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[Men_in_Boxes]

So...our country seems to be sick right now. You ask people why and most will tell you it's the opposing tribes fault. If we could just somehow squash the other tribe we'd be alright.

If society is getting more polarized + crazier, is it possible that the cause of it is simply social media? Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, even message boards like NeoGAF...are we going to find out in 50 years that humans aren't equipped to ingest social information in these forms? That we're actually supposed to work 8 hours of manual labor a day and interact with a small group of people on a regular basis?

This is what your lungs look like after 5 years of smoking. This is what they look like after 15 years of smoking etc...

Is Jack Dorsey just Joe Camel? Is this what America's lungs look like after 10 years of social media?

I'm not an intellectual. My brain hurts. I'll hang up and take your answer off the air.

 

[Jethalal]

I've been able to leave junk and sugary food with ease compared to Internet, rather than just SM. It is the addictive aspects that trouble me. Anyone got tips?

 

[DrJohnGalt]

When you say "find out", what do you mean? I think a lot of people already know social media is bad and addictive and it could be argued has mental, emotional, and physical effects on users.

Do I think it will be proven to the point that it will be outlawed by the government? Nope.

More harmful than hard drugs? Maybe in a different way.

 

[DESTROYA]

I don’t do social media and would rather do drugs if I had to choose.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I've been able to leave junk and sugary food with ease compared to Internet, rather than just SM. It is the addictive aspects that trouble me. Anyone got tips?

I think one of the problems is that these apps are tied to legitimately functional+helpful tools, our phones.

It's like tying cigarettes to the steering wheel of every car in America. We have to drive...and when we do, if we're stressed, we just grab a cigarette.

 

[FreedomOfSpeech]

The problem is not social media, it's the average person being a retard.
Doesn't understand the internet, doesn't understand trolling, doesn't understand ideologies.

A giant herd of clueless idiots ripe for the taking by those that have understood the impact of the internet decades ago. Good luck playing catchup.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

When you say "find out", what do you mean? I think a lot of people already know social media is bad and addictive and it could be argued has mental, emotional, and physical effects on users.

Do I think it will be proven to the point that it will be outlawed by the government? Nope.

More harmful than hard drugs? Maybe in a different way.

Some people knew cigarettes were cancer causing pretty early on as well, but it didn't really bubble up through society until the 80's? Every kid today that doesn't smoke, will tell you how harmful + expensive they are. Then they'll immediately look at their phone.

I think people aren't equipped with understanding exactly how harmful this stuff actually is. Hell, I'm a skeptic and I wouldn't know where to start.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

I don’t do social media and would rather do drugs if I had to choose.

NeoGAF is social media. Texting is social media. Reddit is social media. Youtube is social media. PlayStation is social media.

In my opinion, it's an amorphous, difficult to distinguish blob.

 

[Outlier]

Drugs destroy individuals and hurt immediate associates, while bad media hurts whole communities.

So when bad media tells you that drugs aren't so bad...

 

[ManofOne]

It already pretty much proven.

 

[JimmyRustler]

It has been a more or less open secret for quite some time just how harmful social media is on the society as a whole.

The internet in general should have stayed a tool for trade and the nerds. Giving the common mob access to it has done more harm than good - and it's only getting worse.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

It has been a more or less open secret for quite some time just how harmful social media is on the society as a whole.

The internet in general should have stayed a tool for trade and the nerds. Giving the common mob access to it has done more harm than good - and it's only getting worse.

When does it become a non secret?

When are 13 year old kids going to say "I don't do social media because it's expensive and causes cancer."

Btw, look how badass Rob McHelhenney is here...

 

[Barnabot]

to me you should pack both social media and drugs and put them in a bag filled with turds. Make some spare time and pack activists and drug dealers too. And nuke them to the orbit.

 

[Arimer]

I think so. Psychologicaly and socially i think social media is a cancer that's slowly destroying us. It forces you into bubbles and slowly radicalizes you without your knowledge and deeds all the worst aspects of humanity.

 

[Croatoan]

Yes. It destroys not just lives but society as a whole.

 

[DESTROYA]

NeoGAF is social media. Texting is social media. Reddit is social media. Youtube is social media. PlayStation is social media.

In my opinion, it's an amorphous, difficult to distinguish blob.

To me not really, only thing that I consider social media are FB, Twitter, Instagram and the like.
PlayStation on is social media ?
Of those you listed above I only do GAF and none of the others.

 

[Lemonade by Beyonce]

Probably, but more due to radicalization than addiction.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

I know this is an unpopular idea, but I still firmly believe it isn't the tools themselves causing these problems. The two big problems are

1) the ideologues who own the tools use them to reinforce and funnel attention toward things they believe in, instead of being "neutral", and

2) the people who get addicted to the tools are immature

The latter issue is one of self control. People are acting rotten because they actually are rotten. Numerous psychological and social experiments in the past 100 years affirm that humans tend to act despicably when they have the opportunity to do so and with no real punishment to fear. People should treat social media tools like a car or like the postal service. You don't send bombs through the mail. You don't rear-end someone for cutting you off. And you don't doxx people to get them fired from their jobs.

The social media tools are quite incredible, in the right hands. We can use them for rapid responses to emergencies and natural disasters. We can use them to organize massive charity and community-rebuilding efforts. The people who use the tools for the things they do are vindictive at heart. Twitter isn't making them that way.

 

[CrankyJay™]

If the tribe defeats the other tribe, then the remaining tribe would splinter over something else and repeat the process.

 

[CrankyJay™]

I know this is an unpopular idea, but I still firmly believe it isn't the tools themselves causing these problems. The two big problems are

1) the ideologues who own the tools use them to reinforce and funnel attention toward things they believe in, instead of being "neutral", and

2) the people who get addicted to the tools are immature

The latter issue is one of self control. People are acting rotten because they actually are rotten. Numerous psychological and social experiments in the past 100 years affirm that humans tend to act despicably when they have the opportunity to do so and with no real punishment to fear. People should treat social media tools like a car or like the postal service. You don't send bombs through the mail. You don't rear-end someone for cutting you off. And you don't doxx people to get them fired from their jobs.

The social media tools are quite incredible, in the right hands. We can use them for rapid responses to emergencies and natural disasters. We can use them to organize massive charity and community-rebuilding efforts. The people who use the tools for the things they do are vindictive at heart. Twitter isn't making them that way.

Step 1. Remove the reactions. It’s just a dopamine hit.
Step 2. Remove notifications. It’s also a dopamine hit.

 

[DunDunDunpachi]

Step 1. Remove the reactions. It’s just a dopamine hit.
Step 2. Remove notifications. It’s also a dopamine hit.

Pretty much any human interaction can give you a jolt of hormones. I'd also argue any computer interface can be tuned to give you a hit of dopamine, whether it's by using sound effects, haptics, etc. Even without malice or misuse, a social media app is going to give a bit of dopamine. I don't think that's the fundamental problem, though.

 

[Frito_Pendejo]

I left social media behind completely 5+ years ago....

“Spends 18 hours a day on Gaf”

 

[Hari Seldon]

NeoGAF is social media. Texting is social media. Reddit is social media. Youtube is social media. PlayStation is social media.

In my opinion, it's an amorphous, difficult to distinguish blob.

There is a massive difference between an old school linear forum and algorithmic interactions. You cannot beat the algorithms. The only purpose of the algorithms is to keep you on the site. If you are on here and say something retarded and people call you out, maybe you rethink things and chill for a bit. With the algorithm when you say something retarded you get matched with a similar retard who re-affirms your opinion and you get retard*retard. Multiply this over everyone and you end up with retard^n which literally explains everything going on these days. We have achieved exponential retard growth.

 

[Mistake]

Here's a simple test. Go out somewhere, and leave your phone at home. If you feel anxiety, you're probably addicted

 

[Tesseract]

I know this is an unpopular idea, but I still firmly believe it isn't the tools themselves causing these problems. The two big problems are

1) the ideologues who own the tools use them to reinforce and funnel attention toward things they believe in, instead of being "neutral", and

2) the people who get addicted to the tools are immature

The latter issue is one of self control. People are acting rotten because they actually are rotten. Numerous psychological and social experiments in the past 100 years affirm that humans tend to act despicably when they have the opportunity to do so and with no real punishment to fear. People should treat social media tools like a car or like the postal service. You don't send bombs through the mail. You don't rear-end someone for cutting you off. And you don't doxx people to get them fired from their jobs.

The social media tools are quite incredible, in the right hands. We can use them for rapid responses to emergencies and natural disasters. We can use them to organize massive charity and community-rebuilding efforts. The people who use the tools for the things they do are vindictive at heart. Twitter isn't making them that way.

 

[Tesseract]

NeoGAF is social media. Texting is social media. Reddit is social media. Youtube is social media. PlayStation is social media.

In my opinion, it's an amorphous, difficult to distinguish blob.

gaf = bulwark or chatsubo

but your point is well taken

Spoiler: ~

i m o

 

[Tesseract]

I don’t do social media and would rather do drugs if I had to choose.

that's why i will never stop toking weed

 

[oagboghi2]

I don’t do social media and would rather do drugs if I had to choose.

You are doing social media right now. Neogaf and any other message board is just an older offshoot of social media

 

[Haemi]

The core of the problem of social media is that anybody can create their own positive feedback loop. Gather people around you, who share the same thoughts and bann/block everyone who has a different opinion. Everyone is able to reinforce their own believes no matter how wrong they are. This is the source of the addiction potential and how being obese gets healthy.
Companies should (be forced?) burst these positive feedback bubbles. Remove bann/block functionality, throw different opinions into their newsfeed would be a start.

 

[CloudNull]

Step 1. Remove the reactions. It’s just a dopamine hit.
Step 2. Remove notifications. It’s also a dopamine hit.

Double edge sword. I like being able to react easily to something I like or think is funny with out writing anything. Makes for a better experience but it does create a feedback loop which keeps me more addicted than other forums.

I feel the linear forum design does provide more natural experiences with other users and is much better then interacting with people from an algorithm.

Overall I feel people are coming around to realizing social media is a disaster that we were not ready for. The depth of the chaos has yet to be fully understood but I say it easily reaches a class 1 drug.... class 2 I am not sure.... I think it would fit but would be one of the less addictive drugs.

 

[GamingKaiju]

Yes the current division in most western nations stems from echo-chamber Social media feeds and the constant pings of videos or tweets constantly heightens a persons justification for maintaining a echo chamber. A founding tenet of western democracies is that we can have our differences agree or disagree on a issue and not be attacked for it with the rise of Social media this now has become unacceptable and only "my" side is right and there is no mature discourse over a subject just attacks on a personal level that resolve nothing you're either a Trumpet or a remoaner or a Gammonny brexiteer that shouldn't have a vote because you "don't know" anything where has the reasoned debate gone.

In short Social media is a curse that we weren't ready for.

 

[lock2k]

The problem is not social media, it's the average person being a retard.
Doesn't understand the internet, doesn't understand trolling, doesn't understand ideologies.

A giant herd of clueless idiots ripe for the taking by those that have understood the impact of the internet decades ago. Good luck playing catchup.

No, forums were around since the golden days and way before social media was coined. Forums are way more information based than social media. They're more like groups of affinity. Notice we're all more or less anonymous here whereas social media is focused on the self.

 

[GreyHorace]

Social media gave a voice to people of all walks of life. Unfortunately that included the social retards who wouldn't be caught dead voicing their opinion at a public space for fear of repercussion but are comfortable doing it behind a computer with the safety of anonymity protecting them.

By making communication easily remote and away from actual human contact, it enabled the worse sort of behavior in people. And people are pretty shitty in general if they have no one to check them.

 

[Liu Kang filing his 1040]

Social media makes teens and tweens self harm and kill themselves at increasing rates.
That should tell you everything you need to know.

If we bagged on the 24/7 news cycle, this is much worse for us.
We can't even begin to vet and process all of the information hitting our brains.
And with competing narratives on every issue it's impossible to latch on to any truth, much less a shared truth.

I think the division is by design.

 

[Coolwhhip]

Social media gave a voice to people of all walks of life. Unfortunately that included the social retards who wouldn't be caught dead voicing their opinion at a public space for fear of repercussion but are comfortable doing it behind a computer with the safety of anonymity protecting them.

By making communication easily remote and away from actual human contact, it enabled the worse sort of behavior in people. And people are pretty shitty in general if they have no one to check them.

And it makes everyone equal in a way, which is bad. Normally you would not give a damn about the opinion of a crazy, drunk homeless guy. But on the internet that person can spout nonsense all day and it's on the same 'level' as the opinion of an intelligent well adjusted person.

 

[GreyHorace]

And it makes everyone equal in a way, which is bad. Normally you would not give a damn about the opinion of a crazy, drunk homeless guy. But on the internet that person can spout nonsense all day and it's on the same 'level' as the opinion of an intelligent well adjusted person.

I was thinking more in line of the crazed feminists that love to be offended on a regular basis:

And the nu-male feminist simps that white knight for them:

People like this wouldn't be so outspoken if social media didn't exist.

 

[Super Mario]

As already stated, we are well aware of the power of social media. It controls, it manipulates. Far more destruction to society than a junkie dying from their needle. Why would we admit it though?

 

[Party McHardy]

The problem is not social media, it's the average person being a retard.
Doesn't understand the internet, doesn't understand trolling, doesn't understand ideologies.

A giant herd of clueless idiots ripe for the taking by those that have understood the impact of the internet decades ago. Good luck playing catchup.

Not everybody needs to be heard. Now everybody can be heard.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

As already stated, we are well aware of the power of social media. It controls, it manipulates. Far more destruction to society than a junkie dying from their needle. Why would we admit it though?

Do you think the average 9 year old, 14 year old, 19 year old views social media the same way they view smoking?

 

[CGiRanger]

Could we agree on a scale of good <-----> bad Social media, that Twitter is the absolute worst and is doing the most harm in its current form?

It's a site designed to rewards "hot takes" and arguments without any thought or care, since you can't have any good coherent written-down thoughts on it due to its character limit.

 

[CertifiedKiwi]

Would you rather the Gov/State moderating opinions or dissent on the social media like in other non-western countries to ensure stability in Society

 

[eddie4]

people are so obsessed by it that they're on their phones flipping through FB or IG while driving and just not paying attention to the traffic, slowing everything down. for fucks sake can you not be on your phone for 10 minutes and drive, that shit pisses me off.

 

[dr_octagon]

Could we agree on a scale of good <-----> bad Social media, that Twitter is the absolute worst and is doing the most harm in its current form?

It's a site designed to rewards "hot takes" and arguments without any thought or care, since you can't have any good coherent written-down thoughts on it due to its character limit.

1. Censorship across various topics
2. There is no nuance or real discussion
3. Gives a loudspeaker to idiots and amplifies the voices which would otherwise be ignored
4. It's become a way of instant communication, reaching a big audience with virtually zero quality control, accountability, transparency od oversight (in constrast with traditional media mediums)
5.It is a private company platform. Although they advocate free speech, it will be at the owner's discretion.
6. Used by internet vigilantes, pushing for bullying, harassment and action which is supported by an unwarranted sense of justice / power

The limited advantages and useful elements are lost in a sea of propaganda, bots, spam, advertising, commentart, outrage etc.

It reflects, enables and encourages some of the worst behaviours in our society. There is little effort for the percieved reward and no consequences. Nothing of value would be lost if we deleted 99 percent of the messages.


Edit - to OP's point about message boards, the nature of not having a 150 character limit, everyone on same level, no instant response, fostering communtity etc. would encourage better quality interactions and discourse.

Internet is one medium but we have different communication platforms / tools within that. I think that's an important distinction to make when looking at social media.

 

[crozier]

You don’t see many 70 year-old heroin addicts kicking around. Social media doesn’t take decades off your life.

 

[Ten_Fold]

Social media has created Soo many depressed, high levels of anxiety people. You can’t really talk about winning because most people isn’t even making 50k a year an are borderline homeless so they will attack you. I remember in the early 2000’s people didn’t care much for becoming somebody with a voice. It was just go get a good job, have fun, travel, save, and retire.
Now it’s I gotta be like everybody else, gotta be rich, gotta be online police, gotta feel like my life matters.

social media created this feeling of everyone having a voice, when we know not everyone should. Now some good things happen like being able to chat with friends and family much easier, that’s honestly about it. I hate it honestly wish they would put restrictions on how many times you can tweet/reply or who you can tweet/reply to and how many times you can refresh your page for the day. Something because the current trend isn’t good.

 

[Men_in_Boxes]

 

[Reality Czar]

I think it is both harmful and good like anything. Of course we are blaming a lot of things on social media because we are told it is responsible for all this bad stuff. In reality things like cancel culture are decisions made by corporations and state groups. We can blame social media for getting Gina Carano fired but in reality that is the result of a particular corporate culture. People get banned off YouTube or Twitter because those companies are allowed to do whatever they want by the law. That’s not a problem with social media, it’s a problem with the law not being applied equally. A small group of companies seem to be immune.

Systemic oppression of opinions is not happening because social media is doing this but because the systems we have in place like the government are not doing their jobs to protect the consumer.

Social media, like any technology, is a tool. What a tool does it is amplified force. A pulley helps you life more weight. It can increase your weight lifting capability many times. The internet helps you interact socially many times more than pre internet. Not just many times, but exponentially, on a continuous 24 hour stream. It is almost like we flipped a switch and now everyone can read everybody’s minds instantly all over the world. If that happened, there would be problems at first, but people would get used to it. Generations raised only ever reading minds would quickly adapt. IMO we are still in the growing pains of social media and it is possible there are good days ahead.

 

[Barrage]

It is certainly damaging to society and community in its' current form (I remember the much more localized late-aughts Facebook, with no News feed, where you could sort your feed chronologically. Or a Twitter where you could go days without seeing anyone's political opinion/ideology wailing).

But we can't act like Scientists labelling it as "dangerous" or "harmful" will immediately lead to reform. Alcohol is a literal poison that can influence violence, sexual assault, vehicular homicides, and destroy lives. We've chosen to live "around" its societal effect. We advertise it during football games.

 

[Ikutachi]

The majority isn't going to move away. Seeing people saying they quit it are the minority.

 

[Taxexemption]

Certain types of mental illness and unhappiness are contagious. I think this is made much worse by the internet. We live in a modern society where meaning is hard to find. In a primitive society meaning is found in family and the fight to survive. In modern society we spend so little time with our family due to economics and other reasons that we've lost some meaning there, and most jobs are not as fulfilling as hunting, farming, or even manufacturing jobs of previous centuries. In a global economy being a coder is largely meaningless. There are millions of people around the world that can take that job. You aren't valuable in a fundamental way, you are only marginally valuable compared to other individuals, and at any sign of you no longer performing or cheaper labor elsewhere you will be discarded.


How can a person find meaning in modern life where their place in society is precarious, and their connection to their family is increasingly distant? To the extent that you can contract mental illness from being exposed to selective information, we live in the perfect time for it to spread. The ability to see highly curated versions of other's lives can give us the impression that others are more well off than we are, and that we are the only ones that are unhappy. Alternatively, it can connect us with people that are angry and have narratives about how society is unjust, and we can and should fight it, giving us an alternative meaning for our lives.


Religion for most people is gone, or not something to be taken seriously. At your job you are disposable. Your parents probably don't have the time to interact with you because they are too busy with work. You are alone in this world, you don't know where you came from, you don't know where you are going, and it's doubtful that anyone cares. For many this is a reality they are trying to escape from.