Is Social Media Making Us Hate Each Other? (bostonglobe.com)

Nicholas Carr's book The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains was a finalist for the 2011 Pulitzer Prize. Now an anonymous Slashdot reader reports on Carr's newest warning: It seems obvious: The more we learn about other people, the more we'll come to like them. The assumption underpins our deep-seated belief that communication networks, from the telephone system to Facebook, will help create social harmony. But what if the opposite is true? In a Boston Globe article, Nicholas Carr presents evidence showing that as we get more information about other people, we tend to like them less, not more. Through a phenomenon called "dissimilarity cascades," we place greater stress on personal and cultural differences than on similarities, and the bias strengthens as information accumulates. "Proximity makes differences stand out," he writes. The phenomenon intensifies online, where people are rewarded for sharing endless information about themselves. What the research indicates, warns Carr, is that the spread of social media is more likely to create social strife than social harmony.
The article concludes by opposing the idea that "If we get the engineering right, our better angels will triumph. It's a pleasant thought, but it's a fantasy... Technology is an amplifier. It magnifies our best traits, and it magnifies our worst. What it doesn't do is make us better people. That's a job we can't offload on machines."

Comments

Nice try EditorDavid

[Anonymous Coward]

We hate you because you're a garbage editor, not because of social media.

Re:What's changed?

[0123456]

"This may sound strange, but people who I've always considered "conservatives"/"Republicans"/"right-wingers" have started to express some of the most positive and hopeful sentiments."

Why would that be strange? We're watching the left self-destruct as they take identity politics to its inevitable conclusion and start to eat each other. I haven't felt this hopeful since the collapse of the USSR.

The right is driven by love of their family, their nation, and their communities. The left is driven by hatred of anyone who's different to them. The only reason you think it's strange is because the left have had better PR, thanks to decades spent infiltrating the media.

Re:Its easier to pick sides

[0123456]

See. Point out that the left can't stand people of differing opinions, and what do the lefties do...?

Yep, you guessed it.

Downvote those opinions.

It's almost like they're a bunch of little robots whose brains have been taken over by hostile meme viruses.

Oh, hang on. That's precisely what they are.

SJW and their version of the net.

[AHuxley]

In the past the net was creative, fun and a wide open space for different ideas. People found their own forums, IRC, usenet, chat room, groups, sites.
Everyone was happy with their own people, news, tech or had the ability to create their own part of the net.
A real search engine site would then find the content and people enjoyed discovering sites or surfing the net.
A person worked hard to create a site and users welcomed the content and creativity. Users knew who a site had an owner and what their role on that part of the net was.

The SJW have inverted that. Every comment, site and chat has to fully support the agendas set by SJW.
Search sites are limited by SJW.
Instead of putting all the new tech, speeds, ram, cpu to better web sites funding has gone to a few social media sites.
A few large sites that push SJW rules and that report users. A bland, boring internet on a social media site will move most fun, creative, smart, well educated users to any media that still protects their freedom of speech and freedom after speech.

More people just use the SJW areas for the net for work. No fun content, not new ideas, no jokes, no art work, no creativity, no music, no protests, no reporting local events, no comments on politics, no talk of brands, no comments on wars, faith, cults, politics.
SJW are handing the net over to governments, cults, faiths, theocracies, monarchies, communist parties just so SJW can remove all comments or report users.

People don't like seeing their cartoons, music, protests, comments on faith, history, politics, wars been removed by SJW.
A user reporting on local politics, religion, pollution, local monopolies, changing conditions in their own communities should not have to expect to be reported to they own government by a SJW.

Social media sites also push a freedom, open forum message, talk to your government or political party, get news from your officials policy. Staff then push back with been a "private" site as SJW remove, ban, hide, report select political, historical or policy comments.
Users soon understand the political agenda and views that are allowed, promoted or removed.

Sites that support freedom of speech and freedom after speech will attract interesting, creative, fun people. Sites that support SJW, governments, theocracies, communist leaders will attract people who have to use such sites.

Re:yeah

[LeftCoastThinker]

Because Dgstoyevsky apparently never learned the basic tennants of Christianity, chiefly humility. The loss of our Christian core in Western Civilization in general is where all the hate is coming from. Tolerance comes from love and humility, and humility comes from understanding and accepting your own imperfection and need for help.

I have seen so many couples split because they cant stand the other one because they have these quirks. Guess what... we are all imperfect and to love someone as Christ loves them accepts their flaws and all. Most of these people in search of perfection go on to find dissatisfaction again and again, in their marriages as well as life in general.

Re:Leftism is causing more division and strife.

[pnutjam]

You guys are funny.
Conservatives will climb on the table and look you in the eye while they shit in the punchbowl, then act all sanctimonious and berate you when your trying to sneak out a fart.