporters from the deviant side. Social media does bring people together, but it doesn't bring everyone together, it just promotes the formation of ideological tribes. This effect of uniting and dividing people into tribes isn't constrained to social media. Marketing, advertising, indeed many aspects of how capitalist society has evolved has a similar effect of forming tribes. Adverts and marketing tell people that they should do a thing, and then those who agree gravitate to that product, and those who disagree gravitate toward an opposing product or a steadfast disapproval of any product in the space, and they come to define themselves by that approval or disapproval. Ask a person to define who they are. They will tell their name, their age, their occupation, where they were born and/or live, and then they'll most likely move on to what they like and dislike, what they believe and don't believe. They define themselves according to details they think are important to others and in relation to other things, usually things made by corporations or governments/bodies of power. - A name doesn't define a person, it's simply how you refer to them in conversation or get their attention without ambiguity in the presence of other humans. - Age also doesn't define a person. People look older and younger than they actually are all the time, and in my experience it has little bearing on the person's wisdom or intrigue. - Occupation matters not. All you need is the understanding that your occupation is what you do to pay for food, water, shelter and your hobbies/downtime. It can also be what you actually want to achieve with your life, but this isn't essential as long as you have awareness. - What a person likes and dislikes is not a defining feature, it's at best an expression of a person's taste. It is a description of a relation between a person and other things. Tastes are easily feigned to please others, easily changed and highly likely to change over time, and while they can be used to stereotype people, I'm pretty sure stereotyping people is considered a bad thing to do. - Belief and disbelief aren't defining and also don't make a great deal of sense, since to believe is to hold that something is true without data -- holding that something is true OR false without data is nonsensical, and thus pointless to communicate to others, because they'll either have the same nonsensical belief or an opposing one, and probably won't be very amenable to having their belief(s) changed since there is no data to argue from. Ultimately, people don't know who they are, they know what their profile page(s) should say, and these "defining" characteristics are most likely things for which they are a willing standard bearer, things that they want to shine out like a lighthouse to attract or ward off the types of people they will get along with and not get along with. There are people that do have a notion of who they are, but I suspect they are likely too scared to reveal it, precisely because people are polarised, capricious, and unforgiving. Perhaps that's what it is, social media actually encourages people to both fall in line with a stereotype and to stereotype others. Certainly, I think social media also distorts the personality of the user as well. I avoid social media like the plague, primarily because the content social media sites generate is of little interest to me. I have absolutely no understanding of why anyone would want to do social media stuff -- so I cannot speak from any personal experience. I've created a profile on some of them for the sake of communicating with someone who refused to communicate by other means, but never have I felt inclined to use the platforms because... it's just not for me, I don't understand it. I prefer to toil in the shadows and live my life, without sharing it. Anyway, something I have observed throughout my life is that the personality is performative, i.e. most people will act differently if they have an audience. It either causes them to withdraw and hide features of who they are, or it will encourage them to reveal as much of themselves as possible and even to fabricate features of their persona that aren't authentic. This kind of behaviour is easy enough to observe in work contexts, and my intuition tells me that social media must surely have a similar effect on people. With thousands of people watching out for what banal thought you share next. The result is that not only are you exposed to the whole of the other, but you're exposed to the super-other that forms (depending on the subject type) through audience demand and expectations, or through the subject's desire to provoke a certain reaction in their audience, or indeed to attract a certain audience to serve their agenda. Much of the social media landscape is essentially just memetic. Probably quite fascinating to study if you're interested in how utterly twisted and inauthentic people can become by living an observed and performed life, rather than simply living according to their own principles, resolute and only subject to observation when necessary to achieve, say, professional or academic goals. * * * I'd like to bring up something Douglas Adams wrote about in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. He imagined an alien race called the Belcerabons, who enjoyed peace and success, no doubt in part thanks to their being a wholly quiet civilization. A Galactic Tribunal of other races, envious of their success and perceived smugness, infected them with a disease that gave them the curse of forced telepathy -- every thought would be broadcast from each Belcerabon to the rest of their kind. The only way that they could silence the artillery of communicating their every thought to each other was to constantly talk to each other instead, probably preferable just to retain some control over communicating private or awkward thoughts and instead talking about the weather etc. While Adams was undoubtedly poking fun at the sorry state of the human race when it comes to those nauseating conversations about the local weather conditions and what was eaten for lunch on a previous day, I do find it amusing that constantly bombarding one another with banalities ought to be considered a curse, and yet we have somehow managed to develop our civilization around technological platforms for that very purpose.
emjoes1 5y ago
Well said. I buy into your theory and $0.02. If we fall back to rules of polite conversation than trying to "fix" our compulsions then we don't even need a social network with filters or circles.
CountSessine 5y ago
This was one of the ideas behind Google+ - "circles". You could put other people in different broadcast "circles" and then you wouldn't end up announcing your weird fetish preferences or drug use to your grandma or your coworkers - at least not intentionally.
- jafoi 5y ago
  Wouldn't work in practice - no one is going to pass an opportunity to broadcast their political views to as many people as possible.
  - CountSessine 5y ago
    Yeah - you're probably right
  - mdoms 5y ago
    I disagree. I think the types of people this article is about - the silent majority of non-tweeters - are happy to compartmentalise different aspects of their lives within different circles. It's the tweeting minority who feel like they need to broadcast their every righteous thought to as many people as possible.
  - nradov 5y ago
    Google+ also relied on users to correctly categorize their posts to the right stream or interest. Software developers tend to be good at dividing things into near little categories. Other users not so much.
  - superfrank 5y ago
    I don't know. I definitely think some people would just mass broadcast to everyone. Using the example above, there's nothing stopping that person from bringing their whole self to board game night. They're choosing to avoid certain topics with a certain group of people, so I would expect some of that behavior to cary over to social media. If I think about something like the "close friends" feature on instagram, I have some friends who just share way too much with everyone, but I've got others who use that feature pretty heavily.
DEADMEAT 5y ago
What's funny here are that the example issues you listed are exactly the issues that the vast majority of Americans actually do agree on. Those are wedge issues that were carefully crafted by political parties to try and create a division in popular opinion when there isn't one. It's a fairly common political strategy nowadays.
- AnimalMuppet 5y ago
  You think the vast majority of Americans agree on abortion? I'm pretty sure that, no, they do not. The division is real, not just a political strategy.
  - DEADMEAT 5y ago
    Since 1975 the percentage of Americans that think abortion should be illegal in all cases has hovered around 15-20% https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx
    - xboxnolifes 5y ago
      Abortion isn't an either or position. There are quite a few position and this stat only shows a single one: 15-20% believe it should be illegal in all cases. What about the subset who believe it should only be legal for rape victims. Or only plan B style drugs (I'm not sure how the linked data classifies the responses, but some people do consider such drugs on the same level as abortion). Or only by first trimester. Or only by second trimester. Or until birth? Or some other position that I am not able to remember off the top of my head?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- michaelcampbell 5y ago
  > (abortion, firearms, lgbtq, etc) > exactly the issues that the vast majority of Americans actually do agree on. cite?
- 5y ago
cgrealy 5y ago
While I agree in general, there are plenty of circumstances where people don't get to not have an opinion about things. For example, you can't "agree to disagree" on LGBTQ rights if you belong to one of those categories. See also pregnant people and abortion rights.
- kerneloftruth 5y ago
  I know LGB people who balk at the TQ.* additions to the acronym. Their arguments are cogent and logical. There seems to be plenty of room to disagree, because not all the constituents of the acronym are really fighting the same cause, or even see the groups as all being one team.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago
    The term has been LGBT basically from the start, hasn't it? Being iffy on new optional extensions is one thing, trying to act like the T is new gets a much less charitable view from me.
    - kerneloftruth 5y ago
      It was added in the '90s. https://www.salon.com/2007/10/08/lgbt/ https://www.salon.com/2007/10/08/lgbt/
      - Dylan16807 5y ago
        According to wikipedia "LGBT" was from 1988 and "LGB" itself was spreading in the "mid to late 80s". If you have a stronger source I'm open to being convinced, but otherwise I don't find one anecdotal account very convincing. I can't easily get to the cited books to get any more clarity they might have.
- everdrive 5y ago
  > For example, you can't "agree to disagree" on LGBTQ rights if you belong to one of those categories. See also pregnant people and abortion rights. Why can’t you? Is it impossible to imagine civil friendly people who simply do not share one’s views on these issues?
davesque 5y ago
This only seems true for the people who share TMI on social media. Still seems like a pretty specific subset of the population.
MaxBarraclough 5y ago
> One of my pet theories for why social media is such a cesspool is that it exposes us to the whole of someone else. The common theory is roughly the opposite of this: people disproportionately share their better moments on social media. Its users project the impression of having a much better life than they actually have. This bias is one of the reasons social media is so awful for 'FOMO'. edit Of course, that's not a direct contradiction of your point. The positive/negative dimension is different from the which-aspect-of-your-life dimension.
- itronitron 5y ago
  I think your comment and the parent's comment can be in agreement if you think about people in your social media as now sharing an office with you. You get to be stuck in a room with them for eight hours a day while they share their personal drama, monger gossip, and boast about their work accomplishments.
- nullc 5y ago
  > share their better moments share their more extreme moments. Not automatically "better", there is an awful lot of tweeting where people are essentially exposing their mental illness and successfully soliciting support. While no one is going to FOMO on misfortune itself, people certainly do FOMO on the attention announcing your misfortune (and as a result identifying with it) brings.
madrox 5y ago
My favorite theory comes from an HN comment describing it as the "toaster fucker problem." I'd attempt to re-explain it, but the original comment is great (and easy to search for. Not many mentions of the phrase "toaster fucker" on HN.) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667362
- wanderer_ 5y ago
  Ironically enough, that thread devolved into an irrelevant political argument.
  - sjmm1989 5y ago
    Such is the way of the internet.
  - ear7h 5y ago
    The original thread is literally about the the riots from Jan 6.
    - wanderer_ 5y ago
      Ah. I didn't see the context, however I was referring to the Brexit debate later on.
- salawat 5y ago
  ...Wow. That resonates hard with some stuff I'm seein' now.
- sjmm1989 5y ago
  My roommate basically put it in his project for university as a similar theory to Toaster Fucker. I too have a personal similar theory where I just refer to the 'village idiot'. They all basically revolve around one truth I think. The internet doesn't radicalize people. People radicalize people. The internet is just full of people who are already radicalized in their daily life, and they are using the internet to radicalize others. Whether it be for the left, right, or even some weird alt thing. Penny Arcade even has their own comic strip theory called "G.I.F.T of the Internet". Theirs is more simplistic though in that it stipulates that the anonymity of the net is the problem insofar that it gives people a fake sense of security to be who they really are on the inside. For better or worse. Usually worse. I think all of our ideas on the matter basically resonate on the same singular issue. That people were already nuts to begin with. The internet is just making easier to identify which are fucking screwballs and ... the rest. But then that poses a new problem. Mob mentality even of righteous people is still just as toxic as the mob mentality of fucking idiots.
thrwawy283 5y ago
This is an interesting idea: I wish you could Follow a combination of a person and the #topic they post to. You could choose to follow "all of" a person, but more realistically the default behavior would be to attach to posts from a particular topic that person is generating. This would be similar to your example of playing a game of Catan with someone and enjoying just that limited bandwidth you have with them. Knowing and seeing all of who they are is not common in our business relationships, or friendships.. I think you're right, and I appreciate how you articulated it. Someone below this mentioned this was how Google+ was intended to work.
- sefrost 5y ago
  This is what I believe family/friend group chats on platforms such as WhatsApp are. They are great in my experience, but if people started posting politics news I could see how they could turn bad.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  I think circles were too tied to privacy. Public posts ended up mushed together just like twitter.
  - thrwawy283 5y ago
    Now I'm annoyed that in 2022 I'm understanding Google+ better. I want to follow the /intersect/ of "Jane Smith" and "Catan". Both of these are topics. I might be broadly interested in "computers", and "board games", or interested in just my friend "Jane Smith". I likely don't want to know everything Jane is posting - or those posting things about her - but when I choose to Follow her, I should be prompted with a list of topics I've subscribed to that would narrow the posts I see which intersect with Jane. Also - G+ or Twitter - would be working to autotag posts into topics/subjects to help me identify how I want to intersect with those posts. (If the author themselves don't apply tags) I can see why limiting what you're presented with never took off from a marketing point of view. I think this is rad though.
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
lkxijlewlf 5y ago
> One of my pet theories for why social media is such a cesspool is that it exposes us to the whole of someone else. We are naturally inclined to be negative. Or, said differently, it takes a LOT less effort to be negative than positive. On social media it's just way too easy for people to pile on.
- pasquinelli 5y ago
  people are negative on social media for the same reason that most news is horrifying: it gets attention. social media is socializing made into a game. show people their score and they'll want to make that number go up.
dogman144 5y ago
> us to the whole of someone else. I think this hits on a critical aspect of cyberspace's impact but phrased in a new way for me. My view has been that it allows individuals to split their personalties and actions into discrete entities based on a blend of the account/platform/information environment and relative cause the account/platform exists in support of. But another way to look at it is what you've said - the whole person comes out through the various personalities they have online. There is a niche but famous sci-fi book called True Names* about a similar idea: people have their true name in real life, and a digital nym that's just as valid per the impact of the nym's existence as the name. Operating the balance, and making a choice which to embrace (name vs. nym) is the big question. The novella was written prior to cloud computing and twitter/reddit/VR, and reading it now with all that tech in place is really something.
timClicks 5y ago
I'm sort of the opposite. I'm attracted to Twitter because a) I get to learn the whole person and b) even "heroes" are very accessible. We're all humans trying to figure it out.
Ansil849 5y ago
> If I play boardgames with Sue, that's enough. We meet, enjoy a beer and play some Catan and go our separate ways. That's a fine relationship. > If I follow Sue on social media, now I know her politics, religion, sex life, drug usage, opinions on every little thing.. and frankly, I don't care or want to. I'm happy just playing some Catan once in a while. > Historically you didn't need to know everything about everyone. Your friends will always have opinions or lifestyles you will find disagreeable - that is the nature of human existence. This hits the nail on the head perfectly, IMHO. Unfortunately, even the activities you describe have become politicized. For example, Settlers of Catan rebranding to just Catan.
- phillryu 5y ago
  I will say in this case Catan is cool and feels natural, like what people would call it if they're still playing the game a hundred years from now. So maybe it was politically sparked but the rebrand feels solid.
- tharkun__ 5y ago
  Living in the hole I am living in seems to shield me from this. I had no idea that "Settlers of Catan" has been rebranded to just "Catan" or why. In my circles we call it "Settlers", "Settlers of Catan" or just "Catan" interchangeably all the time. The "controversial" one is "Settlers" if you talk to someone you might also play a round of Settlers the computer game with (as in these guys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Settlers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Settlers)
- ratww 5y ago
  I had noticed the name change myself, but never consider it was politically motivated until you brought it up (especially considering mine is called "Catan: Trade Build Settle"). You're Sue in this case.
  - Ansil849 5y ago
    I, in turn, unfortunately had to listen to fellow players complain about the name change throughout a whole game the other week.
travisporter 5y ago
Excellent theory. I think it's more than that - you now have tidbits of her opinion on every little thing without the benefit of nonverbal communication, empathy and nuance that you would if you actually talked to her for the same amount of time.
- djKianoosh 5y ago
  these two comments put together are so on point. it's almost as if we as a species are still learning how to communicate in this internet age
conductr 5y ago
What's kind of scary to me is that newly minted adults never knew a single Sue before social media.
MonaroVXR 5y ago
My conclusion (without any scientific verification) is people make assumption about my social media use. (I feel I've written this somewhere else) I use Facebook for my entertainment, reacting on car memes, sarcastic memes and genuinely car things and sports. Oh and I watch TV on Facebook. meeting people real life in this city has been.... ehhh special. (But I think the things I do on Facebook isn't special, there isn't that much politics.) I don't forget the times that I laughed so hard some posts, because it so funny. But at the end of the day... it's people and nothing is going to fix that.
0xedd 5y ago
Wrong. Facebook whistleblower says company made profits from making people suffer. People suffer from reading cesspool produce. Facebook used big data insight to expose users to cesspool produce. Twitter isn't dumber. (Assume this was written with kindness)
darkerside 5y ago
I think you bring your whole self to an in person encounter much more than you do to a social media presence. The difference is, there's no concept of proximity. Everything you say on social is shouted to the entire room, so if you want to say anything, you have to say it to everyone. In a personal encounter, you react to the people near you. If they recoil, you might explain. On social, many people are reacting in different ways and even more not reacting at all. So how do you react to all of those reactions? (You don't)
- pilsetnieks 5y ago
  It's the same as with any public discourse these days. If your audience is practically infinite, you have to have an extreme and attention-grabbing viewpoint, otherwise you're just one in a sea of many. If you're only talking to a handful of people, be it in real life or on social media, you don't need the extremism and can afford moderate opinions and nuance.
- nullc 5y ago
  > If they recoil, you might explain. Or shift the subset of your views that you're exposing to a set that would result in a mutually enjoyable conversation. In person you can also be passively present and still interacting without saying much. But on twitter you're not even in the room unless you speak and generate reactions, the most reliable way to get a reaction is to be irritating rather than cooperate to generate a mutually good time.
vikaveri 5y ago
I feel that if you're expecting your 'whole friend' to be exactly compatible with your opinions, you're not really looking for friends, you're looking for confirmation for your own opinions. I fully expect to disagree with a lot of things my friends say or think, and that there will be arguments. When we do argue, sometimes they change their mind, sometimes I change mine but mostly we agree to disagree. What makes a difference between a friend and a non-friend is that even if we disagree on some fundamental things and a lot of trivial things, our core values more or less align, and both sides respect the other and realize that there is no way you're right about everything. If you are, you don't have friends. You have followers and sycophants.
Fr0styMatt88 5y ago
Maybe part of it is just that typing text into a post doesn't viscerally feel like standing in front of a group of hundreds of people and shouting over a megaphone. I noticed that in myself when I first got into Facebook way back - when it was still novel, I tended to post 'stream of consciousness' type stuff. You intellectually know that your post is going to be seen by a lot of people, but _in the moment_ it doesn't _feel_ like that. I imagine that many people have a similar experience. You're yelling into a megaphone but it feels more like you're writing an entry in your diary.
enobrev 5y ago
I agree with this. I've found that in order to maintain my relationships with some good friends, I've had to stop following them on twitter (and other social media). On twitter, it's really easy for my to ignore all the insane and stupid things that complete strangers blather about on there all the time. There's a ton of noise, but just enough signal for me to check in regularly. But then suddenly I see a ridiculous post from someone I truly care about. Someone who I've known for years and know their spouse and kids and families. I can read their post in their voice as if it were said to me, personally. And now I'm angered and incensed and putting up maps and charts and pins in my head preparing a response that this person whom I care about deserves. But they weren't talking to me. They were shouting something crazy into a cacophony of crazy strangers. If we were at dinner we would have a long, deep, and nuanced conversation on the subject and we'd listen to each other's points and respond accordingly. But in 240 chars they're wrong and now I will reserve two hours of mental capacity to argue with myself about why. Nope. Just block them, knowing I'll see them next time they're in town, and we'll have a real conversations about real things in a forum more befitting two people trying to understand each other.
deltarholamda 5y ago
>Humanity either needs to "agree to disagree" on wide swaths of things we care a whole bunch about (abortion, firearms, lgbtq, etc) or we need to go back to not discussing those things in public or polite company. The original American Experiment allowed this sort of thing. Big Important Nationwide things happened at the federal level; everything else was done by the States. It's a pretty good idea. All social media suffers from the "talking to nobody/talking to everybody" aspect. A post on a social media site is really just you talking to yourself out loud. But it's a public place, and therefore everybody can hear you. So they talk out loud to themselves, but at you. If this sounds like a gaggle of homeless people shouting at each other about everything and nothing, that's because it is exactly that, only with a $25B market cap and a P/E ratio that looks more like the onset of hypertension.
polynomial 5y ago
It's Sue's decision whether to share the full range of her ideas and personality or not. It's the algorithm's decision to serve up the choicest bits with the highest polarization scores bc that seems to have the highest correlation with overall engagement. And feeding the compulsive need for argument seems to be the more profitable strategy over providing a framework for truly polite conversation.
swayvil 5y ago
I have a similar theory. That, in social media, we touch a different part of a person, than, say, irl. I think that when we read, or we're on the computer, we are in a kind of trance. Our unconscious self is exposed. It expresses itself, we all harbor a lot of dark feelings. And we are reactive. It's not a rational self. It's a self that gropes for the good stuff and kicks against the bad stuff and that's about it. Like an animal. It is also exposed and vulnerable. So when the flame hits we feel it deeply. I imagine us all to be like that demon in The Exorcist. A raging ego trapped in a world of words. Playing mind games. And when we are told that it's holy water, it burns just fine.
foldr 5y ago
> Humanity either needs to "agree to disagree" on wide swaths of things we care a whole bunch about (abortion, firearms, lgbtq, etc) or we need to go back to not discussing those things in public or polite company. There’s a third option, which is that discussion can lead to actual moral progress where society decides that certain views are just beyond the pale. A few decades ago people might have ‘agreed to disagree’ on whether interracial marriage was ok. Now society has formed a consensus on this issue and anyone who’s opposed to interracial marriage is part of an isolated fringe. Saying that we should agree to disagree on controversial issues sounds superficially reasonable - especially when you’re exhausted from reading some awful twitter thread. It won’t necessarily sound so great in retrospect. It’s also a luxury that people directly affected by the relevant issues don’t always have. The real problem isn't people debating controversial issues, which is fine and healthy and necessary for progress. The problem is the way that platforms like Twitter incentivize hot takes, rapid response, bullying, and other behavior that's not conducive to rational discussion. Also, anyone who thinks that intemperate public discourse on controversial topics is a new phenomenon should check out some of the things that Thomas Moore and Martin Luther said to each other: https://meansandmatters.wordpress.com/2009/07/21/my-favorite-st-thomas-more-quote/ https://meansandmatters.wordpress.com/2009/07/21/my-favorite...
taurusnoises 5y ago
"If I follow Sue on social media, now I know her politics, religion, sex life, drug usage, opinions on every little thing.. and frankly, I don't care or want to. I'm happy just playing some Catan once in a while." I have a slightly different view of this. People's opinions on things are always in flux, even if they sway heavily toward one side. What we see on social media is a person's opinions without the context of a human interaction. On social media, we see Sue's emotional response to politics without her having to negotiate that emotional response in relationship to another person sitting in front of her. She may "believe" what she says in the moment she types it, but put her in a room with a friend who disagrees and you can watch how her views shift, push back, concede, change, challenge, etc. On social media, there's very little of this taking place, because there's zero human intimacy at work. It belief in a vacuum not in relationship.
- nullc 5y ago
  and writing it down in public may make it a lot harder for Sue to change her views, or walk back an over reach after those interactions happen since at any point in the future she could be confronted with her prior dissonant statements.
_carbyau_ 5y ago
Eloquently expressed. Further thoughts: 1. Reaction/Social Interplay: If you play Catan (or tennis or amateur theatre group etc) with a person for long enough you will come to know these bits about them. However, as most small country town people know, you ignore or otherwise put up with "their stupidity" while trying not to shove what they see as "your stupidity" in their face. This is respect for others. Such respect helps preserve the alliance to get the outcome you want - a game of Catan. Hence, even Sue-the-Otherwise-Intolerable isn't all bad, they like to play Catan like you do right? As you eloquently advise, the internet doesn't "hide your stupidity from others" so that is grating. It also doesn't promote people ignoring your stupidity. It promotes "engagement"... 2. Shared experience Experience is how humans build trust/relationships. Y'know, a first date cliche is a movie then coffee or dinner. The shared movie experience forms a basis to trust each other ("Well they didn't yabber on the phone the whole time so they're not all bad...") and then talking about the experience after may yield new insights on that experience. And those insights are attributed to that person alone ("I didn't think of it that way, very good point Sue." or "Nope. That's just stupid Sue.") even though the experience itself is already in the past! Even though virtual experiences can be such a basis - IE Game of Thrones as "viral" thing - I submit that in person experiences are more powerful by far. You tolerate Sue-the-Otherwise-Intolerable in person to get your fix of Catan. But you wouldn't do that for a virtual Sue, you'd just move onto Bob, Mary, Joe or Jane or whoever else the game's matchmaker throws up.
Fogest 5y ago
I've had people show me things at work on things like reddit and I always try and avoid looking at their username simply because I don't want to be tempted to check what kinds of things they post. I've seen co-workers reddit accounts before and it is almost always surprising and feels too personal. I feel like I am learning things I don't care or need to know about a coworker. I totally agree that social media has made this a bigger issue than it used to be before social media. It also doesn't help that these social media sites are likely trying to feed you some intentionally controversial content as fear/anger can keep you engaged. Facebook showing a coworkers controversial political opinion on a matter right at the top of your feed feels intentional. I've also found social media, as well as the mass media constantly bombards you with the idea that you must pick a "side". If someone is anti-immigration, pro-abortion, pro firearms, and pro lgbtq you'd think it would make some of these online peoples heads explode. It's like they think it's not possible to have opinions and beliefs that align with both political "sides". The division that social media and mass media companies push is what I find is one of the most toxic things in the world currently. Trying to profit off creating hatred. It's pretty disgusting.
chemmail 5y ago
So you don't like to watch Kim Karhshan?
FalconSensei 5y ago
> Humanity either needs to "agree to disagree" on wide swaths of things we care a whole bunch about (abortion, firearms, lgbtq, etc) or we need to go back to not discussing those things in public or polite company. You can't 'agree to disagree' on those topics though, specially when laws ban abortion, for example. If you think we should do that, then making laws regarding those things (abortion, "don't say gay") would need to be completely forbidden and you would need to let people do what they want.
- nicbou 5y ago
  However, it's a lot easier to argue your case face to face. Perhaps it's because people are cooler within punching distance, but I think it's simply because they see the human being talking to them. Their imagination can't substitute you with a caricature of your side.
HWR_14 5y ago
> Humanity either needs to "agree to disagree" on wide swaths of things we care a whole bunch about (abortion, firearms, lgbtq, etc) or we need to go back to not discussing those things in public or polite company. Two out of three of those aren't just random positions. If you believe someone else is literally advocating for murdering children, I can see why you would judge them. Similarly, if you see people oppressing people like you for some reason, you should judge them. I will admit, I have no idea what the disagreement in modern society is with relation the LGBTQ people. Like, I can articulate both sides of the abortion debate. Hell, I can even understand the sides about firearms. But what is the dispute about LGBTQ?
- throwaway0x7E6 5y ago
- nicky0 5y ago
  Trans activists vs certain feminists is a big debate currently.
- blindmute 5y ago
  The T part is contentious. Blue side wants trans women to be treated identically to women, based on their personal conception of identity, not necessarily tied to any external or societal factor. So if they say they're a trans woman, you call them "she" regardless of how masculine they make look or dress. Being trans is a valid and inherent part of a person. We need to educate children that gender is a social construct. Red side disagrees with the notion that personal identity overrides societal norms. It's an imposition, or a farce, to call a man in a dress a woman. Why should we change thousands of years of grammar because some people are nutcases? Being trans is a mental illness that instead of being treated is being celebrated and normalized, in turn harming society. It's a shame you're ill, but keep that out of our schools and get help. You can see how these viewpoints are not going to get along
hedgewitch 5y ago
> Humanity either needs to "agree to disagree" on wide swaths of things we care a whole bunch about ([...] lgbtq [...]) or we need to go back to not discussing those things in public or polite company. Does this cut both ways, where LGBTQ+ people also don't have to listen to how straight everyone is? I doubt it. So yeah, how about no? How about there is agreement or nothing? Because there's no way straight people are going to agree to disagree about whether they should be allowed to discuss their sexuality.
- nyanpasu64 5y ago
  I'd be fine with either not discussing relationships in public, or openly discussing both straight and non-straight relationships. Not sure which is more likely though.
- mechanical_bear 5y ago
  You constructed a straw man out of his comments very effectively. I didn’t gather that he meant you can’t mention your life, significant other, etc. I read it as maybe don’t discuss the political aspects of LGBT issues, etc
  - hedgewitch 5y ago
    If you don't understand that the problem is that detractors have made simply being LGBTQ+ a political issue, you are not qualified to have an opinion here. I'm curious what you think you mean because there is no good answer. I also wouldn't have had to comment at all if people weren't casually asking people to instate don't ask don't tell in social settings.
    - vorpalhex 5y ago
      Remember to interpret someone's arguments in the strongest possible sense. Chastising others is great for moral superiority but it is a poor tool for discussion.
      - 5y ago
ninkendo 5y ago
I just want to say, hugely insightful comment. Or at the very least it helps me feel better about my decision to not be on any social media other than HN (not even Reddit) because of the things you describe. You hit the nail right on the head.
zachwill 5y ago
This is actually an excellent explanation that I’d never thought through before. Totally makes sense. Rarely would you see “the whole” of your whole Dunbar group + a few hundred more — so makes sense why it could turn into such a cesspool. Really interesting idea.
jsemrau 5y ago
>One of my pet theories for why social media is such a cesspool is that it exposes us to the whole of someone else. Yes! A thousand times yes! You are speaking out of my heart with that comment. That's what most current social networks get wrong. Just because I know someone, or met someone IRL and am now connected on the platform, I do not want to always know what they are up to. It's a pull not a push!
eloisius 5y ago
What you're describing is called "context collapse." Pre-social media you had face that you presented in different contexts, now you have one flattened out "you" feed.
jamaicahest 5y ago
I used to say, half jokingly, people need to learn to shut the **** up, myself included. Meaning just because you have an opinion you don't have an obligation to share it with everyone else. Me writing this comment illustrates that.
raptorraver 5y ago
This is point on. My wife is quite active on social while I'm not part of any social media (HN doesn't count, right?). We both have quite a different options about some political issues than our friends. It's been strange observing how her views about our friends are more negative and polarised than mine. Like, I don't really know or care what they think about politics, or what they think about my views. They are my friends and it's okay we disagree on stuff. When I meet them we seldom discuss about the dividing things, but when we do, we do so in respectful manner. I think when meeting in person we tend to find similarities with each other. In social media it's the opposite.
stevage 5y ago
That's half of it. The other problem is that now you are connected to Edna's unsavoury friends, and can now easily argue with them about any of these issues. Edna's dad might randomly join a conversation you were having about something unrelated. We're not really equipped to be so connected to people we don't agree with about everything.
thaumasiotes 5y ago
> Historically you didn't need to know everything about everyone. Well... that would only be true in an urban environment. And historically, urban environments accounted for an insignificant share of the population. The normal historical experience was that you knew everything about everyone else and they knew everything about you.
wyclif 5y ago
One of my pet theories for why social media is such a cesspool is that it exposes us to the whole of someone else Thing is, personal social media accounts don't expose you to the whole of someone else, they expose you to that part of someone without the buffer of small talk, low-level real life social interactions, non-verbal cues, work/school/routine-based camaraderie, and, as you put it, enjoying a beer and playing some Catan. The problem is that without that part of social interaction, you end up with raw opinion or dogma which doesn't have any "soft" dimension or transition layer, and that causes people to be reactionary rather than accepting.

wanda 5y ago

Yes, social media is essentially a wall of noise. It's someone throwing their ego into sharp relief. Instead of a handshake and an opportunity to judge a book by its cover, you're greeted by a literal and loud book cover of the person along with blurb. Except... is it their ego? Or is it some surrogate persona? It has always struck me as more of a performance. And that's the problem with social media. Rather than encouraging an individual to be themselves and arrive at their own values independently, it on the contrary encourages inauthenticity -- perhaps not intentionally by the developers of the websites in the beginning, but it emerges through behaviour of the users. Rather than accepting of all people, people with deviant-discourse views are vilified very publicly, and either remove themselves from the platform or instead surround themselves with supporters from the deviant side. Social media does bring people together, but it doesn't bring everyone together, it just promotes the formation of ideological tribes. This effect of uniting and dividing people into tribes isn't constrained to social media. Marketing, advertising, indeed many aspects of how capitalist society has evolved has a similar effect of forming tribes. Adverts and marketing tell people that they should do a thing, and then those who agree gravitate to that product, and those who disagree gravitate toward an opposing product or a steadfast disapproval of any product in the space, and they come to define themselves by that approval or disapproval. Ask a person to define who they are. They will tell their name, their age, their occupation, where they were born and/or live, and then they'll most likely move on to what they like and dislike, what they believe and don't believe. They define themselves according to details they think are important to others and in relation to other things, usually things made by corporations or governments/bodies of power. - A name doesn't define a person, it's simply how you refer to them in conversation or get their attention without ambiguity in the presence of other humans. - Age also doesn't define a person. People look older and younger than they actually are all the time, and in my experience it has little bearing on the person's wisdom or intrigue. - Occupation matters not. All you need is the understanding that your occupation is what you do to pay for food, water, shelter and your hobbies/downtime. It can also be what you actually want to achieve with your life, but this isn't essential as long as you have awareness. - What a person likes and dislikes is not a defining feature, it's at best an expression of a person's taste. It is a description of a relation between a person and other things. Tastes are easily feigned to please others, easily changed and highly likely to change over time, and while they can be used to stereotype people, I'm pretty sure stereotyping people is considered a bad thing to do. - Belief and disbelief aren't defining and also don't make a great deal of sense, since to believe is to hold that something is true without data -- holding that something is true OR false without data is nonsensical, and thus pointless to communicate to others, because they'll either have the same nonsensical belief or an opposing one, and probably won't be very amenable to having their belief(s) changed since there is no data to argue from. Ultimately, people don't know who they are, they know what their profile page(s) should say, and these "defining" characteristics are most likely things for which they are a willing standard bearer, things that they want to shine out like a lighthouse to attract or ward off the types of people they will get along with and not get along with. There are people that do have a notion of who they are, but I suspect they are likely too scared to reveal it, precisely because people are polarised, capricious, and unforgiving. Perhaps that's what it is, social media actually encourages people to both fall in line with a stereotype and to stereotype others. Certainly, I think social media also distorts the personality of the user as well. I avoid social media like the plague, primarily because the content social media sites generate is of little interest to me. I have absolutely no understanding of why anyone would want to do social media stuff -- so I cannot speak from any personal experience. I've created a profile on some of them for the sake of communicating with someone who refused to communicate by other means, but never have I felt inclined to use the platforms because... it's just not for me, I don't understand it. I prefer to toil in the shadows and live my life, without sharing it. Anyway, something I have observed throughout my life is that the personality is performative, i.e. most people will act differently if they have an audience. It either causes them to withdraw and hide features of who they are, or it will encourage them to reveal as much of themselves as possible and even to fabricate features of their persona that aren't authentic. This kind of behaviour is easy enough to observe in work contexts, and my intuition tells me that social media must surely have a similar effect on people. With thousands of people watching out for what banal thought you share next. The result is that not only are you exposed to the whole of the other, but you're exposed to the super-other that forms (depending on the subject type) through audience demand and expectations, or through the subject's desire to provoke a certain reaction in their audience, or indeed to attract a certain audience to serve their agenda. Much of the social media landscape is essentially just memetic. Probably quite fascinating to study if you're interested in how utterly twisted and inauthentic people can become by living an observed and performed life, rather than simply living according to their own principles, resolute and only subject to observation when necessary to achieve, say, professional or academic goals. * * * I'd like to bring up something Douglas Adams wrote about in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series. He imagined an alien race called the Belcerabons, who enjoyed peace and success, no doubt in part thanks to their being a wholly quiet civilization. A Galactic Tribunal of other races, envious of their success and perceived smugness, infected them with a disease that gave them the curse of forced telepathy -- every thought would be broadcast from each Belcerabon to the rest of their kind. The only way that they could silence the artillery of communicating their every thought to each other was to constantly talk to each other instead, probably preferable just to retain some control over communicating private or awkward thoughts and instead talking about the weather etc. While Adams was undoubtedly poking fun at the sorry state of the human race when it comes to those nauseating conversations about the local weather conditions and what was eaten for lunch on a previous day, I do find it amusing that constantly bombarding one another with banalities ought to be considered a curse, and yet we have somehow managed to develop our civilization around technological platforms for that very purpose.

emjoes1 5y ago

Well said. I buy into your theory and $0.02. If we fall back to rules of polite conversation than trying to "fix" our compulsions then we don't even need a social network with filters or circles.

CountSessine 5y ago

This was one of the ideas behind Google+ - "circles". You could put other people in different broadcast "circles" and then you wouldn't end up announcing your weird fetish preferences or drug use to your grandma or your coworkers - at least not intentionally.

jafoi 5y ago
Wouldn't work in practice - no one is going to pass an opportunity to broadcast their political views to as many people as possible.
- CountSessine 5y ago
  Yeah - you're probably right
- mdoms 5y ago
  I disagree. I think the types of people this article is about - the silent majority of non-tweeters - are happy to compartmentalise different aspects of their lives within different circles. It's the tweeting minority who feel like they need to broadcast their every righteous thought to as many people as possible.
- nradov 5y ago
  Google+ also relied on users to correctly categorize their posts to the right stream or interest. Software developers tend to be good at dividing things into near little categories. Other users not so much.
- superfrank 5y ago
  I don't know. I definitely think some people would just mass broadcast to everyone. Using the example above, there's nothing stopping that person from bringing their whole self to board game night. They're choosing to avoid certain topics with a certain group of people, so I would expect some of that behavior to cary over to social media. If I think about something like the "close friends" feature on instagram, I have some friends who just share way too much with everyone, but I've got others who use that feature pretty heavily.

DEADMEAT 5y ago

What's funny here are that the example issues you listed are exactly the issues that the vast majority of Americans actually do agree on. Those are wedge issues that were carefully crafted by political parties to try and create a division in popular opinion when there isn't one. It's a fairly common political strategy nowadays.

AnimalMuppet 5y ago
You think the vast majority of Americans agree on abortion? I'm pretty sure that, no, they do not. The division is real, not just a political strategy.
- DEADMEAT 5y ago
  Since 1975 the percentage of Americans that think abortion should be illegal in all cases has hovered around 15-20% https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx
  - xboxnolifes 5y ago
    Abortion isn't an either or position. There are quite a few position and this stat only shows a single one: 15-20% believe it should be illegal in all cases. What about the subset who believe it should only be legal for rape victims. Or only plan B style drugs (I'm not sure how the linked data classifies the responses, but some people do consider such drugs on the same level as abortion). Or only by first trimester. Or only by second trimester. Or until birth? Or some other position that I am not able to remember off the top of my head?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
michaelcampbell 5y ago
> (abortion, firearms, lgbtq, etc) > exactly the issues that the vast majority of Americans actually do agree on. cite?
5y ago

cgrealy 5y ago

While I agree in general, there are plenty of circumstances where people don't get to not have an opinion about things. For example, you can't "agree to disagree" on LGBTQ rights if you belong to one of those categories. See also pregnant people and abortion rights.

kerneloftruth 5y ago
I know LGB people who balk at the TQ.* additions to the acronym. Their arguments are cogent and logical. There seems to be plenty of room to disagree, because not all the constituents of the acronym are really fighting the same cause, or even see the groups as all being one team.
- Dylan16807 5y ago
  The term has been LGBT basically from the start, hasn't it? Being iffy on new optional extensions is one thing, trying to act like the T is new gets a much less charitable view from me.
  - kerneloftruth 5y ago
    It was added in the '90s. https://www.salon.com/2007/10/08/lgbt/ https://www.salon.com/2007/10/08/lgbt/
    - Dylan16807 5y ago
      According to wikipedia "LGBT" was from 1988 and "LGB" itself was spreading in the "mid to late 80s". If you have a stronger source I'm open to being convinced, but otherwise I don't find one anecdotal account very convincing. I can't easily get to the cited books to get any more clarity they might have.
everdrive 5y ago
> For example, you can't "agree to disagree" on LGBTQ rights if you belong to one of those categories. See also pregnant people and abortion rights. Why can’t you? Is it impossible to imagine civil friendly people who simply do not share one’s views on these issues?

davesque 5y ago

This only seems true for the people who share TMI on social media. Still seems like a pretty specific subset of the population.

MaxBarraclough 5y ago

> One of my pet theories for why social media is such a cesspool is that it exposes us to the whole of someone else. The common theory is roughly the opposite of this: people disproportionately share their better moments on social media. Its users project the impression of having a much better life than they actually have. This bias is one of the reasons social media is so awful for 'FOMO'. edit Of course, that's not a direct contradiction of your point. The positive/negative dimension is different from the which-aspect-of-your-life dimension.

itronitron 5y ago
I think your comment and the parent's comment can be in agreement if you think about people in your social media as now sharing an office with you. You get to be stuck in a room with them for eight hours a day while they share their personal drama, monger gossip, and boast about their work accomplishments.
nullc 5y ago
> share their better moments share their more extreme moments. Not automatically "better", there is an awful lot of tweeting where people are essentially exposing their mental illness and successfully soliciting support. While no one is going to FOMO on misfortune itself, people certainly do FOMO on the attention announcing your misfortune (and as a result identifying with it) brings.

madrox 5y ago

My favorite theory comes from an HN comment describing it as the "toaster fucker problem." I'd attempt to re-explain it, but the original comment is great (and easy to search for. Not many mentions of the phrase "toaster fucker" on HN.) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667362 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25667362

wanderer_ 5y ago
Ironically enough, that thread devolved into an irrelevant political argument.
- sjmm1989 5y ago
  Such is the way of the internet.
- ear7h 5y ago
  The original thread is literally about the the riots from Jan 6.
  - wanderer_ 5y ago
    Ah. I didn't see the context, however I was referring to the Brexit debate later on.
salawat 5y ago
...Wow. That resonates hard with some stuff I'm seein' now.
sjmm1989 5y ago
My roommate basically put it in his project for university as a similar theory to Toaster Fucker. I too have a personal similar theory where I just refer to the 'village idiot'. They all basically revolve around one truth I think. The internet doesn't radicalize people. People radicalize people. The internet is just full of people who are already radicalized in their daily life, and they are using the internet to radicalize others. Whether it be for the left, right, or even some weird alt thing. Penny Arcade even has their own comic strip theory called "G.I.F.T of the Internet". Theirs is more simplistic though in that it stipulates that the anonymity of the net is the problem insofar that it gives people a fake sense of security to be who they really are on the inside. For better or worse. Usually worse. I think all of our ideas on the matter basically resonate on the same singular issue. That people were already nuts to begin with. The internet is just making easier to identify which are fucking screwballs and ... the rest. But then that poses a new problem. Mob mentality even of righteous people is still just as toxic as the mob mentality of fucking idiots.

thrwawy283 5y ago

This is an interesting idea: I wish you could Follow a combination of a person and the #topic they post to. You could choose to follow "all of" a person, but more realistically the default behavior would be to attach to posts from a particular topic that person is generating. This would be similar to your example of playing a game of Catan with someone and enjoying just that limited bandwidth you have with them. Knowing and seeing all of who they are is not common in our business relationships, or friendships.. I think you're right, and I appreciate how you articulated it. Someone below this mentioned this was how Google+ was intended to work.

sefrost 5y ago
This is what I believe family/friend group chats on platforms such as WhatsApp are. They are great in my experience, but if people started posting politics news I could see how they could turn bad.
Dylan16807 5y ago
I think circles were too tied to privacy. Public posts ended up mushed together just like twitter.
- thrwawy283 5y ago
  Now I'm annoyed that in 2022 I'm understanding Google+ better. I want to follow the /intersect/ of "Jane Smith" and "Catan". Both of these are topics. I might be broadly interested in "computers", and "board games", or interested in just my friend "Jane Smith". I likely don't want to know everything Jane is posting - or those posting things about her - but when I choose to Follow her, I should be prompted with a list of topics I've subscribed to that would narrow the posts I see which intersect with Jane. Also - G+ or Twitter - would be working to autotag posts into topics/subjects to help me identify how I want to intersect with those posts. (If the author themselves don't apply tags) I can see why limiting what you're presented with never took off from a marketing point of view. I think this is rad though.
  - Dylan16807 5y ago

lkxijlewlf 5y ago

> One of my pet theories for why social media is such a cesspool is that it exposes us to the whole of someone else. We are naturally inclined to be negative. Or, said differently, it takes a LOT less effort to be negative than positive. On social media it's just way too easy for people to pile on.

pasquinelli 5y ago
people are negative on social media for the same reason that most news is horrifying: it gets attention. social media is socializing made into a game. show people their score and they'll want to make that number go up.

dogman144 5y ago

> us to the whole of someone else. I think this hits on a critical aspect of cyberspace's impact but phrased in a new way for me. My view has been that it allows individuals to split their personalties and actions into discrete entities based on a blend of the account/platform/information environment and relative cause the account/platform exists in support of. But another way to look at it is what you've said - the whole person comes out through the various personalities they have online. There is a niche but famous sci-fi book called True Names* about a similar idea: people have their true name in real life, and a digital nym that's just as valid per the impact of the nym's existence as the name. Operating the balance, and making a choice which to embrace (name vs. nym) is the big question. The novella was written prior to cloud computing and twitter/reddit/VR, and reading it now with all that tech in place is really something.

timClicks 5y ago

I'm sort of the opposite. I'm attracted to Twitter because a) I get to learn the whole person and b) even "heroes" are very accessible. We're all humans trying to figure it out.

Ansil849 5y ago

> If I play boardgames with Sue, that's enough. We meet, enjoy a beer and play some Catan and go our separate ways. That's a fine relationship. > If I follow Sue on social media, now I know her politics, religion, sex life, drug usage, opinions on every little thing.. and frankly, I don't care or want to. I'm happy just playing some Catan once in a while. > Historically you didn't need to know everything about everyone. Your friends will always have opinions or lifestyles you will find disagreeable - that is the nature of human existence. This hits the nail on the head perfectly, IMHO. Unfortunately, even the activities you describe have become politicized. For example, Settlers of Catan rebranding to just Catan.

phillryu 5y ago
I will say in this case Catan is cool and feels natural, like what people would call it if they're still playing the game a hundred years from now. So maybe it was politically sparked but the rebrand feels solid.
tharkun__ 5y ago
Living in the hole I am living in seems to shield me from this. I had no idea that "Settlers of Catan" has been rebranded to just "Catan" or why. In my circles we call it "Settlers", "Settlers of Catan" or just "Catan" interchangeably all the time. The "controversial" one is "Settlers" if you talk to someone you might also play a round of Settlers the computer game with (as in these guys: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Settlers https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Settlers)
ratww 5y ago
I had noticed the name change myself, but never consider it was politically motivated until you brought it up (especially considering mine is called "Catan: Trade Build Settle"). You're Sue in this case.
- Ansil849 5y ago
  I, in turn, unfortunately had to listen to fellow players complain about the name change throughout a whole game the other week.

travisporter 5y ago

Excellent theory. I think it's more than that - you now have tidbits of her opinion on every little thing without the benefit of nonverbal communication, empathy and nuance that you would if you actually talked to her for the same amount of time.

djKianoosh 5y ago
these two comments put together are so on point. it's almost as if we as a species are still learning how to communicate in this internet age

conductr 5y ago

What's kind of scary to me is that newly minted adults never knew a single Sue before social media.

MonaroVXR 5y ago

My conclusion (without any scientific verification) is people make assumption about my social media use. (I feel I've written this somewhere else) I use Facebook for my entertainment, reacting on car memes, sarcastic memes and genuinely car things and sports. Oh and I watch TV on Facebook. meeting people real life in this city has been.... ehhh special. (But I think the things I do on Facebook isn't special, there isn't that much politics.) I don't forget the times that I laughed so hard some posts, because it so funny. But at the end of the day... it's people and nothing is going to fix that.

0xedd 5y ago

Wrong. Facebook whistleblower says company made profits from making people suffer. People suffer from reading cesspool produce. Facebook used big data insight to expose users to cesspool produce. Twitter isn't dumber. (Assume this was written with kindness)

darkerside 5y ago

I think you bring your whole self to an in person encounter much more than you do to a social media presence. The difference is, there's no concept of proximity. Everything you say on social is shouted to the entire room, so if you want to say anything, you have to say it to everyone. In a personal encounter, you react to the people near you. If they recoil, you might explain. On social, many people are reacting in different ways and even more not reacting at all. So how do you react to all of those reactions? (You don't)

pilsetnieks 5y ago
It's the same as with any public discourse these days. If your audience is practically infinite, you have to have an extreme and attention-grabbing viewpoint, otherwise you're just one in a sea of many. If you're only talking to a handful of people, be it in real life or on social media, you don't need the extremism and can afford moderate opinions and nuance.
nullc 5y ago
> If they recoil, you might explain. Or shift the subset of your views that you're exposing to a set that would result in a mutually enjoyable conversation. In person you can also be passively present and still interacting without saying much. But on twitter you're not even in the room unless you speak and generate reactions, the most reliable way to get a reaction is to be irritating rather than cooperate to generate a mutually good time.

vikaveri 5y ago

I feel that if you're expecting your 'whole friend' to be exactly compatible with your opinions, you're not really looking for friends, you're looking for confirmation for your own opinions. I fully expect to disagree with a lot of things my friends say or think, and that there will be arguments. When we do argue, sometimes they change their mind, sometimes I change mine but mostly we agree to disagree. What makes a difference between a friend and a non-friend is that even if we disagree on some fundamental things and a lot of trivial things, our core values more or less align, and both sides respect the other and realize that there is no way you're right about everything. If you are, you don't have friends. You have followers and sycophants.

Fr0styMatt88 5y ago

Maybe part of it is just that typing text into a post doesn't viscerally feel like standing in front of a group of hundreds of people and shouting over a megaphone. I noticed that in myself when I first got into Facebook way back - when it was still novel, I tended to post 'stream of consciousness' type stuff. You intellectually know that your post is going to be seen by a lot of people, but _in the moment_ it doesn't _feel_ like that. I imagine that many people have a similar experience. You're yelling into a megaphone but it feels more like you're writing an entry in your diary.

enobrev 5y ago

I agree with this. I've found that in order to maintain my relationships with some good friends, I've had to stop following them on twitter (and other social media). On twitter, it's really easy for my to ignore all the insane and stupid things that complete strangers blather about on there all the time. There's a ton of noise, but just enough signal for me to check in regularly. But then suddenly I see a ridiculous post from someone I truly care about. Someone who I've known for years and know their spouse and kids and families. I can read their post in their voice as if it were said to me, personally. And now I'm angered and incensed and putting up maps and charts and pins in my head preparing a response that this person whom I care about deserves. But they weren't talking to me. They were shouting something crazy into a cacophony of crazy strangers. If we were at dinner we would have a long, deep, and nuanced conversation on the subject and we'd listen to each other's points and respond accordingly. But in 240 chars they're wrong and now I will reserve two hours of mental capacity to argue with myself about why. Nope. Just block them, knowing I'll see them next time they're in town, and we'll have a real conversations about real things in a forum more befitting two people trying to understand each other.

deltarholamda 5y ago

>Humanity either needs to "agree to disagree" on wide swaths of things we care a whole bunch about (abortion, firearms, lgbtq, etc) or we need to go back to not discussing those things in public or polite company. The original American Experiment allowed this sort of thing. Big Important Nationwide things happened at the federal level; everything else was done by the States. It's a pretty good idea. All social media suffers from the "talking to nobody/talking to everybody" aspect. A post on a social media site is really just you talking to yourself out loud. But it's a public place, and therefore everybody can hear you. So they talk out loud to themselves, but at you. If this sounds like a gaggle of homeless people shouting at each other about everything and nothing, that's because it is exactly that, only with a $25B market cap and a P/E ratio that looks more like the onset of hypertension.

polynomial 5y ago

It's Sue's decision whether to share the full range of her ideas and personality or not. It's the algorithm's decision to serve up the choicest bits with the highest polarization scores bc that seems to have the highest correlation with overall engagement. And feeding the compulsive need for argument seems to be the more profitable strategy over providing a framework for truly polite conversation.

swayvil 5y ago

I have a similar theory. That, in social media, we touch a different part of a person, than, say, irl. I think that when we read, or we're on the computer, we are in a kind of trance. Our unconscious self is exposed. It expresses itself, we all harbor a lot of dark feelings. And we are reactive. It's not a rational self. It's a self that gropes for the good stuff and kicks against the bad stuff and that's about it. Like an animal. It is also exposed and vulnerable. So when the flame hits we feel it deeply. I imagine us all to be like that demon in The Exorcist. A raging ego trapped in a world of words. Playing mind games. And when we are told that it's holy water, it burns just fine.

foldr 5y ago

> Humanity either needs to "agree to disagree" on wide swaths of things we care a whole bunch about (abortion, firearms, lgbtq, etc) or we need to go back to not discussing those things in public or polite company. There’s a third option, which is that discussion can lead to actual moral progress where society decides that certain views are just beyond the pale. A few decades ago people might have ‘agreed to disagree’ on whether interracial marriage was ok. Now society has formed a consensus on this issue and anyone who’s opposed to interracial marriage is part of an isolated fringe. Saying that we should agree to disagree on controversial issues sounds superficially reasonable - especially when you’re exhausted from reading some awful twitter thread. It won’t necessarily sound so great in retrospect. It’s also a luxury that people directly affected by the relevant issues don’t always have. The real problem isn't people debating controversial issues, which is fine and healthy and necessary for progress. The problem is the way that platforms like Twitter incentivize hot takes, rapid response, bullying, and other behavior that's not conducive to rational discussion. Also, anyone who thinks that intemperate public discourse on controversial topics is a new phenomenon should check out some of the things that Thomas Moore and Martin Luther said to each other: https://meansandmatters.wordpress.com/2009/07/21/my-favorite-st-thomas-more-quote/ https://meansandmatters.wordpress.com/2009/07/21/my-favorite...

taurusnoises 5y ago

"If I follow Sue on social media, now I know her politics, religion, sex life, drug usage, opinions on every little thing.. and frankly, I don't care or want to. I'm happy just playing some Catan once in a while." I have a slightly different view of this. People's opinions on things are always in flux, even if they sway heavily toward one side. What we see on social media is a person's opinions without the context of a human interaction. On social media, we see Sue's emotional response to politics without her having to negotiate that emotional response in relationship to another person sitting in front of her. She may "believe" what she says in the moment she types it, but put her in a room with a friend who disagrees and you can watch how her views shift, push back, concede, change, challenge, etc. On social media, there's very little of this taking place, because there's zero human intimacy at work. It belief in a vacuum not in relationship.

nullc 5y ago
and writing it down in public may make it a lot harder for Sue to change her views, or walk back an over reach after those interactions happen since at any point in the future she could be confronted with her prior dissonant statements.

_carbyau_ 5y ago

Eloquently expressed. Further thoughts: 1. Reaction/Social Interplay: If you play Catan (or tennis or amateur theatre group etc) with a person for long enough you will come to know these bits about them. However, as most small country town people know, you ignore or otherwise put up with "their stupidity" while trying not to shove what they see as "your stupidity" in their face. This is respect for others. Such respect helps preserve the alliance to get the outcome you want - a game of Catan. Hence, even Sue-the-Otherwise-Intolerable isn't all bad, they like to play Catan like you do right? As you eloquently advise, the internet doesn't "hide your stupidity from others" so that is grating. It also doesn't promote people ignoring your stupidity. It promotes "engagement"... 2. Shared experience Experience is how humans build trust/relationships. Y'know, a first date cliche is a movie then coffee or dinner. The shared movie experience forms a basis to trust each other ("Well they didn't yabber on the phone the whole time so they're not all bad...") and then talking about the experience after may yield new insights on that experience. And those insights are attributed to that person alone ("I didn't think of it that way, very good point Sue." or "Nope. That's just stupid Sue.") even though the experience itself is already in the past! Even though virtual experiences can be such a basis - IE Game of Thrones as "viral" thing - I submit that in person experiences are more powerful by far. You tolerate Sue-the-Otherwise-Intolerable in person to get your fix of Catan. But you wouldn't do that for a virtual Sue, you'd just move onto Bob, Mary, Joe or Jane or whoever else the game's matchmaker throws up.

Fogest 5y ago

I've had people show me things at work on things like reddit and I always try and avoid looking at their username simply because I don't want to be tempted to check what kinds of things they post. I've seen co-workers reddit accounts before and it is almost always surprising and feels too personal. I feel like I am learning things I don't care or need to know about a coworker. I totally agree that social media has made this a bigger issue than it used to be before social media. It also doesn't help that these social media sites are likely trying to feed you some intentionally controversial content as fear/anger can keep you engaged. Facebook showing a coworkers controversial political opinion on a matter right at the top of your feed feels intentional. I've also found social media, as well as the mass media constantly bombards you with the idea that you must pick a "side". If someone is anti-immigration, pro-abortion, pro firearms, and pro lgbtq you'd think it would make some of these online peoples heads explode. It's like they think it's not possible to have opinions and beliefs that align with both political "sides". The division that social media and mass media companies push is what I find is one of the most toxic things in the world currently. Trying to profit off creating hatred. It's pretty disgusting.

chemmail 5y ago

So you don't like to watch Kim Karhshan?

FalconSensei 5y ago

> Humanity either needs to "agree to disagree" on wide swaths of things we care a whole bunch about (abortion, firearms, lgbtq, etc) or we need to go back to not discussing those things in public or polite company. You can't 'agree to disagree' on those topics though, specially when laws ban abortion, for example. If you think we should do that, then making laws regarding those things (abortion, "don't say gay") would need to be completely forbidden and you would need to let people do what they want.

nicbou 5y ago
However, it's a lot easier to argue your case face to face. Perhaps it's because people are cooler within punching distance, but I think it's simply because they see the human being talking to them. Their imagination can't substitute you with a caricature of your side.

HWR_14 5y ago

> Humanity either needs to "agree to disagree" on wide swaths of things we care a whole bunch about (abortion, firearms, lgbtq, etc) or we need to go back to not discussing those things in public or polite company. Two out of three of those aren't just random positions. If you believe someone else is literally advocating for murdering children, I can see why you would judge them. Similarly, if you see people oppressing people like you for some reason, you should judge them. I will admit, I have no idea what the disagreement in modern society is with relation the LGBTQ people. Like, I can articulate both sides of the abortion debate. Hell, I can even understand the sides about firearms. But what is the dispute about LGBTQ?

throwaway0x7E6 5y ago
nicky0 5y ago
Trans activists vs certain feminists is a big debate currently.
blindmute 5y ago
The T part is contentious. Blue side wants trans women to be treated identically to women, based on their personal conception of identity, not necessarily tied to any external or societal factor. So if they say they're a trans woman, you call them "she" regardless of how masculine they make look or dress. Being trans is a valid and inherent part of a person. We need to educate children that gender is a social construct. Red side disagrees with the notion that personal identity overrides societal norms. It's an imposition, or a farce, to call a man in a dress a woman. Why should we change thousands of years of grammar because some people are nutcases? Being trans is a mental illness that instead of being treated is being celebrated and normalized, in turn harming society. It's a shame you're ill, but keep that out of our schools and get help. You can see how these viewpoints are not going to get along

hedgewitch 5y ago

> Humanity either needs to "agree to disagree" on wide swaths of things we care a whole bunch about ([...] lgbtq [...]) or we need to go back to not discussing those things in public or polite company. Does this cut both ways, where LGBTQ+ people also don't have to listen to how straight everyone is? I doubt it. So yeah, how about no? How about there is agreement or nothing? Because there's no way straight people are going to agree to disagree about whether they should be allowed to discuss their sexuality.

nyanpasu64 5y ago
I'd be fine with either not discussing relationships in public, or openly discussing both straight and non-straight relationships. Not sure which is more likely though.
mechanical_bear 5y ago
You constructed a straw man out of his comments very effectively. I didn’t gather that he meant you can’t mention your life, significant other, etc. I read it as maybe don’t discuss the political aspects of LGBT issues, etc
- hedgewitch 5y ago
  If you don't understand that the problem is that detractors have made simply being LGBTQ+ a political issue, you are not qualified to have an opinion here. I'm curious what you think you mean because there is no good answer. I also wouldn't have had to comment at all if people weren't casually asking people to instate don't ask don't tell in social settings.
  - vorpalhex 5y ago
    Remember to interpret someone's arguments in the strongest possible sense. Chastising others is great for moral superiority but it is a poor tool for discussion.
    - 5y ago

ninkendo 5y ago

I just want to say, hugely insightful comment. Or at the very least it helps me feel better about my decision to not be on any social media other than HN (not even Reddit) because of the things you describe. You hit the nail right on the head.

zachwill 5y ago

This is actually an excellent explanation that I’d never thought through before. Totally makes sense. Rarely would you see “the whole” of your whole Dunbar group + a few hundred more — so makes sense why it could turn into such a cesspool. Really interesting idea.

jsemrau 5y ago

>One of my pet theories for why social media is such a cesspool is that it exposes us to the whole of someone else. Yes! A thousand times yes! You are speaking out of my heart with that comment. That's what most current social networks get wrong. Just because I know someone, or met someone IRL and am now connected on the platform, I do not want to always know what they are up to. It's a pull not a push!

eloisius 5y ago

What you're describing is called "context collapse." Pre-social media you had face that you presented in different contexts, now you have one flattened out "you" feed.

jamaicahest 5y ago

I used to say, half jokingly, people need to learn to shut the **** up, myself included. Meaning just because you have an opinion you don't have an obligation to share it with everyone else. Me writing this comment illustrates that.

raptorraver 5y ago

This is point on. My wife is quite active on social while I'm not part of any social media (HN doesn't count, right?). We both have quite a different options about some political issues than our friends. It's been strange observing how her views about our friends are more negative and polarised than mine. Like, I don't really know or care what they think about politics, or what they think about my views. They are my friends and it's okay we disagree on stuff. When I meet them we seldom discuss about the dividing things, but when we do, we do so in respectful manner. I think when meeting in person we tend to find similarities with each other. In social media it's the opposite.

stevage 5y ago

That's half of it. The other problem is that now you are connected to Edna's unsavoury friends, and can now easily argue with them about any of these issues. Edna's dad might randomly join a conversation you were having about something unrelated. We're not really equipped to be so connected to people we don't agree with about everything.

thaumasiotes 5y ago

> Historically you didn't need to know everything about everyone. Well... that would only be true in an urban environment. And historically, urban environments accounted for an insignificant share of the population. The normal historical experience was that you knew everything about everyone else and they knew everything about you.

wyclif 5y ago

One of my pet theories for why social media is such a cesspool is that it exposes us to the whole of someone else Thing is, personal social media accounts don't expose you to the whole of someone else, they expose you to that part of someone without the buffer of small talk, low-level real life social interactions, non-verbal cues, work/school/routine-based camaraderie, and, as you put it, enjoying a beer and playing some Catan. The problem is that without that part of social interaction, you end up with raw opinion or dogma which doesn't have any "soft" dimension or transition layer, and that causes people to be reactionary rather than accepting.