4 ms·
I thought those things were BS. Social media is different. It’s addictive to a degree that goes far beyond TV or video games and the content is shockingly mindl
by api 3y ago
I thought those things were BS. Social media is different. It’s addictive to a degree that goes far beyond TV or video games and the content is shockingly mindless and toxic.
The average content on social media (at least if you let yourself be led by algorithms) is easily as bad as the worst content on cable TV. Some of it is worse than almost anything on TV in a very specific way: it’s utterly mindless. I’m continuously shocked by the mindlessness of what trends on YouTube for instance. It lacks even basic plot or structure, just endless repetitive spectacle or people faking excited reactions while doing the most banal things. It barely qualifies as filler yet people eat it up.
Then of course you have the political and cultural trash. Right, left, up, down, but no matter what it is it must be dumb and extreme and inflammatory. The most successful stuff in this category either serves to inflame hatred toward someone else or feed narcissism in the target audience.
Absolute trash, it seems, is what maximizes engagement. I don’t like what it says about humanity.
- 52-6F-62 3y agoI think it says what the mystics were always saying: Most people are like they’re asleep. Great art works to break people out of that sleep—that includes pop music and TV and whatever else. The kind of garbage that gets elevated by these algorithms does the opposite—it buries peoples minds and numbs their senses. There’s a lot of money to be made off of people who are continuously preoccupied rather than present and feeling.