Slashdot Mirror
TechCrunch Argues Social Media News Feeds 'Need to Die' (techcrunch.com)
"Feeds need to die because they distort our views and disconnect us from other human beings around us," argues TechCrunch's Romain Dillet:
At first, I thought I was missing out on some Very Important Content. I felt disconnected. I fought against my own FOMO. But now, I don't feel anything. What's going on on Instagram? I don't care. Facebook is now the worst internet forum you can find. Twitter is filled with horrible, abusive people. Instagram has become a tiny Facebook now that it has discouraged all the weird, funny accounts from posting with its broken algorithm. LinkedIn's feed is pure spam.
And here's what I realized after forgetting about all those "social" networks. First, they're tricking you and pushing the right buttons to make you check your feed just one more time. They all use thirsty notifications, promote contrarian posts that get a lot of engagement and play with your emotions. Posting has been gamified and you want to check one more time if you got more likes on your last Instagram photo. Everything is now a story so that you pay more attention to your phone and you get bored less quickly -- moving pictures with sound tend to attract your eyes... [F]inally, I realized that I was missing out by constantly checking all my feeds. By putting my phone on 'Do Not Disturb' for days, I discovered new places, started conversations and noticed tiny little things that made me smile.
He concludes that technology has improved the way we learn, communicate, and share information, "But it has gone too far...
"Forget about your phone for a minute, look around and talk with people next to you."
And here's what I realized after forgetting about all those "social" networks. First, they're tricking you and pushing the right buttons to make you check your feed just one more time. They all use thirsty notifications, promote contrarian posts that get a lot of engagement and play with your emotions. Posting has been gamified and you want to check one more time if you got more likes on your last Instagram photo. Everything is now a story so that you pay more attention to your phone and you get bored less quickly -- moving pictures with sound tend to attract your eyes... [F]inally, I realized that I was missing out by constantly checking all my feeds. By putting my phone on 'Do Not Disturb' for days, I discovered new places, started conversations and noticed tiny little things that made me smile.
He concludes that technology has improved the way we learn, communicate, and share information, "But it has gone too far...
"Forget about your phone for a minute, look around and talk with people next to you."
Arzaboa averred:
You should be talking to these people you think you hate. You'll find you have a whole lot more in common with them than hating each other because you don't talk.
Uhh ... no. No, I won't.
"These people (I) hate" are racist, sexist, xenophobic morons. They can't go two minutes without sneering at "liberals" (not self-identified SJW's - liberals), sharing one of those divisive, Russian troll-authored "Like and share if you agree!" dogwhistles (and, yes, I know there are left-ish versions, too - and I hate those people just as much), quoting Faux News's latest piece of disinformation (or, worse yet, Breitbart or Alex Jones or Rush Limbaugh), and generally doing everything in their power to make what they have to say as repulsive and confrontational as possible.
Mind you, there are plenty of folks with whom I disagree politically who are interesting, informed, and convival conversationalists. I'm not talking about them here. I'm talking specifically about the people I hate, on social media and off. I'm talking about Roger Stone, and Dick Cheney, and Sean Hannity, and their adoring, uncritical fans.
I live in the heart of Trump country (or, perhaps the spleen of Trump country), where the defensiveness and willful ignorance about our Tweeter-in-Chief is absolutely poisonous. You can't have a conversation that his foul stench doesn't pollute to the point of uninhabitability. (At least, I can't have such a conversation. Your gag reflex may be made of sterner stuff.) At the same time, their level of education, their interest in geopolitics, their sophistication of viewpoint are all in the bottom percentile - and this is in the USA, where a pervasive belief in our national exceptionalism has convinced the vast majority of the population that those things aren't important to begin with.
I despise these people because they hate anyone and everyone whose skin color, accent, clothing, or religious beliefs are different from their own. I hated them before Donald Chump came along, before social meda arose, before Faux News was incorporated, before Ronald Reagan entered politics, before Richard Nixon ran for president the second time - and their social media presence hasn't mellowed my disgust.
My first exposure to casual racism occurred in 1961, in Montgomery, Alabama, when I was eight years old and George Corley Wallace was running for governor. It turned my stomach then, just as it turns my stomach today.
So fuck those people. We have NOTHING in common ...
Check out my novel.