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.
... 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.
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.
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.
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."
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
I always felt that it was the right that could not stand the truth so they started the whole "Fake News" on anything they did not like, and created this Alternate Facts crap that is going on. Now, I am not saying that the left is any better, personally I think all of the current politics need a reality check.
If techs didn't disagree with each other, then Microsoft would rule the world.
It's the fucking Internet, not "leftism". In person, I get along just fine with people on the right and left who don't talk about that shit all the time. On the Internet, for all I know, they could spend a ton of their time arguing on forums like this and Reddit. There are always zealots and college activist types, that is not new and isn't going to change. They likely spend a lot of time pushing their political shit online, like yourself, and get others tied up in it and next thing you know everyone is divided up neatly into 2 political armies and want to annihilate each other. Fucking ridiculous.
The irony is that you don't realize you are stereotyping people in the same way that you dislike when they do it. Learn who people are, don't attack strawmen. That's what got us into this problem in the first place.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
Wait and see. The Hispanic community is fairly conservative socially. All those 'Mexicans' you refer to, as they settle into the United States, won't embrace your 'identity politics.' Just the same as the Islamic immigrants, who it has been well shown in places in Europe, bring their stereotypes and hatred with them. Worried about the repression of gay people? Get ready, because 'the Mexicans' and the Islamic immigrants are not going to be tolerant.
"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's kind of pitiful to watch somebody criticizing people who stereotype, do so much stereotyping themself. 'folks who've fled to lily white suburbs'? 'stone cold racists'???
You live in a comic book universe, dude. Them villains are sure nasty!
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.
It's sort of like when the Jehovah's Witnesses show up at my front door. I tell them I'll be right back
once I take off all my clothes. For some reason, they are never still standing at the door when I return.
Check your privilege, that only works if you're a MAN.
Leftism = rightism = centrism = authoritarian financialism
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.
the resurgence of leftist philosophies over the past decade or so
Yeah, Brexit, Trump, Marine Le Pen, the lefties are taking over the world.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it