what is Social Media doing to us?
Articles about social media platforms and their effects on society.
Jerod Morris and
what is Social Media doing to us?
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.
Jonah Peretti • The Anti-SNARF Manifesto
Very few people really have their own opinion. Very often, their opinion is just the opinion of someone else. Perfectly prepared, warmed up and served medium well.
I'm not above this, and I'd argue not many people are. All our opinions are shaped by other peoples' opinion. It's how this all works. The question is just, how many opinions do I require
... See moreWe have a chance to do work we’re proud of, and to do it for people who care. And maybe we can do it in a way that will lead them to tell the others. Traffic from an algorithm isn’t the point, it’s a random bonus.
No sense being a puppet, especially if you can’t be sure who is pulling the strings or why.
Seth Godin • You Can’t Beat the Algorithm
We turn into each other’s audience, judging from afar. We become each other’s data harvesters, knowing who went where, at when and with whom. We even become each other’s digital oppressors: we form a limited perception of who we think someone is based on what they post, and when they do something that doesn’t conform to the imposed image of them,... See more
Sherry Ning • Stop Looking At Each Other
the danger of social media isn’t that we are being watched. it’s that we become watchers.
Stand for something that’s all your own. Help us find unexpected things and think unexpected thoughts. Don’t create for the algorithm (as tempting as it is to try and give it what it seems to want, to help your brand gain visibility). Don’t drift to the middle in search of eyeballs. Think bigger, more long-term, more societal-level, even. Do things... See more
Beth Bentley • Is the Algorithm Making Us LESS Stylish, LESS Interesting, LESS...ourselves?
we’re all becoming conformists.
When it comes to the quality of our thoughts and judgments, the amount of information a communication medium supplies is less important than the way the medium presents the information and the way, in turn, our minds take it in. The brain's capacity is not unlimited. The passageway from perception to understanding is narrow. It takes patience and
... See moreKnowing you live in a magpie culture is worth keeping in mind. If, as Isaiah Berlin once said, “foxes” are people who know many little things, and “hedgehogs” people who know one big thing, then the more recent “magpie” is someone who knows nothing yet manages to maintain a beautiful nest of ideas that aren’t theirs.
We live in a culture of magpies
provocative - on how the only people that are famous on social media are 1) famous to begin with or 2) people unbothered by minor theft of ideas because stealing other people’s content is the only strategy that can reliably build large audiences from scratch on websites with high content demands.
