Stephen Fry Urges Young To Flee 'Dystopian' Social Networks

An anonymous reader writes: English writer, presenter and activist Stephen Fry has urged his fans to abandon social networks, comparing such platforms to 'dystopian' forms of government seen in 1970s sci-fi films such as Logan's Run and Soylent Green. In a 2,600-word essay, the comedian, who had over four million Twitter followers prior to deleting his account in February, also compared the 'surveilled conformity' of social media to the unreal state of society depicted in The Matrix. "Who most wants you to stay on the grid? The advertisers. Your boss. Human Resources. The advertisers. Your parents (irony of ironies -- once they distrusted it, now they need to tag you electronically, share your Facebook photos and message you to death). The advertisers. The government. Your local authority. Your school. Advertisers," he writes. "Well, if you're young and have an ounce of pride, doesn't that list say it all?"

Comments

Additional reading

[sinij]

Many prominent security researchers already spoke out against it. Including Bruce Schneier on his blog and in his recent 'Data and Goliath' book. No affiliation.

Not just social networks

[fustakrakich]

Try living without a credit card and you will be interrogated and detained every time you come back through customs. Absence of information is very suspicious. Obviously we are hiding something.

Smart Phones and Schools

[irrational_design]

This reminds me of a related issue. Apparently every teenager, except for my daughter, has a smart phone. This is assumed to such an extent that the high school teachers regularly incorporate their use into their lessons. At first they don't believe my daughter when they ask her why she isn't participating and she informs them that she doesn't have a phone (a few have actually sent her to the office for lying to them about not having a phone). Once she convinces them that she really doesn't have a phone they regularly berate her for messing up their lesson plans. I've complained to the school authorities, who assure me that a phone is not required, but to no avail. It is astonishing to me that the teachers can't comprehend that a teenager might not have a smart phone.

Re:Smart Phones and Schools

[TodPunk]

For the sake of my education, could you explain to me how many people are in your country, how many of those people have high speed internet at home, how many have a phone number of their own (not shared by their household), and how many have an income?

I think you'll find an interesting disparity between the answers to these questions and your assumptions about what is "essential" to "modern life." Often times hype and trends do not equal necessity. Many people don't have a car, long thought to be required for getting a good job, or own a suit, or have a college degree, or any of the other things our silly media outlets proclaim to "know" are necessary from their bubble.

Just two weeks past I met a woman who did not have a debit card. She looked as happy as anyone else working at the company I had to write a check to. Perhaps you should go meet people like them and explain to them why their adult life is missing things essential to the happiness and prosperity you think they don't have.

Re:Smart Phones and Schools

[Anonymous Coward]

The school here made Facebook mandatory and they add more homework after what I considered bedtime. They also introduced the (mandatory) ability to upload the homework to the teacher. All this totally screwed my ability to filter/block to ensure a good night's sleep. On top of that, they made bringing a laptop to school mandatory as well as a net connection at home. Smartphones aren't used for teaching, but not owning one is justified reason for bullying according to some teachers.

Back when I went to school, we used this thing called books and notebooks were made out of paper. You gave the assignments to the teacher at the start of the lecture and at the end, the teacher wrote the homework on the blackboard. After the teacher left, the homework would not be changed. There were no requirements to bring anything other than pencils and erasers. It was a wonderful setup as you could plan what you would do in the time where you were not at school and it would not suddenly be changed because some teacher decided to give homework for Monday at 7 PM on a Sunday. Using those crude learning tools, I learned enough math and physics and stuff to become an engineer. You know, I actually had to learn math and calculus using pen and paper, not some app where I would be lost without it.

And don't get me started with Common Core. Common Core math seems to be designed to avoid understanding the underlying math.

I don't know who...

[Sir_Eptishous]

Stephen Fry is, but his analysis of "social" networks is on the mark.

When things like MySpace first came out, then FB, etc, and I started hearing from people, from institutions, from businesses, schools, everything, that I HAD to have an account on those networks, that struck me as wrong.

Now, ten plus years later, I feel that way even stronger than when FB and the rest first showed up.

When I started seeing access to things like Public Television/Radio stations, etc being FB only I knew something was very wrong.

a 2,600-word essay in 2016?!?

[Anonymous Coward]

someone wrote a 2,600-word essay in 2016 and expects people to read it? can't he do an infographic?

Common Sense

[tom229]

This should be common sense to anyone over the age of 20. Social media does not help you, at least not how it's currently designed. To have one or two American, for-profit, companies have complete power and control over the entire worlds digital social existence is staggeringly irresponsible. I don't think Orwell could even have dreamt up a more efficient tool for control, manipulation, and corruption.

Re:But

[lgw]

Today's young are already crippled by more debt than they can ever pay off in their life times

The US national debt is over $160,000 per taxpayer. Great gift to our kids to go with their college loans. Unfunded liabilities are over $850,000 per taxpayer, so just over a million total. I'm sure today's youth will get right on paying that while I'm in retirement. (And yet, suggest on /. that maybe we could spend a bit less and someone will reply asking "why don't you move to Somalia", as if the extremes were our only choices.)

Another fun stat: the total value of all assets in America is slightly less than the total of various government debts and unfunded liabilities. This will inevitably end in "but though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy," which is actually good news for those under crippling personal debt, as enough inflation fixes that problem.