In an opinion piece in the The New York Times, Dr. Vivek Murthy said that social media is a contributing factor in the mental health crisis among young people.
Isn’t social media just a distillation of the interactions innate in society? If exposure to social media is damaging that’s indicative of deeply flawed and damaging society.
The key difference is its sorted by an algorithm designed to increase your engagement and view duration. And quite often the easiest way to do that is by generating negative emotional responses, etc
Even with perfect algorithms I think it’s reasonable to expect problems within society to sharpen.
I mean if there was some theoretical social media entity completely disconnected from optimization for its own benefit then the people using that system would still have been provided the tools to do all their social relations faster, more often and with more intensity.
That’s gonna, and maybe I’m giving away the game here, uh, heighten the contradictions.
Isn’t social media just a distillation of the interactions innate in society? If exposure to social media is damaging that’s indicative of deeply flawed and damaging society.
The key difference is its sorted by an algorithm designed to increase your engagement and view duration. And quite often the easiest way to do that is by generating negative emotional responses, etc
Even with perfect algorithms I think it’s reasonable to expect problems within society to sharpen.
I mean if there was some theoretical social media entity completely disconnected from optimization for its own benefit then the people using that system would still have been provided the tools to do all their social relations faster, more often and with more intensity.
That’s gonna, and maybe I’m giving away the game here, uh, heighten the contradictions.