Social media
Note: While I do think much of what is brought up in this post is valid, it is also obviously made from a very overly cynical perspective of social media.I am very cynical of it, but this post is a partial exaggeration of it and a lot of my feelings boil down to “I want to know the facts, not your opinions on someone else’s perspective on the facts.” Stay safe online.
Nothing that is vast enters into the life of mortals without a curse.
I’ve been trying to cut back a lot on social media. I’ve done things like deleting Xitter (x/twitter) from my phone, deleting a lot of extra accounts, making a blog, etc., and I have a very important reason to myself as to why.
I feel like it should be well known by now that social media isn’t great for your mental health. Constantly relying on the validation of others online sucks. It’s part of the reason I was a little unsure of whether or not I wanted this blog to have comments at all. I’ve been observing social media a lot lately and what I’ve noticed is it works as a tool, not to bring people together and help the world, but to radicalize us against each other and keep us on them for as long as possible.
What is the point of social media
We used to colonize land … and that’s where money was to be made. We colonized the entire earth. There was no other place for the businesses and capitalism to expand into. And then they realized: human attention … they are now trying to colonize every minute of your life.
Social media, in its present state, exists to consume time. Algorithms are specifically designed to show you stuff you engage with, to ensure you stay on their app for as long as possible. They may not have been made with harmful intent, but do due to a lack of real forethought1. As of late I’ve noticed a huge rise of political and anger-fueled content online. What I’ve noticed is people tend to engage, not with content that makes them feel good, but content that makes them angry2. If you’re angered by a video, you see injustice or war or hatered, obviously you should share this so more people see it and realize the problem. Strong emotions cause a strong emotional response3, and that is very intentionally being exploited everywhere (rage-baiting). All the algorithm sees is you interacting with a piece of content, therefore you want to see more. It becomes an endless feedback loop of horrible events causing you to see more of it, making you more and more angry. It doesn’t matter what you see, as long as you stay on the app.
I have tested this myself: simply create a new account, Instagram in my case, go to the explore tab (or equivalent), and start liking content in a specific category. Close and re-open the app, rinse and repeat, and suddenly within minutes the majority of that tab contains that category of content
Fake news
Fake news spreads fast due to the endless internet feedback loop. Unlike many other forms of media which have certain laws regulating and deciding what is allowed, social media is not well regulated. This means that, while it gives many real freedom fighters and good people a platform to spread their word, it also gives every conspiracy theorist with literacy the exact same platform4. Political content is especially prone to embellishment and false information, which can have dire consequences on people’s thoughts and actions, especially towards others1. Whenever I see something political, I try to look it up online to fact check it. Then, I fact check the websites I’m reading from. My usual assumption is that everything I see online, especially from strangers online, is biased in some way and would rather try to learn the absolute truth about the situation.
This is not to say that there should be huge amounts of government intervention and control over social media, and mainstream media hasn’t been much better as of late either due to rage-baiting in order to get the most clicks over genuine journalism, but in its present state the responsibility to keep a platform safe is entirely on the company in charge which we’ve seen doesn’t always work out (Elon Musk).
I recommend mediabiasfactcheck.com, which provides a quick chart as well as an explanation for why it is rated that way below it
These are 2 popular media sites with similarly mixed factual reporting and noticable bias
Many people tend to fact check information they find online, but only information they disagree with. (confirmation bias). I am by no means unbiased, as just another human with opinions, but I try to fact check anything, no matter how much I agree or disagree with it. Online creators who talk about politics have no inherent standard of quality or factuality to stand up to, which is why I barely ever trust what I hear on instagram reels or youtube shorts alone. For example, I tend to find a lot of videos by certain creators interesting and generally agree with their opinions, but I still have noticed some reliance on logical fallacies and something I see a lot where people try to casually “call-out” something with misleading or inaccurate language (media bias).
When referring to media bias, that can mean a few things. Biased media can still report extremely true and factual information, while selectively choosing what articles or videos to publish based on one’s specific political standing (E.g. Article X makes me feel better in this political perspective, even if article Y which I disagree with is still very factual and well-researched, so I will only publish article X). It can also mean using loaded or even commonly misdefined / bastardized words in a certain manner in order to make you think about something in a specific way.
Radicalization
Radicalization is not inherently always a bad thing, but it can also be the basis of the false dilemma fallacy. As I said before, social media tries to feed you anything that draws an emotional response, positive or negative. Because of this you’re often shown either:
| Agree | Disagree |
|---|---|
| Media that you strongly agree with pushing you further into agreement with a more radicalized, biased, perspective (confirmation bias) | Media that you strongly disagree with, making you completely disregard any points made and feel more pushed away from that side of the spectrum (cognitive dissonance) |
Note that again, even if you agree or disagree with something, that does not mean it is necessarily true or false. vvv
The Worst Bias Humans Have - Psychcool
Another outcome of this radicalization I’ve noticed is the amount of arrogance people have. I made a post on Xitter a while ago stating that being gay and Jewish at the present time is difficult, because many radicals, both right and left, have taken an inherently antisemitic perspective on current world events. Someone then responded deciding it was a super political statement that they themselves do not agree with, eventually ending in:
This person saw a statement that didn’t fall into their perspective of the world, and because of that, felt that I was not trying to make a statement of how I feel but rather an attack towards their beliefs.
Nobody has the right to decide how someone else feels, especially how someone in a minority feels about what they believe is discrimination. A great example is this video, where a rich-born kid who claims “I think homeless people are … possibly a bit lazy,” and “they could be doing more to get themselves off the street,” goes homeless, only to want to quit after only a day.
Rich Kid Won’t Sleep On The Streets - Channel 5
Even if you are not necessarily in a priviledged position in many ways like the rich kid in the video, you or I may still have more priviledge than other people in certain ways.
When you’re accustomed to privilege, equality feels like oppression
Different treatment
One last note on the topic of radicalization is how the algorithms affect it. While I don’t remember the name of it, we did an experiment in elementary school where everyone in the class was shown a fictional social media feed talking about the opening of a new company. The catch? Half the class was predominantly shown posts about how beneficial all the job openings will be, and how the company can benefit the city, etc. Meanwhile, the other half was shown predominantly posts about the negative environmental impacts. It shouldn’t be hard to figure out that the people who were shown radicalized feed A opposed the people shown feed B, and vice versa. These feeds are not designed to show you every objective fact, but rather a small sliver it hopes you will interact with, and because of this it seems impossible to consider that maybe other people see different things than you.
The very first step to understanding and growing beyond this is to recognize this fact and have a conversation with another human being. Not everything posted has to be a political statement made to attack you, your brain only perceives it as that because it doesn’t know any better3.
Conclusion
The most important thing we need to recognize is that everything we consume online is biased. None of us know everything, and acting as if we do is arrogant and frankly, the reason much of western conflict exists at all. Nobody is immune to bias, no matter how much anyone may believe blind spot bias, and nobody is superior just because they have been shown a different side of a manipulative feed. We live in a world where everyone is right, and yet nobody EVER wins. It’s an endless radicalized hell of half-truths and user manipulation intended to do nothing but harvest your time.
The internet gives you access to everything, but it also gives everything access to you. Prying eyes trying to take whatever they can get from you, while leaving you in a broken-down state of disrepair. We all need to get away, sit back, and relax for a minute. One final note I’d like to recommend is that, before you respond to something political online, you give it even just a few minutes of genuine thought. Even if you don’t agree with it, consider why the person may think that way. You are more likely to come up with a stronger, objective statement rather than an emotional outburst based on nothing but your initial reaction.
And get off of short-form stuff & micro-blogging (Xitter), I know it’s difficult (it’s supposed to be), but it’s not great.
I’m still stuck in instagram reels too, but I’m getting better 👍
Sources / further reading
I’m looking into more articles on the subject which I’ll link here if that interests you.
We become What We Behold is also relevant
