Is internet social media bad for societal stability?

[rebelknight]

I never talked about addiction.
Oh you're talking to snazz.

 

[Snazzelicious]

You have the reading comprehension of a middle schooler.

 

[Captured Joe]

Yes social media is from Satan, just like Heavy Metal and Pokémon

 

[Bromden]

More than likely, any level of anonymity makes people show their true character, see driving as a non-internet example.

I don't think that it's the "true character" that is the online persona. If anything, it's the character forced into a limited form of expression.
When I'm physically among people, it is also my character traits that stop me from being blunt**** to everyone around. When online, many tools of communication are not applicable (gestures, look, tone, etc.), so people will try to emphasize the things they say in ways that can show them annoying/stupid/arrogant/whatnot to the outside observer.
Of course, the on- and offline personas, being faces of the one and the same person, have great effect on each other. I don't think that people who regulary spout bull**** or are assholes online can be generally decent people when they get up from the computer. And vice versa; 9+ years of exposure to TW made me more of an arrogant ******* in RL than I was before.
Is online social media harmful? Yes, if you don't have enough real (as in, not limited to computers) social experiences, you can lose your footing about what's it like to be a human among humans. Keeping things balanced is important (as in everything).

The world we live in is better than it's ever been and will, more than likely, only continue to improve.

That is true in a general sense, but not true everywhere.

 

[Austupaio]

Both fair rebuttals, although on the last point of second topic, I feel like even our North Koreas and Yemens will improve no matter how much they fight it, just through osmosis.

 

[Bromden]

I was thinking about the local things actually, where life for the average prole has been steadily deteriorating for the last 25-30 years. There's a rule of robber barons with no hope of it changing anytime soon, there are more homeless people than ever, the form of state is debt slavery, more and more people are fleeing the country, etc. True, we don't have people made disappear by the party and such, but quality of life definitely isn't on an upward route (except for the top ~20%, that is).

 

[Austupaio]

True, we don't have people made disappear by the party

You sure they just haven't gotten better at it?

But I'll give you that, I guess I'm more speaking in the long term than, say, the next few years to a decade.

 

[Bromden]

Indeed I've been wondering before if King Viktor the Godsend did make people disappear already. He definitely is building a police state and acts as the worst commie leaders did (pretending that The Party of his can't do anything bad, every critique against them is an attack against the good of the country and the people by dangerous elements, etc.).

 

[rebelknight]

You have the reading comprehension of a middle schooler.

unessesary insult.
Also, english is not my first language.

 

[Mad Vader]

Nonsense, you are bilingual and practicing English daily with the peoples here.

 

[crodio]

Social media can be used either to try to contain or to conduct the steam that comes from the inherent instability of society, or just let it blow off in a safe virtual environment. But I don't know if this 'safe' virtual public space will remain virtual for long, it isn't really absolutely separated from reality right now I believe. Social media seems hard to control, so I guess it will remain a destabilizing factor.

 

[Dusk Voyager]

Social media can be used either to try to contain or to conduct the steam that comes from the inherent instability of society, or just let it blow off in a safe virtual environment. But I don't know if this 'safe' virtual public space will remain virtual for long, it isn't really absolutely separated from reality right now I believe. Social media seems hard to control, so I guess it will remain a destabilizing factor.

It's just another tool that doesn't dictate anything by itself and can be used in many ways. You can temporarily take advantage of a short-lived fad to influence people even if you can't create one so that even if the fad wears off, the influence lasts longer.

Also, there are some AI programs guessing users' personality and interests from their social media posts, comments, likes etc, which tends to make social media more "predictable". Not to mention all forms of communication come with a little bit of unpredictability. It's about keeping it down to an "acceptable" level. If people just refuse to talk, write, ask, answer or whatever to you or be "influenced", you can't do anything about it anyway.

 

[Anarion]

You have the reading comprehension of a middle schooler.

Nonsense, you are bilingual and practicing English daily with the peoples here.

Don't be dicks.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Are social media (facebook, reddit and so on) actually bad for the stability of our society?

Not necessarily, but I do think information overload is a big deal and has prevented the internet from being the big free love commune which early internet pioneers predicted.

For instance if you come into contact with 1,000 people per day with a different opinion to you then so what—you deal with it in the same way you would in real life by trying to pigeonhole everyone. Not a big deal. What is a big deal is the amount of information a person can come into contact with on the internet. Say you're an old person whose experience of the outside world is largely confined to newspapers you might not read that often, and then suddenly scrolling Facebook and seeing page after page of alarmism from every source imaginable, accompanied by videos which are hard to dismiss as false, as opposed to images which can easily be dismissed as photoshopped and so on. It probably isn't healthy for some people and might warp their sense of perspective.

 

[RalliX]

This being a form of social media with a form of anonymity, I have indeed been exposed to many ideas which personally, I would not have had access to otherwise.

I've said in the past that this website(the people on it) have taught me many of my failures in terms of philosophy, politics, and socialization.
The people who spew vitriol without being capable of reconsidering and re-understanding or organizing their position, are simply not intelligent enough to use the site properly.
But I'm sure I've appeared to be such a person. I was immature when I came here, and I started learning some things that allowed me to build a more complete perspective over time.

I've changed my philosophical and political opinions a couple times now, in very fundamental ways.
I stepped out of my echo chamber, and built access to many sources of information, with stronger critical analysis of each.

And I've certainly got ways to go. Social media will help me get there because I've learned the need to do that with it. Some people haven't learned that this whole internet thing is not just a vehicle to convince others of your own opinion, but to receive critical input. A lot of people think they've gotten to the end of the road with their study of truth.

 

[Vermillion_Hawk]

Does your strong critical analysis still involve advocating for lax gun laws on the basis of anecdote?

 

[Austupaio]

Some people haven't learned that this whole internet thing is not just a vehicle to convince others of your own opinion

Does your strong critical analysis still involve advocating for lax gun laws on the basis of anecdote?

 

[Varalir]

Hmm, this thread seems appropriate. Do any of you guys's know an app or some way for me to ban sites on my computer?

 

[Calradianın bilgesi]

I've found SelfControl very useful for Mac. There's a significant difference in number of words I write when I use self-control. There are other apps like Freedom for Windows but Freedom is not free afaik.

 

[Varalir]

Damn. Maybe there's a windows version of SelfControl