Social media has empowered countless hundreds of millions of people - indiscriminately perhaps - and now every voice can be heard, albeit often in the context of echo chambers and personal realities.
Might this play some role in the crisis of meaning that many people now perceive?
Or maybe you don't think there is any crisis of meaning in the world?
A certain amount of drivel (e.g., Donald J Trump — Son of Man, The Christ) is the price we all pay for having a free press. We’ve seen the alternative—burning people at the stake for heterodoxy—it’s worse.
@fmfsaid Social media has empowered countless hundreds of millions of people - indiscriminately perhaps - and now every voice can be heard, albeit often in the context of echo chambers and personal realities.
Might this play some role in the crisis of meaning that many people now perceive?
Or maybe you don't think there is any crisis of meaning in the world?
IMHO There has always been some level of crisis of meaning in the world, but I doubt social media has had much of an effect one way or the other.
Social media may have some positive aspects, but it's been abused by those who would use it to promote business ventures and by political hacks, both using it as their personal soapbox to "get their message out" Today we have email, snail mail, skype, zoom, fax, instant messaging, texts and a multitude of forum sites (like this one) to communicate with each other. Do we need social media on top of all this? I don't think so.
@mchillsaid IMHO There has always been some level of crisis of meaning in the world, but I doubt social media has had much of an effect one way or the other.
I think the interconnectedness and empowerment that people can feel because of social media is a kind of delusion or anaesthetic that distracts them from, or numbs them to, the harsh truth of the atomization that's really going on.
@mchillsaid Today we have email, snail mail, skype, zoom, fax, instant messaging, texts and a multitude of forum sites (like this one) to communicate with each other. Do we need social media on top of all this? I don't think so.
Well, "skype, zoom, instant messaging, texts and a multitude of forum sites like this one" ARE "social media", so I am not sure what you mean when you ask "Do we need social media on top of all this?"
@fmfsaid Well, "skype, zoom, instant messaging, texts and a multitude of forum sites like this one" ARE "social media", so I am not sure what you mean when you ask "Do we need social media on top of all this?"
I'm talking about the big 3. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
@fmfsaid I think the interconnectedness and empowerment that people can feel because of social media is a kind of delusion or anaesthetic that distracts them from, or numbs them to, the harsh truth of the atomization that's really going on.
I would agree with this. It should also be noted that social media has contributed greatly to the short attention spans we see today.
@mchillsaid It should also be noted that social media has contributed greatly to the short attention spans we see today.
Undoubtedly true although my parents' generation, born in the 1920s and 1930s, were complaining about this already [perhaps a wee bit unfairly] with regard to my generation in the 1970s and 1980s thirty years before the internet and all its sophisticated accoutrements.
@fmfsaid Social media has empowered countless hundreds of millions of people - indiscriminately perhaps - and now every voice can be heard, albeit often in the context of echo chambers and personal realities.
Personally I have found some social media platforms to be a blight. This week I resigned as a long-term administrator and moderator of a large Facebook group (over 8,000) members as I was fed up with the increasing disinhibited behaviour and my role had become more of a policing effort which was taking up too much of my time. It was such a surprising relief that I also left the group despite it being focused on a subject I was close to.
I find that some social media, such as WhatsApp for example, makes me feel more connected to people as it is limited to close personal contacts.
Social media and a crisis of meaning
20 Sep '22 21:06
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