> Even before written language, storytellers decided what oral traditions they would or would not pass on, changing it each time they told it. Replace "social m

> Even before written language, storytellers decided what oral traditions they would or would not pass on, changing it each time they told it. Replace "social media" with "broadcast networks" or "newspapers" or "scientific journals" and it is the same issue. This is not the same thing. Pre-social media/pre-Internet I was not clueless about whether my communications with my "friends" were being received because almost every channel I had available to me was synchronous and there was much less noise. Now, social media presents a broadcast interface and many people assume that their posts are being displayed to their friends. This is not actually the case. When your friends don't respond, you don't know if it's because your friends have stopped caring about you, they're just not interested in what you said, or some algorithm decided to hide you from them---and most people probably do not seriously consider the latter most of the time. Whether we need intermediaries or not is one question, but whether we need feedback in our communication is settled: we do, and we leave it to the whims of algorithms optimized for engagement to our peril.