We had a really good speaker at our school last year who talked about understanding conflict resolution. Part of an effort to improve student mental health. The only thing I didn't like about her presentation was what she said on social media "Social media? my advice is stay away!" big audience chuckle from teachers and parents
And that laugh is because most know we won't really stay away. And we admire those who don't use social media like they are training for a marathon. 2/
Is "stay away" realistic advice for young people? Or for ANY people? It drives me nuts that some of the people with the best judgement, the cooler heads, the deeper thinkers, think that just ignoring social media is a solution.
Any format of information sharing can be "bad" yellow journalism, propaganda TV networks. All media present an opportunity to control the public will and so all media can be put to dishonest uses.
If I thought that "Social Media" meant using X or Facebook... I might agree with "stay away" But, that isn't the whole universe (we know that here, but who else knows?) and these are the kind of people who should know!
In the future social media will be media. The end.
What will that be like? We are building it now. Please for the love of God we need smart people to participate in this project. 4/4
@futurebird So true. I live in an area (rural VT) where people take certain things for granted as "social goods" including things like "Screen time is bad m'kay?" and it makes me bonkers.
For many, especially people enduring long isolating winters, even small connections can be a big deal. Putting an aspect of "This could be really bad for you, or for kids!" on top of it is not helpful. Teaching people to responsibly use technology and anticipate some pitfalls, is the helpful option here.
@jessamyn@futurebird It’s really funny to me when people are like. “OMG social media cuts us off from one another! My kids are phone all the time instead of hanging out in person.” And it’s like OK. How close to their friends do your kids live tho? Most Americans need a car to reach anywhere and most kids can’t drive. Social media is a solution to a pre-existing problem. Predatory algorithms and advertising are the problem, not the idea of sending really fast letters with pictures.
@jessamyn I think of the joy an old couple experienced when they could 'talk' with their children and grandchildren in England - from Australia. 'That' is Social Media. Sharing experiences in real time. @futurebird
@futurebird when talking "social media" it's the mischaracterization of commercialized media sites as "social media". Those sites push engagement by manipulating feeds to drive more ads often with negative mental health consequences. Unlike those sites non commercialized sites like the Fediverse are about socializing and can be a positive influence on ones mental health.
@futurebird Yes, definitely. When I say that "social media" isn't either, I'm really referring to the billionaire owned social data aggregation platforms that fooled us all into thinking they were providing a service to humanity, when what they were really doing was turning us all into livestock, or at best, serfs, to be farmed for their sole benefit.
I've been on the Internet since 1986. I was part of the generation that saw the potential for this technology to revolutionize the way people communicated, and was also naive enough to fail to see how it would later be exploited by those who desire and demand power over others.
But, the good news is, the underlying technology is still as revolutionary and subversive of centralized power as it was designed to be by, ironically, the US military. The protocols that run the Internet were designed to withstand the destruction of large portions of the Internet. It is inherently decentralized.
@futurebird and perhaps more importantly, we need programmers to remember that. The "dot com" boom of the 1990s was every bit as addictive to coders, as the rise of the cocaine-fueled financial industry during the 1980s.
We need hackers to remember that stock options and wealth are less important than creating a better world for those who can't create it for themselves.
@linglingo@futurebird
I notice that a lot of critiques of all social media are based on the ideas that some billionaires have of social media, like addictive use of likes, engagement trought emotional impact, and a hierarchical economy of attention.
Those critiques are based on the worldview of the enemy, and that is not good politics.
<<Imagine if in the early days of movable type, there were people going around saying "don't read pamphlets, they are full of misinformation">>
I don’t have hard historical data on this, but I suspect that they were. AFAIK pamphlets were quickly used to spread conspiracy theories and misinformation, just like any other free publication channel. People haven’t really changed all that much. 😎
@khoji@futurebird Early modern pamphlets were absolutely wild. The Reformation (as one of many examples) was very much a propaganda war using early European printing technology.
To add to your argument, I really like this article on how the concept of "spend less time on social media" is tied to colonialist views of "wilderness:"
The Great Offline: The concept of “offline” is built on the earlier concept of “wilderness,” inheriting its flaws and hazards
@silverwizard@futurebird As always with Plato, there's a lot going on there. It's kind of a pet peeve of mine when people take Plato as being against writing and story telling when he was such a master of both. Rest assured, Plato was aware of, and fully intended, the irony of a literary and rhetorical work criticizing literary and rhetorical works.
I don't think so. I hear this most from people who are otherwise very media savvy who had disgusting experiences with corporate social media like twitter. And they make a big deal of not having any handles.
Which is fine. But it's not advice that will work for everyone.
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