Do you think technology and social media is the evil people suppose it to be?

completedit

deleted

corner of hells

completedit wrote: »

I just watched the Social media dilemma on Netflix and have read a book by one of the early investors(contributor on the show, as well) of Facebook in which he speaks out about how Facebook has waivered from its original purpose; instead solely focused on growth and advertising revenue.

But from the interviews I can't help but think these tech dorks live in a bubble. It's not as if other forms of technology have not been used for malicious propaganda; the radio was used by the Nazi's to spread nefarious propaganda. If you listened to people on this show, you'd swear life was all candy floss and ice cream before the advent of/and explosion of social media. I have seen statistics of teenage suicides which have skyrocketed since 2009(year smartphones began to become ubiquitous) but as the first kernel of statistics goes 'Correlation does not imply causation'- There could be a huge number of other factors at play that have led to this jump. Perhaps its a blowback against the fallacy that 'you can be anything you want' or less religion or the increased inequality in the west world. Nobody has a framework to live their life anymore. Just 'be you' and 'find yourself' seems to be the extent of it.
I'm not saying social media isn't to blame but I think these dorks want to have a life mission after making millions; so they resist the very thing that contributed to their wealth. Just an idea; don't get me wrong social media has downfalls(the hysteria over coronavirus, polarization, the way it can be used to drum up hatred) but I think its overstated.

Portend it is .

Infowars tells me it is, that lad broadcasting from his dingy bedroom warning that liberalism will unironically shut down all of our liberties.

Some people need more fresh air.

Gretas Gonna Get Ya!

Greater connectivity has simultaneously brought about greater isolation for many people.

Because having 500 friends on facebook doesn't necessarily mean you have a deep connection with any of these people on a human level... you are digitally connected to their lives, but you are mostly just friends with your smartphone!

Technology has actually enabled many people to create a barrier between them and the rest of the world. Whether that is intentional or incidental.

completedit

My OP was too long so I deleted it. I basically don't think it is; technology can always be used for nefarious ends. Goebbels had radios distributed throughout Germany to spread their word.
Correlation does not imply causation. Suicides may have spiked in the western world(America) amongst young people since 2009(year smartphones became ubiquitous) but there could be many many many factors contributing to this(inequality, liberalization and individualism at its peak, lack of religion, financial crisis and the fallout) Watched the social media dilemma on facebook and the tech nerds rallying against it seem to be caught up in their own bubble of self-importance.

banie01

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Infowars tells me it is, that lad broadcasting from his dingy bedroom warning that liberalism will unironically shut down all of our liberties.

Some people need more fresh air.

Ahhh...
The paradox exposed!
How do we know it's an existential threat?
If a social media or website powered by the deadly threat doesn't tell us so? :eek:

Gregor Samsa

completedit wrote: »

My OP was too long so I deleted it.

You should probably put it, or at least something, back.

Otherwise we don't know what the point of the thread is.

Ger Roe

No. Tech and social media are one of mankind's greatest achievements. The problem is people.

Once you make it easy for everyone to access, you drop to the standards of the lowest levels of society and it all goes downhill. People abuse the facility that is presented to them, because it has been made easy for them do so.

Tech and social media can do so much for us, but people will always let us down.

touts

Visit Egypt. Monuments built 4000 years ago are covered with engravings displaying the might of the Pharos (even if they had lost the battles). That was the latest high tech media of that time.

1o059k7ewrqj3n

I don’t like that it reads my mind and then uses that knowledge to suggest products to me.

completedit

Steyr 556 wrote: »

I don’t like that it reads my mind and then uses that knowledge to suggest products to me.

It's my own belief on the individual level it's not that big of a deal. I think people are told they should care about something but their actions contradict this. Cognitive dissonance is amazing.

Gretas Gonna Get Ya!

completedit wrote: »

It's my own belief on the individual level it's not that big of a deal. I think people are told they should care about something but their actions contradict this. Cognitive dissonance is amazing.

People take part in the matrix, doesn't necessarily mean they like being stuck in it!

ranto_boy

Social media is designed to keep you "engaged" and wanting more of it. Fear and anger are pretty good emotions to nudge you into wanting more of it. I don't know a single person who uses Twitter actively, who isn't in a near daily enragement or busy backing up "their team" on whatever the trending issue of the day is.

I don't think that's healthy.

People can't even picture just sitting back and enjoying a good shte without whipping their phones out.

B.A._Baracus

People are the problem. They are the ones writing their bile and clicking post.
social media is a platform for people to share that. Before it, it was internet forums like this very one that the same sort used. You even still read bile posted on here.

jaxxx

B.A._Baracus wrote: »

People are the problem. They are the ones writing their bile and clicking post.
social media is a platform for people to share that. Before it, it was internet forums like this very one that the same sort used. You even still read bile posted on here.

This. This. 100000x this. Technology and social media is just an outlet, not the source.

indioblack

completedit wrote: »

deleted

Not sure.
But it's been essential this year.

McGinniesta

Technology and social media have tremendous power and potential for good if used in the correct fashion.

However, most social media websites have a dark side to them that can be very easily demonstrated.

Twitter has become a digital sewer and the glory days of youtube are well and truly over.

Others will follow.

Girls putting pictures of their breakfasts and their arses up on instagram has become tiresome.

I have no problem with technology or social media really. We are users of boards.ie here. It is also a social media platform of sorts.

What I have a problem with is any social media that uses an algorithm to decide what I should see.

Facebook started to get popular when I was in college. It was very much like boards. The posts of other people were shown to me in a FIFO / LIFO format.

Before I deleted Facebook and most of my other social media accounts however the algorithm was deciding what I should see. Some of my friends could post 100 things and I would see nothing of it. Another friend might post one thing and it would go to the top of the feed.

That I think is absolutely toxic and I will not use any social platform that over relies on using it. At the very least to use such a platform again it should _default_ to that algorithm but allow users to change this to FIFO/LIFO if they so wish.

Deise Vu

jaxxx wrote: »

This. This. 100000x this. Technology and social media is just an outlet, not the source.

I can’t agree with this. Unregulated social media is an opportunity for every crackpot and amoral human to spew their bile, misinformation and misdirection when it suits, for personal gain, nefarious purposes or just for the sheer hell of it.

Mankind has been given a tool that allows anyone with a phone connection access to pretty much every library of information ever written. Yet the world has never been dumber in my opinion.

Deise Vu

Deise Vu wrote: »

I can’t agree with this. Unregulated social media is an opportunity for every crackpot and amoral human to spew their bile, misinformation and misdirection when it suits, for personal gain, nefarious purposes or just for the sheer hell of it.

Mankind has been given a tool that allows anyone with a phone connection access to pretty much every library of information ever written. Yet the world has never been dumber in my opinion.

But who is going to do the regulation?

jaxxx

Deise Vu wrote: »

I can’t agree with this. Unregulated social media is an opportunity for every crackpot and amoral human to spew their bile, misinformation and misdirection when it suits, for personal gain, nefarious purposes or just for the sheer hell of it.

Mankind has been given a tool that allows anyone with a phone connection access to pretty much every library of information ever written. Yet the world has never been dumber in my opinion.

So it's technology's fault, not people's?


Oh brother.. .. .. Accountability, people need to take accountability for their actions. Don't blame technology when technology doesn't act with a will. As I said, tech is only another outlet. It's people that are the cause. If we remove tech, another way will be found. Chaos is part and parcel of human nature.

completedit

completedit wrote: »

Watched the social media dilemma on facebook and the tech nerds rallying against it seem to be caught up in their own bubble of self-importance.

Sam Harris and Tristan Harris (no relation I believe) had a fairly decent conversation about it this week. I have not seen "The Social Dilemma" myself - but perhaps a 1:1 interview with Tristan is less injected with Self Importance than a movie featuring him put together by producers editors and directors of a documentary?

I did not get a smack of self importance off the conversation anyway. More genuine concern from him.

jaxxx

jaxxx wrote: »

Accountability, people need to take accountability for their actions. Don't blame technology when technology doesn't act with a will. As I said, tech is only another outlet. It's people that are the cause.

Viruses and Bacteria also do not act with a will. But they simulate goals and agendas quite well all the same. And their effects do moderate human behaviour.

We should of course hold people accountable _to_ that behaviour. Panic Buying during the first wave of the pandemic for example. But we would be remiss to ignore the role the virus played in bringing out or accentuating that behaviour.

I would say the same for our social media algorithms. I agree with you that human nature and behaviour is the issue - but I would not ignore how the algorithms primed to promote outrage exacerbate that issue either.

Gretas Gonna Get Ya!

jaxxx wrote: »

So it's technology's fault, not people's?


Oh brother.. .. .. Accountability, people need to take accountability for their actions. Don't blame technology when technology doesn't act with a will. As I said, tech is only another outlet. It's people that are the cause. If we remove tech, another way will be found. Chaos is part and parcel of human nature.

Well people, with all of our failings and foibles, are the ones that created the technology... so if it was created by imperfect creatures, why would we assume that the technology is blameless or faultless?

I would strongly argue, that platforms like bookface and twatter etc were inherently flawed ideas to begin with... which is why they are creating so much dysfunctional behaviour in society.

It's not just people misusing these mediums - the mediums themselves are a serious problem. The way they're designed is a big issue.

_Brian

No different mostly to printed media or spoken word.

They can all be used as either a positive or negative force.

Like a piece of a stick, it can be given to someone to use as a crutch to help them or it could be used to bludgeon them to death.

McGinniesta

jaxxx wrote: »

So it's technology's fault, not people's?


Oh brother.. .. .. Accountability, people need to take accountability for their actions. Don't blame technology when technology doesn't act with a will. As I said, tech is only another outlet. It's people that are the cause. If we remove tech, another way will be found. Chaos is part and parcel of human nature.

This is true. However, while people who use social media and techologywill inevitably abuse it then so will those who administer and design it.

We've all heard about hacking and misuse of information and other abuses. This is a two way street.

Gretas Gonna Get Ya!

_Brian wrote: »

No different mostly to printed media or spoken word.

They can all be used as either a positive or negative force.

Like a piece of a stick, it can be given to someone to use as a crutch to help them or it could be used to bludgeon them to death.

Too simplistic.

Social media is not some inanimate object, it's alive and pulls unsuspecting people into it's twisted web...

_Brian

_Brian wrote: »

No different mostly to printed media or spoken word.

They can all be used as either a positive or negative force.

Like a piece of a stick, it can be given to someone to use as a crutch to help them or it could be used to bludgeon them to death.

That's a great phrase.

El Tarangu

In my life, I have only ever seen the upsides - handy for keeping on contact with people (I'm living abroad), I can follow interesting pages that cater to my interests and learn new things, etc.

But you only have to look and see all the Covid-truthers, vaccine-deniers, Gemma O'Doherty followers, etc etc, so see that there are negative impacts also.

Imagine someone had told you 20 years' ago that in 2020, there would be a vibrant and growing community of people in the world who think that the earth is flat - you'd have laughed them out of it. So it does give oxygen to some of the more fringe (and sometimes dangerous) delusions.

completedit

El Tarangu wrote: »

In my life, I have only ever seen the upsides - handy for keeping on contact with people (I'm living abroad), I can follow interesting pages that cater to my interests and learn new things, etc.

But you only have to look and see all the Covid-truthers, vaccine-deniers, Gemma O'Doherty followers, etc etc, so see that there are negative impacts also.

Imagine someone had told you 20 years' ago that in 2020, there would be a vibrant and growing community of people in the world who think that the earth is flat - you'd have laughed them out of it. So it does give oxygen to some of the more fringe (and sometimes dangerous) delusions.

But is part of public debate not allowing people express their view? Like there is justification for the protests about Covid. Gemma O'Doherty is a loon but she was protesting that it wouldn't be illegal for people to congegrate. People criticised her on Twitter and then went and congregated in Dame Lane or wherever else.

Greyfox

[Deleted User] wrote: »

What I have a problem with is any social media that uses an algorithm to decide what I should see.

It works though, YouTube is very addictive for this reason as theirs always interesting videos been suggested. Particularly the way twitter/facebook works it creates more stupid and ignorant people that dont realise their feed is showing only one side of an argument but again it's stupid people who are to blame not social media