> "ripping apart the social fabric." ... "literally changes your relationship with society, with each other ... God only knows what it's doing to our children's brains."
I'm not saying he's entirely wrong, but a lot of what he's saying sounds very much like how TV was once described.
> I'm not saying he's entirely wrong, but a lot of what he's saying sounds very much like how TV was once described.
Calling attention to Neil Postman’s __Amusing Ourselves to Death__ is the usual rejoinder to a statement like this. But, Daniel J. Boorstin’s __The Image__[1][2], published in 1962, just about perfectly presages the outcomes of 2016 – 2017 vis-à-vis social media; I cannot commend it enough.
(N.B television (especially with news shows) is also both a form of, and antecedent to what we call social media.)
[2] http://www.transparencynow.com/boor.htm, (Disclaimer: I don't know anything about this site, having just discovered it a few seconds ago, but it provides a nice summary of the book).
Thanks, nice reference. The Wikipedia page has an amusing phrase: The Image is also well-known for defining a celebrity as "a person who is known for his well-knownness."
They definitely weren't wrong. But at the same time, it shows that this isn't a good argument against Facebook, and that it likely means we'll be using Facebook more in future instead of less. Probably to our detriment, but definitely to Facebook's profit.
TV has also changed dramatically in the last decade. With Netflix, Amazon Video, Youtube, etc (not strictly TV I guess but similar) it's possible to waste days on end binge-watching entire seasons of TV shows, in many cases ad-free. That was never possible in the past.
I'm having trouble parsing where you are disagreeing. The linked article says the average over age groups is about five hours, plus additional screen time on devices, with average time spent going through a dip when we become young adults, then an increase as we age.
I used to be in the Nielsen TV surveys, for the manual data entry (IIRC they had a thing that attached to your TV but I wasn't in the automated survey portion). They had some tiny reward program with a dollar showing up in the mail every once in a while. I believe the average person is probably a little like me and too lazy to fill in every single thing they watch and self conscious sometimes, too, about self reporting too much. The manual diary was pretty laborious.
A particular medium is not (necessarily) to blame. Even the proliferation of what can be perceived as low quality examples of a medium isn't purely to blame. A large part of it is in how you interpret it.
Even with books, it's all in how you intepret it. If you just read the story without giving it any thought, it's no better than watching "mindless TV". I just think there is probably a positive correlation between people that are willing to think critically about a topic and those who are willing to put in the additional effort of reading vs watching.
To put it another way, if you knew nothing of painting or any the history behind it, the Mona Lisa would likely be indistinguishable to you from some random photo on someone's Facebook.
I will admit that some forms of media are easier to mindlessly consume than others. I am just sick of seeing the "X is only for stupid/lazy/ignorant people" (where X is TV, internet, videogames, etc.)
tl;dr you can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink.
Edit: to get back to the topic of Facebook, I think the format of social media is not the cause of the issue, but I definitely see a problem in people having high exposure to insular opinions. Mostly because there seems to be a large number of people who only use Facebook as their source of information. Like any tool, you can use it for good or bad.
> A particular medium is not (necessarily) to blame. Even the proliferation of what can be perceived as low quality examples of a medium isn't purely to blame. A large part of it is in how you interpret it.
Suppose we were to say, “Apple pie is in itself neither good nor bad; it is the way it is used that determines its value.” Or, “The smallpox virus is in itself neither good nor bad; it is the way it is used that determines their value.”
I would agree? Apple pie is pretty good for lunch, but if a clown is throwing one at your face it might not be. Smallpox sucks when it's uncontrolled, but the small amount kept for vaccines is probably a good thing.
I understand your point that some things are worse than others (for humans), but I think it also completely ignores the fact that we don't (usually) think of smallpox as a tool as much as something that happens. Kind of like how we don't consider a tornado a tool.
This idea doesn't seem very useful to me, given that specific things tend to be used in a limited number of specific ways.
Sure, we can imagine a theoretical beneficial use for almost any object. However, we shouldn't be blind to the fact that certain things tend to cause more harm, even when we try to prevent it.
Note, I'm not saying how exactly we should respond to more dangerous objects, I'm just saying we should not falsely claim that they aren't dangerous.
Edit: I'm not saying the medium has zero influence on the message. I'm just pointing out that a) the medium does not dictate the message, and b) effectively "beauty is in the eye of the beholder".
McLuhan's point of view was that the means for media delivery have a much more significant global impact than the content contained within the media itself.
He did not contend that the content was meaningless, or lacked a message. He did, however, quip throughout his life that focusing on the content is putting the cart before the horse.
Communication theory is the medium constrains the possible messages. Further, McLuhan, Postman, others are saying various mediums have their own intrinsic dominate properties, character, which crowd out most other messages. TV gave us the sound bite. Usenet gave us trolls. Twitter gave us Trump. Facebook gave us "fake news" (aka gossip posing as truth).
One should not blame heroin- it only brings out in humans, what was allready there. Blame the monkey constructor instead- get a torch and find a church.
TV didn't cause teenagers to stop going out with friends, having sex, getting their licenses, and skyrocket their depression rates. All in under a decade. The Atlantic did a great article on this a couple months ago.
> Typically, the characteristics that come to define a generation appear gradually, and along a continuum. [...] I had grown accustomed to line graphs of trends that looked like modest hills and valleys. Then I began studying Athena’s generation. Around 2012, I noticed abrupt shifts in teen behaviors and emotional states. The gentle slopes of the line graphs became steep mountains and sheer cliffs, and many of the distinctive characteristics of the Millennial generation began to disappear. In all my analyses of generational data—some reaching back to the 1930s—I had never seen anything like it.
Apparently it was excerpted from the author's book. I wonder if the book is good.
Just like TV was different from Radio, the Internet is different than TV. Traditional TV had/has "gate keepers" to filter the raw information and present it with a certain level of professionalism. With the Internet, these gate keepers are less important/powerful/needed. Individuals can "create" their own information feed based on their own pre-chosen resources (legitimate or not).
Yes, cable TV expanded TV beyond the "big networks" (CBS/NBC/ABC etc.) but the democratization of news, reporting and information spreading is entirely new.
Isn’t Facebook and it’s algorithms that sell you a pretty hefty gatekeeper in deciding what you see?
I mean, HN, Reddit and what other social sites do the same thing, and you could still go where you want without relying on internet“channels” or google searches, but most people don’t.
>Isn’t Facebook and it’s algorithms that sell you a pretty hefty gatekeeper in deciding what you see?
Good point, I would say however that you create/add the sources first (by following), Facebook then guides what you see, based on your behavior.
Facebook doesn't decide upon, and broadcast a pre-determined message - they simply work off of your preferences, and try to give you more of what you want (not need) with a healthy side of advertising.
Very true about Facebook especially and you only have to look at the last U.S. presidential election to see how it can have dramatic effects on people's perspectives and expectations.
Echo chambers are a dangerous thing that people should be educated about early and often.
Has that targeted brainwashing been shown to be more effective? I have a feeling that there are enough similarities between folks that watch a particular TV channel to make the profile-targeted ads to be unnecessary. Anecdotally: They usually creep me out and drive me away from what is being advertised, and on top of that it's usually for junk I've already purchased.
i only compared facebook with tv yesterday when i read the other news on how one of the previous executive of fb was feeling "sad" for how facebook is gaming our life to make it more addictive...but there is limitation to television and at that time you could not take tv in your pocket so it was limited to your home
also tv is a one way broadcasting system when facebook is like 2 way system ...
It's important to note that these are quotes from people deeply involved at one point in FB; it's as if Ed Sullivan said such about TV, not just some crotchety pundit.
Readily available passive entertainment with a low content to noise ratio and based on an exploitative model of consumption has been a net detractor to the intellectual prowess of our species. Both TV and Facebook fit this description like a glove.
The difference with TV is that you're time-gated by the station. If your favourite show isn't on for another 30mins, you have to sit and wait. And you can't skip through content to get to the juicy bits.
Facebook is intense. I catch myself getting caught in the feedback loops all the time now, it's very potent. It's different than video games, because those are time-gated too (loading times, takes time to find a multiplayer match, takes time to build your base or whatever). But with facebook, you can keep scrolling and scrolling. And you can quickly skip parts of videos that are uninteresting.
It's interesting this xkcd seems to be making the point that complaining about the increase in pace from the previous generation is as old as time itself. This conclusion is plausible, however I would be interested to hear opinions from earlier than the 1800s. If you consider the past 300 years in the span of human evolution, it's miniscule. On that timeline the 1800s seem much more closely related to modern day. My point being that decreasing attention span could still be considered a relatively 'recent' phenomenon.
I'm not saying he's entirely wrong, but a lot of what he's saying sounds very much like how TV was once described.