The world used to be so much better before social media on smart phones...

[Shogun_Mosquito]

I've been listening through the book "The Anxious Generation" - an interesting overview of how social media, and it becoming constantly available on our cell phones, has massively changed children negatively. I think it's worth the listen, but it really has been eye opening in some areas. Not like a "huh, I never thought of that", but more of a "okay, now all the connections are firing correctly".

One of the primary takeaways from the book is how children/teens moving persistently online opens the floodgates of interactions they would not have had otherwise. The positives of course are that information can be found easily, connections can be made quickly between contacts, and experiencing certain things is cheaper or easier than ever before. However, this also means people's interactions in the real world, such as their ability to communicate with others, or the ability to slow the flow of information (including negative engagement) suffers dramatically. It pushes people away from experiencing the real world (and thus learning how to deal with it) to hiding in the digital world and ignoring reality.

I watched the first Harry Potter the other day with my niece-in-law who was visiting. Obviously it's set in a time where computers were barely beginning to become mainstream, but notably nobody had phones. Kids went outside and explored, got in trouble, fought for themselves, etc. And sure - it's a movie, and it's part of the plot. But MAN - that felt normal just 20 years back. And now? Good luck talking to people without any interruptions from a phone, or having a conversation that requires more than a few brain cells.

I suppose, by way of complaint, that wave of nostalgia hit hard. The world is awesome as a nerd (I love all the new features that keep coming out in software and hardware), but it sucks as a person in many circles. It ruins a sense of community in the real world that online can't quite replace. Agora Road is an awesome community, but it can never replace (or be as impactful) as the real town I live in. And because many people just want the easy route (give a kid an iPad), I don't see things changing for the better.

So... thanks Silicon Valley for social media (it can be fun sometimes). But also, fuck you.

Do any of you do anything different for your kids? Or if no kids yet, do you have plans to help prevent them from being a zombie? What are your thoughts on all this?

TLDR: Easily accessible social media melts brains (not in the fun way), and ruins the fun for the rest of us. Big sad.

 

[Hobo8240]

I just looked up the book you just said and unsurprisingly it's by Jonathan Haidt who's talked a lot about how detrimental smartphones and social media has been to Gen Z and late Millennials.

In a way he's like a proponent of the 2012 doomsday theory but justifying it through psychology rather than Mayan superstition.

Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid

It's not just a phase.

www.theatlantic.com

 

[dreamsphere]

I have had this conversation with many people as I am old enough to remember before the iPhone and after it on the effects it had on people in public places. I still remember going to the pub where people engaged in conversation and met people whereas it is just a selfie fest and keeping to oneself, or with zoomers, not even going out.

I personally do not allow any social media apps on my phone and have left most of them entirely, but I know that I am in the minority of people.

 

[Shogun_Mosquito]

I just looked up the book you just said and unsurprisingly it's by Jonathan Haidt who's talked a lot about how detrimental smartphones and social media has been to Gen Z and late Millennials.

In a way he's like a proponent of the 2012 doomsday theory but justifying it through psychology rather than Mayan superstition.

Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid

It's not just a phase.

www.theatlantic.com

This book was my first exposure to his writing, so I can't comment much on his other work. But the book seems pretty well written. Obviously take everything with a grain of salt, but it felt well presented with some legitimately well structured thoughts.

I have had this conversation with many people as I am old enough to remember before the iPhone and after it on the effects it had on people in public places. I still remember going to the pub where people engaged in conversation and met people whereas it is just a selfie fest and keeping to oneself, or with zoomers, not even going out.

I personally do not allow any social media apps on my phone and have left most of them entirely, but I know that I am in the minority of people.

I'm too young to have those experiences, but I remember a lot of school pre cell phones. Completely different atmosphere. People were more or less forced to interact with each other, or bury their nose in a book.

 

[Digital Cheese]

Funnily enough, despite being very terminally online for most of my life, I still end up less on technology than some of my own family + frens, despite having literally nothing better to do too. I probably meme'd myself so hard online that I just stopped using the internet outside of when I consciously want to. Not a surprise, considering most people I notice who are interested in actually using the computer (or even phone) as a tool are either femboys or schizos in a forest, and this website is full of both, but still. I carry no phone despite being 15, something that is very rare for folks my age seemingly. And even if I have to get a new phone for whatever reason soon, I'd make damn sure it were used as little as possible.

Pretty unfortunate how things have gone, but it doesn't surprise me thinking about it. Most of the points about social-media seem obvious to me, although if I ever want to sound professional, I'll link some faggot who wrote a book stating the obvious on an article to get the normies to be like "SEE! BEING AN EXTREME CONSOOMER IS IN FACT BAHD". It seems obvious otherwise though. I'll consider reading the book myself soon, but I have 530GiB (at least) I still haven't read, meaning it'll take me a while to get to it.

 

[Nyx9572]

our decay is cultural and not technological. it's a decline that's been happening for centuries since the Enlightenment. 9/11, smartphones, social media and COVID only accelerated the decline. how we use technology is dependent on how we are as a society. it's why China is making better use of tech than we do. China is banning harmful activities like porn, social media and games.

 

[e2eww]

SEE! BEING AN EXTREME CONSOOMER IS IN FACT BAHD

it always comes down to this with just about anything
most people are unable to see nuance when it comes to issues like this, where it's possible to both use a smartphone and also avoid the negative outcomes that are often associated with it. but i also do understand when some people decide to just go full anti-modernity and only have a landline because it's hard to justify owning a smartphone if all you use it for is calling and texting people, most of which you can do on a desktop nowadays anyways. i still own a cellphone, and i dont plan on getting rid of it anytime soon, since i have the privilege of being able to somewhat effectively self-regulate how much time i spend online every day. i guess the biggest issue with all of it is that by totally denouncing social media, you are further alienating the people who know social media is bad for them but they just dont care enough (or are too scared) to make such a drastic change (and they surely wouldnt be able to get their friends to follow in their footsteps either). its easy to repeat the same old technology bad, offline good but i think more people should make an effort to match the sort of coexistence with technology that we had at one point instead of the over-reliance we see nowadays, while still making sure that people feel just as connected as they do now.

 

[Vaporsleep]

Saw this tweet with an instagram UI mockup of a "goodnight" feature that literally just shuts down the app for the night like a storefront or how TV stations went off the air at midnight in the 20th century. I genuinely think this would be good for many, if not most people to be forced off it at a certain time.


View: https://twitter.com/soren_iverson/status/1823362491684176357?s=46&t=06USRloMNVBqIULtKp37rw


Doomscrolling is an especially bad spiral to fall into. Not being able to do it would really help ease anxiety.

 

[Void]

Saw this tweet with an instagram UI mockup of a "goodnight" feature that literally just shuts down the app for the night like a storefront or how TV stations went off the air at midnight in the 20th century. I genuinely think this would be good for many, if not most people to be forced off it at a certain time.


View: https://twitter.com/soren_iverson/status/1823362491684176357?s=46&t=06USRloMNVBqIULtKp37rw


Doomscrolling is an especially bad spiral to fall into. Not being able to do it would really help ease anxiety.

I played a game called Virtual Magic Kingdom when I was a kid that was an MMORPG set in the Disney parks, which closed its servers every night when mods were offline. Pissed me off as a kid but I think it was beneficial for me, and something like that for modern social media would definitely be beneficial for kids today.

 

[pickleman]

Everyone appears equal on the internet which makes it easier to spread communist propaganda.

 

[Vaporsleep]

Everyone appears equal on the internet which makes it easier to spread communist propaganda.

All posters are equal, but some posters are more equal than others.

 

[Caspar]

Do any of you do anything different for your kids? Or if no kids yet, do you have plans to help prevent them from being a zombie? What are your thoughts on all this?

lol, I doubt I'll ever have kids, but notwithstanding.

My thoughts are that technology has ruined people's ability to pace themselves, especially with regards to information. It needs to be simple, single sentences, ideally spaced apart, in a message no more than 160 characters. Even better if all of it is only in reference to vacuous pop culture memes that require no effort to learn or spread. Not a novel opinion, I know.

Basically, the culture has been brought down to the lowest common denominator. Every space that isn't like that is gradually coopted to be like that and the general direction of society always leans that way. Attempt to criticize it and people will attempt to inject "nuance" - usually anecdotes that have no bearing on general trends.

All of this has led to people who utterly lack depth or seriousness. I hear people talk about how "26 is the new 21" and somesuch; I suspect the reason that people think adulthood is delayed is because of this. I don't think it's late maturity, I think it's just incorrectly-raised people.

What can you do? When you're chewing on life's gristle, don't grumble. Give a whistle.

 

[Digital Cheese]

it always comes down to this with just about anything
most people are unable to see nuance when it comes to issues like this, where it's possible to both use a smartphone and also avoid the negative outcomes that are often associated with it. but i also do understand when some people decide to just go full anti-modernity and only have a landline because it's hard to justify owning a smartphone if all you use it for is calling and texting people, most of which you can do on a desktop nowadays anyways. i still own a cellphone, and i dont plan on getting rid of it anytime soon, since i have the privilege of being able to somewhat effectively self-regulate how much time i spend online every day. i guess the biggest issue with all of it is that by totally denouncing social media, you are further alienating the people who know social media is bad for them but they just dont care enough (or are too scared) to make such a drastic change (and they surely wouldnt be able to get their friends to follow in their footsteps either). its easy to repeat the same old technology bad, offline good but i think more people should make an effort to match the sort of coexistence with technology that we had at one point instead of the over-reliance we see nowadays, while still making sure that people feel just as connected as they do now.

True. In my case, I'd rather avoid smart-phones entirely, but I almost guarantee I'll need them in the future which sucks. It actually wouldn't be *too* big of a deal if the 2G+3G towers were still up, but they keep on slowly shutting down, rendering older phones like the Nokia Communicator phones useless, along with other old-phones in general. Landline is there, but by that point, I should force people to email me, or figure out using XMPP for texting/calling family+frens, as I can just do that on my computer, which I prefer.

I've genuinely wondered how to get most people off social-media. Fediverse might work, but it could become the very same issue just slightly more free-speech and private, at least since most of fediverse is stuff like Mastodon or PeerTube, rather than anything extremely unique. I can't justify just using social-media but smaller when it's essentially going to end up around as addicting as usual due to layouts, maybe a minor amount less addicting. They'd quit tomorrow if all their friends quit, but their friends won't quit because the other friends and friends of friends won't quit either.

I think the only answer is to ignore it entirely at this point, as much as I want to free everyone. It's a great containment zone at least. Technically even I use social-media, but the only active social-media is on Twitter/X, and that's because I actually enjoy it. All the other sites I'll probably delete soon, with a maybe for YouTube. They just don't have any purpose now, so I can't care less by now. I don't have much to delete if I go that route at least, but we'll see.

I think social-media still wouldn't be insufferable if it were harder to access on phones, but not by much. And only because it filters complete, total tech-normies, but not anything else usually.

Saw this tweet with an instagram UI mockup of a "goodnight" feature that literally just shuts down the app for the night like a storefront or how TV stations went off the air at midnight in the 20th century. I genuinely think this would be good for many, if not most people to be forced off it at a certain time.


View: https://twitter.com/soren_iverson/status/1823362491684176357?s=46&t=06USRloMNVBqIULtKp37rw


Doomscrolling is an especially bad spiral to fall into. Not being able to do it would really help ease anxiety.

Would actually be a good idea for most people LOL. Many of these folks seem to need it which I guess isn't *too* surprising, but still. Although this seems like it would just kill the app, so they'll never do it.

 

[LostintheCycle]

Do any of you do anything different for your kids? Or if no kids yet, do you have plans to help prevent them from being a zombie? What are your thoughts on all this?

I have a lot of thoughts about the network architecture of my children's home once I have them. I'll probably do an old-school mainframe style setup, where they can have a remote X session from small cheap computers. Could probably do LAN games now and then, but mostly it would be for information access within my intranet, PDF files and archived websites, using software for documents and that sort of thing. I don't want my children to have free reign online, nor waste their youth playing videogames more than what is healthy. I'm not planning to push them into computers either, maybe I will show them what I do and if they become interested teach them, but won't push it.

 

[nsequeira119]

I've been listening through the book "The Anxious Generation" - an interesting overview of how social media, and it becoming constantly available on our cell phones, has massively changed children negatively. I think it's worth the listen, but it really has been eye opening in some areas. Not like a "huh, I never thought of that", but more of a "okay, now all the connections are firing correctly".

One of the primary takeaways from the book is how children/teens moving persistently online opens the floodgates of interactions they would not have had otherwise. The positives of course are that information can be found easily, connections can be made quickly between contacts, and experiencing certain things is cheaper or easier than ever before. However, this also means people's interactions in the real world, such as their ability to communicate with others, or the ability to slow the flow of information (including negative engagement) suffers dramatically. It pushes people away from experiencing the real world (and thus learning how to deal with it) to hiding in the digital world and ignoring reality.

I watched the first Harry Potter the other day with my niece-in-law who was visiting. Obviously it's set in a time where computers were barely beginning to become mainstream, but notably nobody had phones. Kids went outside and explored, got in trouble, fought for themselves, etc. And sure - it's a movie, and it's part of the plot. But MAN - that felt normal just 20 years back. And now? Good luck talking to people without any interruptions from a phone, or having a conversation that requires more than a few brain cells.

I suppose, by way of complaint, that wave of nostalgia hit hard. The world is awesome as a nerd (I love all the new features that keep coming out in software and hardware), but it sucks as a person in many circles. It ruins a sense of community in the real world that online can't quite replace. Agora Road is an awesome community, but it can never replace (or be as impactful) as the real town I live in. And because many people just want the easy route (give a kid an iPad), I don't see things changing for the better.

So... thanks Silicon Valley for social media (it can be fun sometimes). But also, fuck you.

Do any of you do anything different for your kids? Or if no kids yet, do you have plans to help prevent them from being a zombie? What are your thoughts on all this?

TLDR: Easily accessible social media melts brains (not in the fun way), and ruins the fun for the rest of us. Big sad.

I can say, being Gen Z, that my peers don't tend to prefer contact offline if online contact is a viable alternative. It's very difficult to make friends who want to hang out, or even can hang out with any sense of spontaneity. Everything has to be planned, and double-checked, and worried over, and lots of them are self-conscious about how they're perceived or how to interact. I prefer face-to-face communication, so I do feel isolated quite a bit. Also, I don't have a phone (not because I dislike phones in theory, but just because they can't realistically hold a candle to the internal storage of my PC). So there are lots of times when I'm talking to someone and they'll be scrolling, and I'll just be kinda confused as to why they have to do that, because I really doubt the stuff on TikTok or whatever is that interesting.

On the other hand, to play devil's advocate, I don't think Gen Z has it anywhere near as bad as hyperbolic tabloid pieces might have you believe- and the image of the social-media obsessed Zoomer is somewhat of a stereotype/generalization which older generations will need to overcome and reckon with eventually. Looking back, I find it difficult to claim with 100% certainty that Millennials or Gen X have more refined taste, or are necessarily less susceptible to manipulation by Silicon Valley- these are the people who grew up on Skeletor and Hulk Hogan, and I feel there's a sort of temporal bias in propping up the content of yesteryear as impeccably wonderful and consistently denigrating modern content. Stupid media has always existed, it's simply undergone a considerable paradigm shift.

 

[LostintheCycle]

It's very difficult to make friends who want to hang out, or even can hang out with any sense of spontaneity. Everything has to be planned, and double-checked, and worried over, and lots of them are self-conscious about how they're perceived or how to interact.

Not to mention how flaky they are, a majority of plans I've tried to make have fallen through, sometimes at the last minute, without explanation. Apologies abound sure, but when it happens so often, are they really that sorry?

 

[Hypatia]

Everyone appears equal on the internet which makes it easier to spread communist propaganda.

The efforts don't seem to work on you however comrade.

 

[4d1]

I still remember going to the pub where people engaged in conversation and met people whereas it is just a selfie fest and keeping to oneself, or with zoomers, not even going out.

I personally do not allow any social media apps on my phone and have left most of them entirely, but I know that I am in the minority of people.

I know the feeling. Worse even to be younger and all your peers are like this. I try to show them it's possible, but I can only show them the door, they gotta be the one to walk through it...

 

[4d1]

how we use technology is dependent on how we are as a society. it's why China is making better use of tech than we do. China is banning harmful activities like porn, social media and games.

The thing is with banning is it works as a general thing for stopping dumb people from falling in, but like China, it can easily slide into "nothing happened at Tianenmen Square in 1989". Cultural and moral mindsets surely make similar impacts. If your society isn't willing to think that way, then you can still use technology better without the need for harsh authoritarianism.

And yes, I do agree that the issue is that the majority of people lack the moral compass to distinguish this.

But being unable to commit evil because daddy government says no is not the same as having access to evil and saying no because you know it's bad. Not everyone is cut out for determining the difference, which yes, is why banning works, but likewise, you aren't allowed to do wrong, which is what makes us all human.

I think shifting the mindset of others to realise the evils and then let them take it into their own hands by realising that it's not a good use is better overall.

Teaching people to use a knife for cutting doesn't mean it stops them from stabbing others. But if they recognise that stabbing is wrong, they can be probably trusted in the kitchen.

 

[4d1]

I think the only answer is to ignore it entirely at this point, as much as I want to free everyone. It's a great containment zone at least.

Yeah I mean there's always been masses and plebs. It's just now they scream at each other like animals on Instagram or Twitter rather than in fields and villages.

But that doesn't mean we as aristocratic scholars of Agora or the fringes need to treat them as such. The way I see it is I converse with them, and tell them my perspective about the Net.

If they don't like it, off they go, take the blue pill live in fantasy land whatever. Their life not mine. But every so often someone will realise that there's a way out, and it's nice to see someone change themselves for the better after realising they don't need to stick around in corpohell