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Is there a net benefit to social media?
A buddy and I were having a discussion the other day about the benefits of a platform like Twitter. He’s a guy who uses no social media. The only true benefit I could find is that Twitter allows for almost instant access to news and information. Other than that, it’s a cesspool.
Do the benefits of social media outweigh the very obvious negatives? I’m starting to wonder these days. I think social media has worked to polarize us far more than we would have been had it not existed.
Social media is consciously engineered to drive dopamine feedback loops. The positive feedback is almost as destructive as the negative. It's a control system that causes participants to become addicted and modify their behavior to optimize the loop, not really any different than alcoholism or religion.
https://digitash.com/technology/internet/how-dopamine-driven-feedback-loops-work/
I don't know if you can apply that to social media as a whole. Certainly traditional, proprietary social media, but there are exceptions there too.
I would argue that something like soundcloud provides a platform for creators to reach an audience that will provide good or bad feedback, and hasn't been specifically engineered to elicit strong emotions like something like facebook does. Tildes itself probably falls under the umbrella of social media, and has specifically chosen design choices that minimize that sort of addition cycle.
The problem lies more in the monetization schemes popular on the internet in general rather than specifically social media, in my opinion. Blog sites that specifically post content that will elicit strong emotions rather than actual, factual reporting are guilty of the same thing, despite not actually being social media.
This is why Instagram Stories became very popular, it allowed unfiltered, more amateur photos to be posted without being permanent potential blemishes on a spotless profile.
It's scary how much group-think can happen online especially when people are choosing to be associated with their real names. No one seems to have learned from the True Names story that Vernor Vinge wrote.
If you're scared of criticism, post anonymously or construct a new persona that has a thicker skin.
I think the dislike button is when you post something and not many people like it.
As an artist trying to get better and using social media to help, the one benefit I really see is the accountability of having to post something every day. If I don't post something every day then I'm not practicing enough and if I try really hard to make something that I like that also gets likes then I'm going to put more effort into my work and if I put more effort into my artwork I'm definitely going to get better.
I'm not sure if anyone else sees it this way, but it really has made me a better artist in the last year or two since I started doing this.
Btw, I started posting on Tumblr and really didn't care if anyone followed me - it really was all about posting stuff to prove to myself that I was working on my skills. Then, a little over a month ago I felt confident enough to start an Instagram and let potentially more people see my practice work.
Social Media is terrible for a lot of artists, in my opinion. You start to make like-driven works if your main feedback-channel is the internet.
Even something like /r/art, which could in theory be better, is a terrible place. Especially the comment section.
The Internet's art channels are mostly a place to look for "cool" and "wow" pics, and sometimes a "that's really clever".
Can you point me toward those places? This hasn't been my experience on any major social media platform, (though I admit my experience on Instagram is extremely lacking, and I wouldn't be surprised if this was more of a thing there) where all I see is people getting mocked and degraded for attempting to create something or do anything.
I've like, maybe seen it on personal accounts that only have close friends, but the reaction there is about what you'd get if you decided to be a photographer and showed the things you're trying to your mom or best friend. The second anything is open to the public, that goes out the window and it's just bitter hate. If you want to frame the constant "this sux lol kys" comments as constructive criticism, sure, whatever...but it's very difficult to find circles where it's not there.
I also have a problem with the idea that creating art means you have to welcome the technical criticism you get, but that's beside the point.
Facebook has reactions other than like such as the "angry face" that people use as dislike buttons. Other than that I agree. Social media is garbage unless your primary sources of entertainment are spreading your own opinion and creeping on other people's business.
FARK, Bannination, and Reddit were this for me before social media. The only reason I bothered with any of that shit was that I didn't feel safe using SSH'ing into a shell account on a public-access system like sdf.org and working on my writing at work instead.
How are these not also social media?
They didn't care about my relationships, or try to reduce them to records one could manipulate using SQL queries.
People always point out that Reddit is a social media site, and while they aren't totally wrong (Reddit has many of the same pitfalls as other social media sites), there is generally a huge difference between social media and Reddit: social media focus on people, while Reddit (and fora in general) focus on discussion and/or content. Nowadays, Reddit is so huge with so many users that it has devolved to be a sort of hybrid forum/social medium, but it is still (at least to me) primarily a website on which to engage in content and discussion, and not chase dopamine highs.
For some though, myself included, engaging in discussions is a dopamine high. As well as an intellectual or civil exercise.
I live a relatively isolated existence in a small, rural community that does not reflect a lot of my values. For me, Reddit replaced Facebook as a vehicle through which I can engage with and feel connected to others. Despite the anonymity, each subreddit feels like a community.
While I could care less about gold and karma, I am sensitive to the upvotes/downvotes because it is so easy to perceive them as a representation of my value to the community. I know this is stupid, but I certainly can't ignore the dopamine when one of my comments is upvoted or gets a positive reply. This is much the same as Facebook was for me.
I agree so much. I have begun to absolutely loathe social media recently. Deleted my FB months ago and uninstalled Instagram and I don't miss them one bit!
I'm not a huge fan of social media in general, but one of it's good uses is connecting people from around the world. I'm here in NZ where the population is approx. five people and I have best friends from all over the world (in the US, Canada, and in the Netherlands). I use Facebook to keep up with these people (mainly because they can't be bothered finding more privacy-centric platforms, but meh). It's not ideal, obviously but it does the job for now. I'll take it, at least up until I can convince them to get something better.
"Social media" is really broad. Facebook is a social media site, and I'd argue it does good. It helps people keep in touch that otherwise might not. It helps organize events. It's an easy way to share pictures, etc.
Something like Twitter, though, is a completely different beast. It's like a giant conversation involving everyone that lets you choose who and what parts of the conversation you listen to. So yeah, there's a lot of snarky hot takes, dumb jokes, arguing about bullshit, and so on. Whether you derive value from that is largely personal. The same way you personally derive value from hanging out with friends, or going clubbing, or taking pictures of whatever's happening around you.
Is there a net societal benefit to it? I dunno if it's even possible to answer that question. Is there a net societal benefit to any social phenomenon? There's undoubtedly individuals who benefit. There's undoubtedly individuals who are worse off, too.
I want to say, though, that for me, there's been immense benefit as a transgender woman. It makes it very easy for me to find people like me. It makes it easier to be heard. It makes it easier to speak as a group. That's a huge benefit for any minority, especially one that's geographically spread out. LGBT advocacy wouldn't be as huge without the internet. Neither would BLM, or the Arab Spring, or March for Our Lives, or innumerable other movements.
Now, that also means nazis, incels, pedophiles, and similar fringe groups. You can frame that as "increased polarization/extremism," or "diversity of thought" or whatever. That's a pessimism/optimism thing, I think. It certainly means centrists have less power, but maybe mainstream majorities have too much social power to begin with. Again, it's all about how you frame it.
I think, when it comes to politics at least, social media has helped in that it's gotten a lot of this shit out in the open. Social media didn't make people racist, it just let us see how racist people really were already. At the turn of the century people were talking about a post-racial world, but the truth is there were still lots of racists out there they had just learned to keep their heads down. For all his many faults, Trump didn't create the current climate. He just tapped into a strong undercurrent that already existed. People jumped onto his wagon because they already hated "coastal elites" and "globalists" and "extremist refugees". The xenophobes were there the whole time. Now they've come out into the light though, and the rest of us know who they are at least.
As for the non-politics side of social media, I think it has been a huge boon for the world. Aside from the spread of news and information (which can be done without social media) the biggest thing has been the spread of diverse viewpoints. My thoughts on the world and place in it have changed dramatically since the mid-2000s and a sizable part has come through interacting with people through social media. There are literally foreign viewpoints that have made me re-examine myself, and I feel a more complete person for it.
Social media has also allowed for social movements to organize much more effectively on an ad-hoc basis. Occupy Wall Street, Black Lives Matter, and #MeToo have all relied very heavily on social media for spreading their message and organizing members. Whether or not you believe in the message/actions of their movements, the ability for activists to organize quickly and organically is a good thing for society IMO.
Has there been misuse and struggle? Definitely. Online harassment is a thing that bleeds into people day-to-day a lot. People have died because of online disagreements, and sometimes the people dying aren't even involved in the fighting. People have had their lives attacked and their world ruined. But despite all that I wouldn't go back to a pre-social-media world. There's a lot wrong with the online world as a whole, but the problem isn't the platform it is the people. People need to change the way they think about their actions online. So, for me at least, the way to fix social media is by going forward and not going back. We need to improve ourselves and others online, but the benefits of the medium are huge.
I learned a lot from Reddit. Especially in the early days. Of course after a while you see diminishing returns, and as we all know, there are also many downsides to Reddit.
I also recently started using Twitter to communicate with local political leaders, companies, etc. I find it quite valuable for that use, since everything is public, it to some extent forces people to answer.
Honestly I'm not sure if that's actually a benefit. I read an interesting article a few months ago about the benefits of getting news from good old-fashioned print media. Turns out that with the vast amount of speculation and misinformation after every major event, it might be better to let experienced journalists investigate and digest things for a few hours before presenting it to you.
I guess I'll go against the grain and say yes, there is a net benefit. Instant messaging is the main way I keep in touch with friends, and it makes it super easy to connect with people you've recently met irl. And Facebook makes organising events and group projects way easier.
Plus I like scrolling down Instagram and checking stories, seeing what all my friends (and a few celebrities I like) might be up to. I also really like uploading stuff when I feel like I have something worth sharing. It's the best way to disseminate holiday pictures without sitting friends down and making them watch a slide show.
I think without social networking I wouldn't be anywhere near as social a person. For many it's a super valuable tool in supporting a social life. If you feel like it's doing the opposite for you, then maybe you're just following/friended with the wrong people. Or maybe it's just not for you.
And hey, we're all here on a social network right now so they can't be all that bad.
Semantics: I don't consider Tildes (or reddit, or digg, or kuro5hin, or slashdot, or BBSes) to be social media, because things are pseudonymous (not tied to your real identity), which means the focus is more on content than identity.
I think social networking has some uses. Sharing stories and pictures with loved ones is one of those, as sharing things with people has historically been difficult.
Social networking should be viewed as a platform. It should never have been controlled and curated by a single entity. @ZeroGee above mentioned that Facebook doesn't have a "Dislike" button because it has decided, and forced upon its users, how they're allowed to interact. Facebook does more than just that: it changes the interface, it enforces that you must use your real name, it controls what order you see the stories in, what stories you see and what you don't, etc. These are all etiquette questions that should have been decided culturally and communally, not dictated.
I'm curious if community projects like Mastodon and GNU social are any better (I haven't tried them). Anyone have experience with them?
I lived abroad many years (actually lived longer outside of Germany, where I am from, than inside). So I have many friends all over the world. Facebook is really helpful in keeping in touch with most of them. Even if you're not chatting regularly it's just fun to see what everyone if up to.
However as a whole I think with all the other issues it's a net negative for society as a whole. I can totally see social media exasperating depression, the incentive for bad actors to game the system is massive and it's hard to discern for most people etc.
I'm kind of old school when it comes to social networks.
For me social networks are a way to mantain contact, not to share angel pictures and online game invites. It's about keeping friends and family up to speed, it's about making sure you dont lose contact with that strange cousin just because your day to day life is to hectic to call him every month
I can think of good uses for each of the major social media platforms.
With that said, I don't have a facebook account (well, not an active one), and I really only use reddit and twitter as pseudo-news-feeds because on the whole I have zero trust or respect for the companies that run them and in general interacting with the communities is a losing proposition on the whole unless you have a very specific idea of what you want to get out of it in the first place.
The only other "social media" I use is Twitter. While there are a lot of things I find particularly annoying about the site, I have personally gained a lot of positives out of it. I follow a lot of people outside of my culture, and this has allowed me to see lots of different views and opinions about how other people's worlds work. Especially in other countries I have never been to. It makes me feel connected to those outside of my own community bubble. It has also led to some great conversations with random people; real dialogue I've never experienced on Facebook (my FB has been deactivated for 5 years now).
I also follow a lot of artists, and so it has become a hub of great art to peruse and purchase, which has brought a lot of joy to my life. A lot of those artists rely on social media to become known, so it's a benefit for them too.
It's a good way for me to keep up with what is being published by the magazines/newspapers/radio/podcasts I consume. I also follow my city's Twitter account, so I get easily accessible updates on things like new projects the city is starting, local environmental issues, board meetings, job listings, boil-water advisories, etc.
I have two accounts. One I call my "bullshitting" account, where I'm relatively anon, where I retweet spicy memes and hot takes. The other one is my "business" account, where I connect with colleagues and my supervisors, and retweet very professional things. Twitter is a very useful tool in my field of work.
Lastly, Twitter has allowed me to take real-life action following the internet rage over injustices in the world. I have participated in a handful of rallies/marches this year alone (even those that are about very local issues) because they were made known through Twitter. I would not have known about them/been inspired to join if it weren't for that. Congresspeople use Twitter heavily, so I'm able to track what they are doing almost on a daily basis to aid or hurt the community.
So, I probably won't be leaving Twitter anytime soon because it has been an overall net positive for me.