what is Social Media doing to us?

The rise of botlike behavior over the past decade has led to the creation of a meme: the NPC, or Non-Player Character. Originally a term to describe video game characters whose behavior is completely computer-controlled, it now also refers to real world humans who behave as predictably as video game NPCs, giving scripted responses and engaging in... See more

Whereas the modernity proceeded by differentiating, fragmenting, and specializing on the model of the machine, the digital age is marked by connection and entanglement. McLuhan opened Understanding Media with observations along these lines. “The restructuring of human work and association was shaped by the technique of fragmentation that is the

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Another study found that college students in 2010 were 40 percent less empathetic than students from 30 years earlier. A big contributor to this is undoubtedly the rise of technology and social media, which encourages fleeting superficial connection, not empathy.

In another study, researchers put multiple pairs of strangers in a room together and

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If the early internet was serving beer and wine that brought people together, today’s internet is dealing crack and fentanyl that tears people apart. The consumer isn’t winning when they are addicted to a product that makes them unhappy, and when they are spending hours each day using products they would pay money to make disappear.