Why do all social media platforms devolve into a popularity contest?
It feels we're in a new era of discourse on what's wrong with social media & how to fix it.
There is no shortage of things to blame. Blame the business model. Blame the advertisers. Blame the protocol,… Show more
Why do all social media platforms devolve into a popularity contest? It feels we're in a new era of discourse on what's wrong with social media & how to fix it. There is no shortage of things to blame. Blame the business model. Blame the advertisers. Blame the protocol,… Show more
Social networks became “social media,” which, at first, meant receiving content from people you chose to hear from. But in the quest to maximize engagement, the timeline of friends and people you picked to follow turned into a free-for-all battle for attention. And it turns out, for most people, your friends aren’t as entertaining as (god forbid) i... See more
Ev Williams • Making “Social” Social Again
Like Facebook, its more successful and more evil older brother, Twitter is built around dopamine loops. It encourages behaviors that are mostly mindless and driven by emotional triggers.
Om Malik • What Twitter Can Learn From Spotify
Part of what fueled social media’s rapid ascent, I contend, is its ability to short-circuit this connection between the hard work of producing real value and the positive reward of having people pay attention to you.
Cal Newport • Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World
Social media is designed to cycle through content rather than encouraging people to sit with it, to understand it at a deeper level. New content is the fuel on which these platforms run.
Luke Burgis • The Case for Silence
we’ve turned everything in life into a giant popularity contest–everything you say, everything you experience, everything you see, and even everything you feel–is a product of a giant worldwide counter of likes and follows. It’s a planet-wide exercise in objective convergence, a giant narcissism amplifier that cynically assumes that competing for m... See more
About
The internet as we know it today reliably brings out the worst in us. Our platforms incentivize the shallow and new, and our algorithms amplify outrage and despair. The result is an information landscape that keeps us fearful, hopeless, disconnected. It's like a virus that keeps humanity trapped in a destructive emotional state, keeping us at war w... See more