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There is no net positive impact from social networking services, or indeed any other medium powered by advertising where the operators thereof have realized tha
by EarlKing 4y ago
There is no net positive impact from social networking services, or indeed any other medium powered by advertising where the operators thereof have realized that hatred can be monetized. People have always disagreed with one another and clashed over political views... but only in the last 15 years have people been so polarized, and I think we can directly attribute it to conditioning as a direct result of participation on networks that incentivize people to consume hatred for clicks.
- t-writescode 4y agoFamilies around the world and across continents have been able to keep in touch due to social networks. For all the deserved hate, some good has come.
- EarlKing 4y agoFamilies kept in touch prior to that with little things called Email and Phone Calls and Snail Mail. Ad-driven networks were never necessary.
- ohiovr 4y agoSharing memes wasn't quite as satisfying as a long distance phone call.
- jshen 4y agoYou don’t need a social network for that, just a messaging app. The idea that families would not be able to keep in touch without social media is absurd and obviously wrong.
- darawk 4y agoYou don't need them, but friction matters. You can stay in touch via the postal service. That does not mean that newer mediums with lower friction and more capabilities do not deliver real value to people. Whether or not social media is a net positive, no serious person can argue that they do not deliver value to large numbers of people.
- gsatic 4y agoWhat total nonsense! Facebook added a Like Count next every comment my family made and thanks to that totally fucked social dynamics for good.
- nradov 4y agoFamilies mostly like to share photos. Facebook works far better than any messaging app for that use case.
- jshen 4y agoDoes it? I just opened Facebook, scrolled for a while, and didn’t see any family photos. I saw a bunch of lizard brain short videos of people fighting in road rage incidents, attractive women dancing and such, airsoft gun games (no idea why Facebook thinks I’d like this), and other similar types of things not related to my family. I actually liked Facebook when it mostly showed me photos of friends and family, but I’m guessing that isn’t profitable enough.
- nradov 4y agoThe feed really depends on what you have reacted to in the past. I routinely "hide all from" most pages and friends-of-friends so I mostly only see original content from friends and family.
- jshen 4y agoI never told it to show me short form video of random things not related to my family and friends. I also never reacted to it. The idea that FB is about staying in touch with family, and that it's the best way to do that, is absurd when you look at what FB is today.
- vlovich123 4y agoBelieve it or not, but my family made a point of keeping in touch with distant relatives waaaay before social networks like Facebook. Heck, they did this back in the day when mail was the only mechanism (arguably mail & telephones are themselves social networks just in a different modality). Now it has made that easier and maybe cheaper (although only if you ignore messaging apps). I'm not sure there's data one way or the other to suggest that it has enabled new familial connections that wouldn't otherwise have happened. Even in the digital erra, we've had
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]