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Honestly, there's a whole conversation that shouldn't take place in this thread about whether or not the improvement in communications via social media has been a net positive or negative for our society.

I will start by saying with absolutely no reservations that social media - or more specifically the democratized ability for any individual to communicate to the masses at will - has been the single most positive invention in the entirety of human history; that future history will show that it had the widest impact on the nature of human society than any technology that proceeded it; and that it won't be surpassed in it's impact until the invention of dirt-cheap matter transmutation technologies or affordable faster-than-light transportation (whichever comes first).

It has already completely altered the distribution patterns of all forms of art, from music to video to photography to the written word and etc. No longer can only a small handful of artists make a living on their art based on the access granted to them by the publishing empires to the customers they need to sell their art to, now the artists have public channels of communications to individual consumers that can purchase their artings directly. At the same time that there's been a slow reduction in the number of multi-millionaire artists that society is supporting there's been a sudden and massive explosion in the number of artists that can now make a basic living off of their art that never could before. That's huge, and it will make a big impact on where our economy goes from here as we transition away from human labor as a primary resource in every industry from manufacturing and transportation to customer service and middle management. I can't predict exactly what that means any more than a farmer in the early 18th century could have predicted the manufacturing boom of the 1940s, but I can see that massive change is coming and social media will play a pivotal role.

More importantly are the political ramifications. It is getting increasingly difficult for the powerful few to keep the masses in check through threat of force and ignorance of what is going on in the world in countries like Egypt, Iran, and on and on. The cowed and ill-informed masses are no longer likely to stay that way thanks primarily to social media. This doesn't currently apply so much to first-world countries where the masses can be held in check by their creature comforts and prolific entertainments, but if those comforts and entertainments are interrupted then revolution is not nearly so far away as it used to be. All it takes is for a certain large enough segment of the population to rally on social media to start a ball rolling that dictators and tyrants can no longer stop. It is becoming the driving force of democracy and making the first amendment more immediate and useful than the second in such matters.

I could go on all day. In my opinion all of these positives, both potential and already realized, far outweigh any negatives that come along with it in the form of trolls and massive amounts of meaningless noise. Social media has given the people a voice. Sure, sometimes they use that voice to call each other dicks or show everyone their lunch, but the fact that they have that voice available when it is needed for other purposes is the best thing that has ever happened for the future of civilization so far.

well, social media could not exist with the Internet, so... yeah, Internet > social media.

As a whole, I agree that social media = positive, but it certainly has its issues.

It's unfortunate that psychos can now easily find each other and find group validation for their theories about incest, or feminism, or violent religion, or hoaxed moon landings, and I would say it goes a little farther than just "noise."

GORDON wrote:It's unfortunate that psychos can now easily find each other and find group validation for their theories about incest, or feminism, or violent religion, or hoaxed moon landings, and I would say it goes a little farther than just "noise."

You're suggesting they wouldn't have found that validation from somewhere else?

Berkowitz was arrested by New York City police homicide detectives during August 1977, and was indicted for eight shooting incidents. He confessed to all of them, and claimed to have been obeying the orders of a demon, manifested in the form of a dog ("Harvey") who belonged to his neighbor ("Sam"). Despite his explanation, Berkowitz was found mentally competent and incarcerated in state prison for murder. In the course of further police investigation, Berkowitz was also implicated in many unsolved arsons in the city.

If you're a bomb looking to explode, any convenient excuse will do. Calling out social media for propagating or normalizing such behaviour is no different than than people demonizing TV during its formative time.

and that it won't be surpassed in it's impact until the invention of dirt-cheap matter transmutation technologies or affordable faster-than-light transportation (whichever comes first).

Eh, not to be picky, but I can think of a few other industries with bigger holy grails. Renewable power generation springs to mind.

More importantly are the political ramifications. It is getting increasingly difficult for the powerful few to keep the masses in check through threat of force and ignorance of what is going on in the world in countries like Egypt, Iran, and on and on.

The only thing I can think of even remotely comparable in this area is when the first telegraph wires went up or when the first radio towers started broadcasting.

it certainly has its issues.

No, it doesn't. The shithead humans using it do.

Before I go any further, let me explain: I am speaking from the perspective of a young PhD student, not some cranky old professor harking back to the Good Old Days.

No, clearly you are a cranky young professor harking back to the Good Old Days.

Malcolm wrote:

GORDON wrote:It's unfortunate that psychos can now easily find each other and find group validation for their theories about incest, or feminism, or violent religion, or hoaxed moon landings, and I would say it goes a little farther than just "noise."

You're suggesting they wouldn't have found that validation from somewhere else?

Yes, I am saying that. One lone guy is a nutjob. A thousand nutjobs get laws and school text books changed.

I didn't say social media wasn't a net good, I just pointed out one aspect that was unfortunate.

Eh, not to be picky, but I can think of a few other industries with bigger holy grails. Renewable power generation springs to mind.

Nah, good renewable energy wouldn't have much of an impact on daily lives. Cheap and plentiful renewable power would start to make an impact, but without something really substantial to apply that power to (like cheap matter transmutation) daily lives still don't change all that much. Social media still trumps that in impact.

A thousand nutjobs get laws and school text books changed.

That was happening well before social media came along. The contribution of social media to that particular issue has been to publicize it more widely and make it harder for those doing so to do so without people paying attention to what they are doing.

well, social media could not exist with the Internet, so... yeah, Internet > social media.

Sure, and computers couldn't exist without transistors so transistors > internet, and transistors couldn't exist without the invention of fire so fire > transistors, etc. Everything builds on what came before.

Social media > internet specifically because it puts those tools of communications in everyone's hands, not just those that take the time to learn to code HTML.

Ok nevermind.

Alright then. I'm glad you agree.

Don't break your arm jerking yourself off, I just sometimes get tired of constant arguments.

Is there no difference between argument and discussion anymore?

And on topic: if there is no longer a difference between argument and discussion, is that the fault of social media and a failing of communicating in only text?

Exactly.

No one was actually disagreeing with me, but they were arguing anyway.

Weird. I can only think of two times I've been on this board that I ever thought there was an argument going on. Everything else was discussion as far as I could tell. Yet you read everything as argument.

I disagree with you, but I don't want you to think I'm trying to argue with you so I guess I'll shut up now.

GORDON wrote:It's unfortunate that psychos can now easily find each other and find group validation for their theories about incest, or feminism, or violent religion, or hoaxed moon landings, and I would say it goes a little farther than just "noise."

You disagree that it isn't unfortunate that nutjobs can find each other and feed their delusions? Or are you saying it doesn't happen more often with the advent of social media?

I think there are a lot of positives that come from Social media, but I'm not sure they outweigh the negatives. Right now everyone knows the press is biased, so they take it with a grain of salt. You have bots out replying to things on Facebook and Twitter that give the impression of grassroot support for people and causes that just doesn't exist. I know that the "Arab Spring" took advantage of wide eyed college kids to overthrow a government and things looked very dicey for Egypt for a while after that. Not sure how much of that was part of the plan, but considering how the Muslim Brotherhood operates I suspect it was part from the beginning.

And I think our ability to empathize and have meaningful dialog has suffered. A variant on what Gordo was saying, we tend to gravitate to like minds. That's good in some cases, but then we tend to think opposing views are the outliers and we tend to marginalize them. I know I'm not as patient as as nice on the Internet as I am in real life. Of course, you have to be much more tactful IRL when you put people on your "ignore" list.

Vince wrote:And I think our ability to empathize and have meaningful dialog has suffered. A variant on what Gordo was saying, we tend to gravitate to like minds. That's good in some cases, but then we tend to think opposing views are the outliers and we tend to marginalize them.

You think media is biased, look at people's FB and twitter feeds. Echo chambers.

TheCatt wrote:

Vince wrote:And I think our ability to empathize and have meaningful dialog has suffered. A variant on what Gordo was saying, we tend to gravitate to like minds. That's good in some cases, but then we tend to think opposing views are the outliers and we tend to marginalize them.

You think media is biased, look at people's FB and twitter feeds. Echo chambers.

Absolutely. But since those come from sources we want to trust, we refuse to see the bias. That's a knot that will be hard to cut.