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I was originally going to write a whole drawn out thing, but I realized it wasn't necessary. One interesting aspect to think about on how social media affects
by Unearned5161 4y ago
I was originally going to write a whole drawn out thing, but I realized it wasn't necessary.
One interesting aspect to think about on how social media affects democracy is the aspect of education. I can't find the video right now, but I remember seeing or maybe reading a post that said how you watch all these videos on all these topics ranging from math to economics to civil engineering etc, and you build this false perception of "oh yeah I know this shit", but really you don't, you know one summary that was presented to you.
Those channels: Tom Scott, Johnny Harris, 3B1B, etc. Are all amazing in the time they spend learning their material and then producing such high quality instruction, but even if you watched an hour long video on econ you still wouldn't be an economist. A lot of us know this, but there are a lot of us that don't, and we then go to vote on bills and politicians thinking we know the implications of our actions and how it might affect the country when we really don't.
Of course this isn't just a conversation about social media and it can devolve into a conversation about the dangers of an uneducated democracy overall. But I feel that social media definitely contributes to this false sense of educated that a lot of people have, pair that with echo chambers, misinformation, and an addictive formula and you've got a troublesome future.