Saved by MK
Every "chronically online" conversation is the same
We have become conditioned to accept that viciously tearing down complete strangers online is normal and admirable, and that it is right and proper for a bad tweet from decades ago to ruin someone’s life. A new vocabulary – “doom-scrolling!” “hate-reading!” – is now necessary to capture how dysfunctional online activity has become.
Substack • Breaking off the engagement
sari added
I’m thinking out loud about this, but there’s something interesting about the idea that social-media platforms now create this real distance, in part by being text-heavy. And that distance can lead you to say things or do things you’d never do in the physical world. It also lowers the bar for engagement, which means that firing off a shitty tweet i... See more
The Atlantic • Lessons From 19 Years in the Metaverse
sari added
social-media platforms now create this real distance, in part by being text-heavy. And that distance can lead you to say things or do things you’d never do in the physical world. It also lowers the bar for engagement, which means that firing off a shitty tweet is easy and people do it without thinking. But there’s so much engagement and visibility ... See more
The Atlantic • Lessons From 19 Years in the Metaverse
Keely Adler added
by pulling millions of people into the potential audience for every post or tweet or photo, these companies force everyone to treat every conversation as a potential performance to millions of total strangers.
But conversations should not be performances, unless they are explicitly staged as such. Conversations should not be battleground
... See moreReframing the “Social Media” Problem As an Attention Crisis
sari added
something I try to keep in mind when writing about online communities is that they’re (usually) filled with real, complex people. They’re not just weird introverts or shut-ins or people trying to escape reality.
The Atlantic • Lessons From 19 Years in the Metaverse
Keely Adler added
something I try to keep in mind when writing about online communities is that they’re (usually) filled with real, complex people. They’re not just weird introverts or shut-ins or people trying to escape reality.
The Atlantic • Lessons From 19 Years in the Metaverse
Keely Adler added
Digital discourse creates a game-like structure in our perception of reality. For everything that happens, every fact we gather, every interpretation of it we provide, we have an ongoing ledger of the “points” we could garner by posting about it online. Sometimes, something will happen in real life that provides such an outstanding move in the game... See more