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I feel that you are missing his point. There is a trend towards emotional populist content on social networks. It's interesting to you because it's your friend

I feel that you are missing his point. There is a trend towards emotional populist content on social networks. It's interesting to you because it's your friends and it feels personal. However in a broader context its creating a society that is inward looking (walled garden of your friends) and concerned with re-enforcing social norms (the like button). How does this activity improve us as a society? Where is the creativity and freedom?

icebraining 13y ago
A single social networks doesn't have to be everything and all-encompassing to be useful; the place where you organize a family lunch is usually not the same where you run a LAN party or perform body painting. I do wish that social network wasn't Facebook, though.
potatolicious 13y ago
Your comment is fair, but I think you've imagined a creative, free society where the walled garden didn't exist - where it never existed in actuality. People have always been insular and self-contained within their circles. Said circles form early in life and change very slowly. Even when you move people around geographically, they quickly fall back into the same closed circles. In these circles they reinforce whatever social memes have developed - inside jokes, similar views, etc. Very few people in the world (though they do exist) actually continually meet new people outside of their existing groups. So sure, Facebook doesn't improve us as a society, nor is it a magical bastion of creativity and freedom - but life never was, and Facebook hasn't made it worse. Facebook is merely a magnification of who you are. If you were prone to sharing stupid motivational pictures, now your'e sharing a lot of them. If you surrounded yourself with constantly insightful, smart people, now you get to talk to a lot more of them, a lot more frequently. Facebook is what you make of it. I have a habit of squelching friends who don't post meaningful things. Click on the top right corner of their post and you can adjust their weighting in your feed - I have many people who essentially no longer contribute to my feed, and that's fine. Looking at my front page right now, nearly all of the information is stuff I actually care about.
saraid216 13y ago
> There is a trend towards emotional populist content on the internet. Fixed that for you.

icebraining 13y ago

A single social networks doesn't have to be everything and all-encompassing to be useful; the place where you organize a family lunch is usually not the same where you run a LAN party or perform body painting. I do wish that social network wasn't Facebook, though.

potatolicious 13y ago

Your comment is fair, but I think you've imagined a creative, free society where the walled garden didn't exist - where it never existed in actuality. People have always been insular and self-contained within their circles. Said circles form early in life and change very slowly. Even when you move people around geographically, they quickly fall back into the same closed circles. In these circles they reinforce whatever social memes have developed - inside jokes, similar views, etc. Very few people in the world (though they do exist) actually continually meet new people outside of their existing groups. So sure, Facebook doesn't improve us as a society, nor is it a magical bastion of creativity and freedom - but life never was, and Facebook hasn't made it worse. Facebook is merely a magnification of who you are. If you were prone to sharing stupid motivational pictures, now your'e sharing a lot of them. If you surrounded yourself with constantly insightful, smart people, now you get to talk to a lot more of them, a lot more frequently. Facebook is what you make of it. I have a habit of squelching friends who don't post meaningful things. Click on the top right corner of their post and you can adjust their weighting in your feed - I have many people who essentially no longer contribute to my feed, and that's fine. Looking at my front page right now, nearly all of the information is stuff I actually care about.

saraid216 13y ago

> There is a trend towards emotional populist content on the internet. Fixed that for you.