Slashdot Mirror
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."
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."
We always hated each other. Social media just makes it easier to be in other people's circles...
If you hated someone in 1970... you just avoided them. On the internet, short of blocking them on social media, you are confronted with them constantly.
So we haven't changed... social media just brings out some bad things in people. While still doing many good things.
Another consultant who stuck it out.
"We are the Priests, of the Temples of Syrinx..."
What do you expect when activists organize 2 minute hates every 2 minutes?
I mean, that's like half of the "news" any more. Let's dig up some rumors about someone who says that someone said something and see how many people we can convince that they're thoroughly despicable.
"It seems obvious: The more we learn about other people, the more we'll come to like them."
Who ever said that? Eventually people get annoying. Except for me.
And if you know anything about the dynamics of a clique, you know they don't
tend to involve niceness or admiration.
What many forget is that humans are still animals, and that human behavior is
driven by the desire for power or sex. All else is trivial details compared to power
and sex.
A clique is used to exclude more than it is to include. Exclusion is not a friendly
behavioral phenomenon.
I'd have to say Nicholas Carr is not wrong in theorizing that social media may foment
dislike and related behaviors. However, I don't think such a realization is amazing,
because it's pretty obvious if you bother to think for yourself. Facebook is just an electronic
version of a high school clique. Some people will find this useful, while others will find it
distasteful.
We should note that this increase in division parallels the resurgence of leftist philosophies over the past decade or so.
This shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody familiar with leftist teachings, however.
Despite professing to support "tolerance" and "acceptance", we often see very little of such things from leftists. In fact, it's impossible for leftists to truly support such ideals.
A core tenet of leftism is that of division. Another term for this is "identity politics". People are broken down into smaller and smaller groups based on race, sexual preference, gender, and any other discernible trait.
Leftists then pit these groups against one another to cause orchestrated strife. Some groups are labeled as "marginalized". Others are labeled as "privileged". These groups are made to hate one another. The main goal of the leftists is to stir up anger and discontent, which they can then control and direct to meet their objectives.
Anyone who calls out this disunity that leftists are trying to cause is immediately mislabeled as a "racist", a "bigot", or "intolerant". Leftists then direct extraordinary levels of hatred at anyone who might oppose them. For all of their talk about "tolerance" and "acceptance", they are very unwilling to actually tolerate or accept anyone who dares to express a viewpoint that differs from theirs.
We see this intolerance embodied in their odd concept of a "safe space", which is essentially an area where free thought is strictly prohibited. Only ideas that are approved by leftists may be voiced in these areas.
As for social media's role, it's more of a conduit than a cause of this discontent. Social media has proven to be a powerful way for leftists to blast their philosophy against a large portion of society with relatively little effort. We shouldn't blame social media itself, however. It's leftism that's the cause of this anger, this hatred, and this division we now witness.
... of similar people with similar backgrounds, professions, ages, political and cultural outlooks. Sometimes these are called "tribes".
And like street gangs facing off in big cities, members of different tribes tend not to like each other much.
Everybody loves us ... and we hate everyone.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
It is not "social media".
It is a "gossip platform".
It is a social ill.
It has transformed society into a bunch of bored. blue haired old women and 15 year old mean girls. We are giving megaphones to mean spirited idiots, and the less responsible they are, the more free time they have to spout stupidity and bile.
It's time to kill it with fire.
No. We hate each other. The social media is acting as a facilitator.
Because large segments of society -- including "thought leaders" -- that used to be nominally against hate are now cheerleading for it.
The election was a good example, with one candidate bad-mouthing Mexicans and Muslims (in a way described by some as hateful) and the other directly calling Americans in the other party "enemies" and identifying a broad class of Americans as "irredeemable" and/or "deplorable".
If we don't want more hate, let's stop encouraging it.
I already hated humanity pretty much. Social media just reinforces my belief that 95% of humans are dull uninteresting creatures I want nothing to do with.
Let's face it, as much as we claim to want diversity the results don't show that. People are drawn to their safe zones, no matter if that's political philosophy , race, religion or whatever. We don't seek out and befriend people who don't see things our way. Social media simply plays into that and presents people a broad and expansive podium to speak from. I do find it interesting that while many who created social media would argue it brings people together. I would say only to the point of a broader way but with the same results. This destructive attitudes of I am right and you are wrong are not helped by social media. It just reinforces that more.
Controversy generates clicks. Clicks generate ad revenue. Everyone (who is exchanging money) is happy when we're all miserable.
Reminds me of the climax of Jedi: Luke is thrashing away at Vader, full of hate and anger. Meanwhile the emperor is laughing with glee. Dance, monkey boy! Dance!
"Well, good luck finding a judge that doesn't run a bestiality site."
..."how I've grown to hate my wife."
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Social Media makes it easy for us to reinforce and confirm our beliefs. Family and friends help shape our beliefs and our social media "friends" tend to be those people. Social media puts us in a bubble as we self-select our "friends". We do not hear alternate views. I have 2 high school friends on Facebook, one is right wing and the other is left wing. They are both prolific in their postings. I want to block both of them but I don't so that I hear alternate viewpoints. We need to listen to alternate viewpoints. That is why they are not blocked.
No shit. Take this quote from Dostoyevsky:
“The more I love humanity in general the less I love man in particular. In my dreams, I often make plans for the service of humanity, and perhaps I might actually face crucifixion if it were suddenly necessary. Yet I am incapable of living in the same room with anyone for two days together. I know from experience. As soon as anyone is near me, his personality disturbs me and restricts my freedom. In twenty-four hours I begin to hate the best of men: one because he’s too long over his dinner, another because he has a cold and keeps on blowing his nose. I become hostile to people the moment they come close to me. But it has always happened that the more I hate men individually the more I love humanity.”
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, The Brothers Karamazov z
Human nature is to distrust everyone and assumes evil as an explanation for any one that does not help you.
All the internet does is reveal our true selves to the universe, mainly by pretending to offer anonymity.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Linux is making us hate each other.
That depends entirely on the people and what they believe. I actually ended up liking some people and groups better after getting to know them better, and other people and groups less.
I guess the biggest general trend was that a lot of facades of success come crumbling down when you get to know people better, while quiet unassuming types often are more solid. And what I really dislike is if people make bad decisions and then blame others for it, which is particularly obvious on social media these days.
I'd have a Facebook account.
/ or at least consider most of them to be fucking idiots
Some of us are the opposite, and find most individuals wonderful, but humanity as a whole nearly irredeemable.
Play Command HQ online
Gosh, let's hope so. I mean, who wants to think that they are a hateful person with intolerant views of people who differ from them. It makes sense to blame FB, Twitter, Snapchat and all the other crappy social media apps out there! It's the Software that's hateful and Not the Wetware. (It's the blame game gone mad.)
And, quite honestly, the idea that everyone should always love one another, regardless of difference is as naive as it is crazy.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I have always hated people.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
"The more we learn about other people, the more we'll come to like them."
We're not learning about other people, we're only observing a tiny facet of them when they decide to write something online. All of the context is cut out. We only get a very superficial understanding of that person. Like stereotypes. When I meet with someone IRL I get all of the context, at least a much fuller picture, not the edited version.
Online people want to only show what they feel is their best side, and others may feel the need to match or exceed that, and at least the busy vocal part seems to be competing in a one-up contest.
Personally I am more reserved and tend not to write that much online, I don't really want to get involved in most of this and prefer to socialize IRL, perhaps there are others like me. Perhaps some keep their conversations hidden as well, and those are not indexed and processed. So perhaps what we see online is a very slim edited version, and maybe this is what we don't like.
Twinstiq, game news
It doesn't help when lots of people with strong opinions (some I agree with, some I don't) take the stance of 'I believe in X and anyone who disagrees with me must be an idiot.' This is because so many people want to fight for their cause and somehow think you can attract more flies with vinegar instead of honey. They used to be just those people who would march in protest carrying some sign that called the other side stupid or evil. Now with social media, that hateful crowd has grown substantially and they don't go home and throw away the sign when it starts to rain. We see both sides of the political aisle take these kinds of approaches and even see it here on /. when people start flaming each other over what operating system or programming language they use.
These people are sadists (the prototypical troll) and people that hate about everything for other reasons, often because they are pathetic themselves. Because they somehow think that social media is not a social situation, they believe they do not need to control their urges.
There is nothing that can be done about this. Censorship and punishment for voicing opinions (repulsive as they may be) are only compatible with a totalitarian state and those cause orders of magnitude more pain and suffering than the trolls ever could. It is just one more thing that people need to learn when growing up: There are people out there that are not nice in any way and the best way to deal with them on social media is to ignore them. This is actually a pretty important thing to understand for other situations as well.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
Haters gonna Hate.
Clickbaits gonna Clickbait.
Is Social Media Making Us Hate Each Other?
The answer is still no. It does encourage us to "hate others", but not "each other".
You want science to back this up? Too bad, you're gonna need to search more for yourselves. But here's the thing, we humans don't work well in mass. We humans work well in groups, but not in mass.
Have you seen lions having their own family while (almost) killing off other lions? They work well in groups, but they can't have too many lions or they have conflict. We humans do the same.
society today basically put a large number of people into the same box and space, while you asked for or not. So it formed a mass. That's why people in rural are often happier compare to those in the cities, because those in rural feel as they are in a group rather than one person in a mass. The internet media is the same. Forums with fewer traffic have groups that are happier compare to those media filled with mass of people.
It is possible to change that by making the mass of people into a like-minded group. But on a Social Media? Forget it, just let the companies fix themselves or until their greediness explode.
In 1960, the USA was 96% black or white. Today, there are now more hispanics than black people. That is the power of illegal aliens and anchor babies. That is why racism in the USA has been primarily about black people. The Mexicans didn't have to go through slavery or Jim Crow. They were first class citizens in Mexico.
Seeing a lover every day spoils the illusion.
(From the book)
Note there's almost no evidence presented that social media makes people dislike each other more. Oversharing leads to being disliked but we don't follow those we dislike.
My guess is that living in a social (media) bubble may nevertheless make us less tolerant of dissenting views.
that I've always hated everybody... social media just makes it easier for me to tell the world.
if you hated somebody in the 1970s you got a bunch of your friends together and beat them to death. Social media and the Internet in general's made that a lot less OK.
I don't think we've changed, but technology let's us record how awful we are and that makes it a lot harder to be that awful. Not impossible, mind you, but harder.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
Linux is making us hate each other. json editor
I don't think it has anything to with Christianity or the lack there-of.
People are just dicks, narcissistic dicks, and social media makes it easier than ever for them to show their true colors.
Have you ever fallen asleep at the keybhanusdiog?
I blame version control. GIT!
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
You've managed to misunderstand Christ, Christians and people.
Jesus was all about not being a dick to your fellow man especially due to cultural differences, not hanging with individuals you don't like. Compare want he has to say about Samaritans versus trees that bear no fruit.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
basic tennants of Christianity
I think you meant tenets. I also think you're wrong.
Maybe he was thinking of this.
https://hywelsbiglog.wordpress...
I know the first time I tasted it I went "Jeeeeesus Christ!!!"
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
Imagine that! Who woulda thunk it?
"The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
Which increased understanding between peoples and species, leading to more wars than anything else ever.
Social media has more negative impacts than positive. Following, liking, and posting begins to replace phone calls and visits from friends and family. The charged atmosphere of political posts creates wedges and animosity. Friends, and unfortunately family, start using social media to "aire grievances" and stab people in the back. The result of all of this is a lot of conflict and relationships that are in ruin.
In the past Policing provided a big deterrent against violence, while today, some people think it is OK to harness others into suicide behind the supposed anonymity of the internet.
I hated all of you before social media.
social harmony comes from shared experiences, realizing that someone else's differences work just as well as your own. It doesn't come from academic learning about them from reading.
I remember you preaching in another thread. Do you follow the bible and kill unbelievers?
... Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die." -- Dt.13:6-10
"If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you
Cheap storage VM.
Maybe the secret is to love man in particular and not worry so much about humanity.
I imagine the lover of humanity to be an insufferable twit.
...
This verse refers to a common threat in the old world. Certain religions contemporaneous with these early writings advocated having orgies that culminated with the burning of some of the participant's children. Others would use dog pits or bear pits instead of fire. Essentially the orgies were a religious observance, and the children were killed at the culmination of days of religious observances. The sights and sounds of the burning children were reported to increase the ecstatic frenzy of the participants to incredible levels.
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
If you followed my link you would see some admittedly less clear NT passages:
here are also New Testament passages cited as justification to kill non-believers, e.g.
/quote
Luke 19:27:
But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me.
As well as
Matthew 10:34:
Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.
Cheap storage VM.
Who in their right mind modded this troll? When did basic decency become controversial?
horror vacui
I haven't read the book so maybe you could answer, is this a quote from one of the characters in the book or the author's point of view? I hate when the two are conflated.
horror vacui
True interaction where you have to face a person as a human being instead of over a wire anonymously does promote more respect. For one, in person to person interaction, we tend to be nicer. For another, in face to face interaction conversation tends to be broader and on a human level rather than political.
Good stuff! Do you read Greek or are you only able to parse English translations?
Also, are you actually concerned with what the book says, or are you "coming from" a certain viewpoint and looking for something that matches that?
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
Personally, I think the bible is a potentially interesting historical record, with some factual basis. I have no interest in delving into it aside from a cursory reading and ability to defend myself from those who weaponize it.
Cheap storage VM.
but certainly not all
Play Command HQ online
Obviously this bloke has never been married before otherwise he'd have know this years ago :P
http://www.gibby.net.au