A study a few yrs ago pointed out that if you have engaged family and friends then FB et al strengthens the relationships. If you don't have family and friends it contributes to isolation , mental health issues.
Facebook always had such a powerful ability to *facilitate* relationships. The fact that it constantly tries to nudge you into them was the real problem. It can only ever predict who you are close to — or want to be close to — but, as we learned, its prediction capabilities are *so bad.*
Thanks for sharing this. My day job requires that I interact with many, many different types of people, face to face, in unexpected intervals. This means that I interact *mostly* with people who aren’t like me. I find it invigorating and beautiful.
And then I go online, and I’m horrified by how boring and unanimous it all is. I find myself arguing that it’s worth getting to know people who aren’t like us, and I’m met with outraged indifference. (I’m the one giving the hopeful “have conversations with different types of people” message you allude to at the end of this essay.)
I have more thoughts, but I will leave it at that. Thanks for writing this!
As a sufferer of "have to read news I don't need and have to engage with commenters" syndrome, I think it comes down to anxiety and curiosity. We just gotta know if there's a danger around the corner, over the next hill.
It's the same as gambling, and social media has been compared to slot machines: they've found a hack into the backdoor of human decision-making, hitting us in weaknesses: curiosity, status anxiety, and that dopamine drip that comes from reading one affirming tidbit after another: "Oooh, sick burn, George Takei! That'll show 'em!"
Anybody still on Twitter for any reason but the coldest calculations about commercial promotion can "explain" to you why they "have" to stay on Twitter.
Absolutely. Just the notion of Twitter as "the public square" — despite being used by just a tiny fraction of the public at large, and dominated by a small group of power-users that tend towards the most intense and polarizing rhetoric — exposes just how bizarre it is that we've created these artificial communities that seem bigger than they really are.
"Agitated clusters of comforting rage" (Chun) -- what a felicitous phrase, as is "corporate greed masquerading as community-building" (you).
Thank you for this, Justin. That this 1954 Lazarsfeld and Merton study has had credibility for so long is quite an indictment of the science of sociology. Good to see that they're finally on to it, and to the fake studies produced by Facebook itself.
One sign of polarization (in the form of refusal to talk) I have observed over the last several years is that conservative candidates tend to refuse participation in all-candidate meetings.
Looking forward to reading your report for the PPF.
Such a good point, on the declining participation in community debates. We're also looking at a possible U.S. primary season whether neither frontrunner debates at all. That's an interesting trend.
Excellent point ! I have watched the Jerry Springerization of the USA for the past 3 decades plus. Civil debating isn't hibernating it's dead. Tis' more fashionable to play school yard tactics and bully each other with our latest name calling du jour. wA major difference of when I was a lad in school, being called a pussy or faggot, it was "contained" there. Now it's the entire globe that has a shot at adding their own jabs at the individual "of the moment", via social media. Do we really need a million individuals chastising every single "Karen" out there? Or 5 million views of the latest McDonald's fight? And we wonder why we have kids killing kids in mass shootings. Empathy is for the civil among us. It's also becoming passé I fear. FB and other's shares must remain high, and history teaches me what sells, sadly. Should we continue with amoral Capitalism,it will be our implosion in due time.
Great article Justin! I dropped Facebook because of what it became. I have a kept a page open, with just 1 friend,my husband. This enables me to continue be able to use Messenger to keep in touch with family and friends, far and wide, in a much more personal way. Growing up without Social Media I find it is easier to be critical of it. Seeing what it is doing to generations after mine is incredibly disturbing. Time for there to be more education to peel back the curtain and expose how it all is working. Give the youth the tools to understand what they are getting into.
Had to come back and write again, having finally made it through "The Rise of Polarization", which is a very good summary of the issues.
The birds flocking here may have many divisions between them, other than their political hobby. Differences in social class, background, religion and other beliefs. Just including "Libertarians" with "Conservatives" is a reach. Please note, and I'm tempted to capitalize: they never formed any organization, and totally broke up when they finally dispersed. No party. No internal group within the Conservatives, the way US Democrats have a "progressive caucus", the GOP a "freedom caucus". Nothing!
They could not actually work together. A major problem with anybody talking to "the Convoy" was "Who?" No agreed leaders. For me, a major reason to freeze bank accounts was it looked like a scam to funnel the money off the way Steve Bannon did with Americans: there was no organized way to hand the money out, and people who'd donated were never compensated.
But they were so happy to find each other, just like protesters at Idle No More, and Dakota Pipeline; (both of which failed utterly and changed nothing) memories they will carry all their lives, like Woodstock.
...explaining why the Calgary Convoy kept on protesting after all mandates had been dropped, why people were still showing up to shiver around a campfire near Coutts - in *March*, everything long over. They'd found friends, and wanted to keep them.
One last point: if we didn't have a crazy custom of letting 10,000 angry people buy party memberships on Tuesday, replace the leadership on Wednesday, and lose all interest in the party on Thursday, the radicalization would mean a lot less.
Thanks for your thoughtful article, it's very interesting. Personally, when traveling in the U.S., I've unscientifically observed that in many/most restaurants, I see black and white staff, and I also see black and white customers. What I see less regularly are black and white customers sitting together. Is that partial homophily? In Canada, it seems a bit different. Yes, there are white and blacks and POC as staff and customers. But there seems to be more likelihood than in the U.S that there will be white and blacks and POC sitting together as customers, especially younger (than me) people. Homophily? Dunno. I ponder that.
Putting aside the somewhat-broken concept of homophily, it's hard to ignore that birds of a feather *do* sometimes flock together. But homophily is this nasty shortcut that says it's normal, natural, or comfortable. Fact is, we *do* have a habit of sticking with people who look/act/think like us, but that's the byproduct of so many complicated factors — class, legacies of racism, redlining/zoning, white flight/suburbanization, etc etc. None of that is *natural.* (Also, some of it is just demographics.)
A study a few yrs ago pointed out that if you have engaged family and friends then FB et al strengthens the relationships. If you don't have family and friends it contributes to isolation , mental health issues.
Facebook always had such a powerful ability to *facilitate* relationships. The fact that it constantly tries to nudge you into them was the real problem. It can only ever predict who you are close to — or want to be close to — but, as we learned, its prediction capabilities are *so bad.*
Thanks for sharing this. My day job requires that I interact with many, many different types of people, face to face, in unexpected intervals. This means that I interact *mostly* with people who aren’t like me. I find it invigorating and beautiful.
And then I go online, and I’m horrified by how boring and unanimous it all is. I find myself arguing that it’s worth getting to know people who aren’t like us, and I’m met with outraged indifference. (I’m the one giving the hopeful “have conversations with different types of people” message you allude to at the end of this essay.)
I have more thoughts, but I will leave it at that. Thanks for writing this!
As a sufferer of "have to read news I don't need and have to engage with commenters" syndrome, I think it comes down to anxiety and curiosity. We just gotta know if there's a danger around the corner, over the next hill.
It's the same as gambling, and social media has been compared to slot machines: they've found a hack into the backdoor of human decision-making, hitting us in weaknesses: curiosity, status anxiety, and that dopamine drip that comes from reading one affirming tidbit after another: "Oooh, sick burn, George Takei! That'll show 'em!"
Anybody still on Twitter for any reason but the coldest calculations about commercial promotion can "explain" to you why they "have" to stay on Twitter.
Absolutely. Just the notion of Twitter as "the public square" — despite being used by just a tiny fraction of the public at large, and dominated by a small group of power-users that tend towards the most intense and polarizing rhetoric — exposes just how bizarre it is that we've created these artificial communities that seem bigger than they really are.
Very enlightened
"Agitated clusters of comforting rage" (Chun) -- what a felicitous phrase, as is "corporate greed masquerading as community-building" (you).
Thank you for this, Justin. That this 1954 Lazarsfeld and Merton study has had credibility for so long is quite an indictment of the science of sociology. Good to see that they're finally on to it, and to the fake studies produced by Facebook itself.
One sign of polarization (in the form of refusal to talk) I have observed over the last several years is that conservative candidates tend to refuse participation in all-candidate meetings.
Looking forward to reading your report for the PPF.
Such a good point, on the declining participation in community debates. We're also looking at a possible U.S. primary season whether neither frontrunner debates at all. That's an interesting trend.
Excellent point ! I have watched the Jerry Springerization of the USA for the past 3 decades plus. Civil debating isn't hibernating it's dead. Tis' more fashionable to play school yard tactics and bully each other with our latest name calling du jour. wA major difference of when I was a lad in school, being called a pussy or faggot, it was "contained" there. Now it's the entire globe that has a shot at adding their own jabs at the individual "of the moment", via social media. Do we really need a million individuals chastising every single "Karen" out there? Or 5 million views of the latest McDonald's fight? And we wonder why we have kids killing kids in mass shootings. Empathy is for the civil among us. It's also becoming passé I fear. FB and other's shares must remain high, and history teaches me what sells, sadly. Should we continue with amoral Capitalism,it will be our implosion in due time.
Great article Justin! I dropped Facebook because of what it became. I have a kept a page open, with just 1 friend,my husband. This enables me to continue be able to use Messenger to keep in touch with family and friends, far and wide, in a much more personal way. Growing up without Social Media I find it is easier to be critical of it. Seeing what it is doing to generations after mine is incredibly disturbing. Time for there to be more education to peel back the curtain and expose how it all is working. Give the youth the tools to understand what they are getting into.
Had to come back and write again, having finally made it through "The Rise of Polarization", which is a very good summary of the issues.
The birds flocking here may have many divisions between them, other than their political hobby. Differences in social class, background, religion and other beliefs. Just including "Libertarians" with "Conservatives" is a reach. Please note, and I'm tempted to capitalize: they never formed any organization, and totally broke up when they finally dispersed. No party. No internal group within the Conservatives, the way US Democrats have a "progressive caucus", the GOP a "freedom caucus". Nothing!
They could not actually work together. A major problem with anybody talking to "the Convoy" was "Who?" No agreed leaders. For me, a major reason to freeze bank accounts was it looked like a scam to funnel the money off the way Steve Bannon did with Americans: there was no organized way to hand the money out, and people who'd donated were never compensated.
But they were so happy to find each other, just like protesters at Idle No More, and Dakota Pipeline; (both of which failed utterly and changed nothing) memories they will carry all their lives, like Woodstock.
I wrote a post about it at the time: http://brander.ca/c19#community
...explaining why the Calgary Convoy kept on protesting after all mandates had been dropped, why people were still showing up to shiver around a campfire near Coutts - in *March*, everything long over. They'd found friends, and wanted to keep them.
One last point: if we didn't have a crazy custom of letting 10,000 angry people buy party memberships on Tuesday, replace the leadership on Wednesday, and lose all interest in the party on Thursday, the radicalization would mean a lot less.
Facebook has given me a feeling of hopelessness
Its days are, hopefully, numbered.
Thanks for your thoughtful article, it's very interesting. Personally, when traveling in the U.S., I've unscientifically observed that in many/most restaurants, I see black and white staff, and I also see black and white customers. What I see less regularly are black and white customers sitting together. Is that partial homophily? In Canada, it seems a bit different. Yes, there are white and blacks and POC as staff and customers. But there seems to be more likelihood than in the U.S that there will be white and blacks and POC sitting together as customers, especially younger (than me) people. Homophily? Dunno. I ponder that.
Putting aside the somewhat-broken concept of homophily, it's hard to ignore that birds of a feather *do* sometimes flock together. But homophily is this nasty shortcut that says it's normal, natural, or comfortable. Fact is, we *do* have a habit of sticking with people who look/act/think like us, but that's the byproduct of so many complicated factors — class, legacies of racism, redlining/zoning, white flight/suburbanization, etc etc. None of that is *natural.* (Also, some of it is just demographics.)
Why Do We Let Internet Hate Commentators Influence Us? Because The Internet Is Involuntarily Installed In Most Phones