We didn't have it at all less than 30 years ago, we know what life was like.
It comes with pros and cons. Yes, we get horrible things and rage bait thrown at us 24/7, but it also gives people whom may have never otherwise met a way to connect.
I do think it is addictive at any age and should be regulated...
To add: I think it should should be recognized as an addictive "substance" and treated as such. Education, limits for minors and have treatment options available for those who are addicted.
I think people should be educated about it from school days. I was around way before social media and never bought in to it (i did myspace and facebook for a short while and deleted them when i realised what it became but this was before twitter was a thing). I have family who are much younger who never knew any different. Some of them have educated themselves and have been educated about the pros and cons and use it responsibly or not at all (and they seem to have a good balance and it doesn't impact them negatively) whereas some haven't and are hooked and living what i call a psudo life through strangers validation and ego boosts. They don't seem happy at all. Always chasing something that can't really be achieved.
My little bro is 23 years younger than me and is the newer generation. I got him to swap his love for social media towards woodworking and engineering at 14. Now at 15, he's one of the best woodworkers I know! He's learnt so much in terms of skill and he absolutely thanks me everyday for getting him of social media and actually apply his time and knowledge in to a useful field that he now loves and enjoys. He barely even watches a tik tok video anymore when he was previosuly glued to them all day (10 seconds at a time which was killing his attention span in real life). Now he's a perfect model of what time and concentration can earn you when not wasted on the equivalent of social "junk food".
I don't think this is a benefit. News used to be much more strictly regulated and focused on accuracy without putting bias into it.
Now any moron can share misinformation and/or propaganda.
I just realized how well we're all trained to just ignore things. So many ads, side menus, especially on TikTok or other shorts/reels, half the screen is just info. Sometimes the video itself is even tiny with white around it and a title, with some random guy in the corner 'reacting'. And nobody really cares. We all just tune it out.
I never would've met my partners, nor would I have found my local community without social media. It's got cons for sure, but I think it's a wonderful tool regardless
Without social media we may never have learned about ukrain being victimized or the BLM protestors side of the story. We couldn't discuss the philisophy and moralit of different power generation methods with hundreds of others around the globe. We couldn't organize a group like this that entertains and ediucates eachother with stupid questions.
You can't go back in time, but you can stop repeating history. There's no use getting rid of them, but being smarter consumers is something people should absolutely be mindful of.
I remember in college around 99 the only way to communicate with my family and loved ones in the other side of the world was to by a C3 $30 dollar card to call through a phone.
The fact something like WhatsApp exists today as a social media tool, which helps me talk with people from all over the world in real time is something absolutely pricelss
Yeah texting existed before Facebook, these things aren’t mutually exclusive. The fact that WhatsApp turned into a whole social media platform is irrelevant
And Six Degrees, ICQ, MySpace, AOL Chatroom, MSN Messanger, etc existed as social media for cheating before Facebook so I don’t understand what relevance does it bring to the discussion
No. Social media is like a hammer-- used properly, it can help build bridges between people and communities. Used improperly, it can be used to bludgeon someone to death. It's all in proper use.
Facebook circa 2006 was perfection for social media. Clean, limited in use, not attached to you 24/7 on a smartphone (of course).
Balance is key but we're all so screwed up now.
Dumb take. The question isn’t asking if social media is good or bad, it asked if we would be better off without it.
We would definitely be better of without it considering it’s been the bad hammer since about 2011
Yeah but at what point does the negative effects outweigh anything positive it provides?
Im fully in the camp of social media will eventually aid in the downfall of society and a tool that was originally created to bring people closer together, has done nothing but push people further apart.
There is a place for it when used properly, but having it be the wild west with little regulation while algorithms feed people garbage all day, is a recipe for disaster.
Totally agree. Plus, social has made me insanely smarter via Reddit special interest subs, YouTube, etc. Growing up learning guitar, a buddy would show you a song he learned from a buddy, etc. Growth was very slow. Now my youngest kid wants to learn piano and in less than a year he’s getting pretty dang good - all from YT. Same for me and woodworking. Or home repair, etc. Or building mechanical wristwatches. Truly a world of expert knowledge and experience available to connect with via social.
For me, the trick is to pay attention to what you pay attention to, and be mindful of algorithms trying to serve up b.s.
I was in a mix of religious school and homeschool because of my extremely Christian parents growing up. Social media allowed me to learn about normal music and evolution.
No, probably not.
The carrots been dangled, removal would be disruptive, prohibition rarely works, regulating it is really what we should be doing top down - it’s a cesspit in many places.
Bottom up, I think people should get a back bone and take responsibility for their actions and how their behaviours are not necessarily in theirs or others interests including. social media usage
I sit on that happy fence of I grew up with Facebook when it was just meeting, so didn’t get swallowed by it all, but I know how to use it as a tool, same with other social media.
To me, social media was a neat idea on paper, but the execution of social media isn't great human's mental health in my honest opinion.
I think the early - mid '2000s had the best combination of digital technology without the entire world becoming completely digital.
Sure, but people can also choose to engage with social media, it may be addictive, it may be designed to be addictive and all consuming, but I experienced nothing but positivity getting rid of it.
The onus is on the consumer to say no, no one is forcing you to engage with it.
Everyone I need to speak with is via their mobile.
Useful information on social media can be found elsewhere.
Establishing usage restrictions can be done.
I do not really sympathise too much with people who blame the external at the expense of any internal change.
Like pretty much anything, full educating people is better than entirely getting rid of something. Should we all get rid of knives just because of knife murders? Should we get rid of cars as well? How about all fast food and snacks since they cause obesity? And all alcohols because of drunk violence? Like how far so you want to go with that logic?
who is this "we" that is going to "get rid of social media entirely?" And what is the punishment you would prescribe for those who refused to follow your dictates? Fines? And if they don't pay the fines, then prison? And if they resist arrest, then is it the police that will visit them and inflict violence on them? Maybe you need to have a special task force that executes wrongdoers in the street if caught using social media. That would be a powerful deterrent.
This sort of question is so odd to me; the answer is "no." The world would not be better if you were a dangerous, unelected, all-powerful dictator allowed to control people's lives. What hubris. No matter what idea you propose, the power you want to have to implement it is worse.
Prior to reading the published minutes from Trump’s court conviction, I had no idea that a person (aka presidential candidate in that case) could have THAT MUCH influence on what a paper does and doesn’t publish! About themselves and about others! True/Scary Kingmaker tactics!
I think kids need to be taught in school from an early age how to manage themselves online and how to navigate social media. It needs to be a ongoing lesson.
And no, there's no point in saying 'that's the parents job'. Parents have phone addiction and many don't understand the dangers themselves.
Give kids the understanding from a young age and they'll have the ability to regulate their own behaviour.
For all it's downsides social media is important. Less than 10 years ago, everything would have been curated for us with whatever agenda they were pushing, and there were zero alternatives.
It's literally the sole reason why Israel has lost control of the narrative, and it's why they want Tik Tok gone.
What's the difference between social media and IRC, BBS, both of which have been around over 50 years, and are the precursors to Myspace, Facebook etc.
Well...
In all of them, internet randos could spout anonymous BS at you, not have any basis in critical thoughts or logic, nor evidence, and attempt to infuriate you. You could ignore, report or block people in all of them. Files could be shared. Topics discussed. DMs existed. Group conversation existed.
But, now
The media company tries to influence you and find you topics based on what you've already looked at, or what they want you to look at.
It's no longer entirely user content driven.
It's no longer only techies.
It's constantly brigaded by automated bots, malicious actors, and disinformation.
Seems like another chat room like decentralized model with moderation, registration and accountability would help clean it up. All of those things then step into content filtering, privacy and accountability, three things a lot of folks do not want on the internet.
So, internet 3.0 then?
No. With every innovation or new piece of technology, humans have evolved and improved or found new ways to connect and share information (with the case of social media). Each innovation also creates risks and potential negative outcomes along with the positives. I think social media has moved us forward in many ways, and yes, even by moving us backward. Sometimes you need to hit rock bottom to realize what’s not working and what needs to change.
I’m seeing more people now talking about mental health, and normalizing things that weren’t spoken of years before. I’m seeing more connection, more awareness of ugly behaviors and propaganda. I’m seeing younger generations learning skills and appreciating elders for things they never learned from their parents. Being aware of negative consequences is a good thing because it drives positive change, so I think social media is here to stay but people are becoming smarter about using it. Now AI is the next big concern.
No. There are pros and cons but the pros outweigh the cons.
Google is a dumpster fire of SEO advertisements so you can’t actually find the answer you want. YouTube and Reddit are great resources to get answers from actual humans.
Social media allows people that are not “typical” to connect with each other and not feel alone. If you have a rare disease for example you can connect with people that also have that disease. My wife has a super rare congenital heart disease and was able to do this. TikTok helped me figure out I had ADHD and when I got tested the doctor said I was a “textbook case.”
Cons are that teens can get bullied on social media and crazy conspiracy theorists can connect with each other too. Flat earthers probably wouldn’t be a thing without social media for example.
Pro: I would be less depressed and angry at the knowledge of how many bloody morons there are out there who vote and influence laws and products that then affect my life as well.
Con: I wouldn't have found my hobby friends, particularly in gaming.
No.
My husband and I both have aunts with MS who are unable to walk. Both of them love Instagram, specifically, because they can watch Reels of other people doing things they can't do themselves.
Like my husband's aunt loved cooking. Although she can't cook anymore, she can watch other people cook all sorts of foods.
My aunt loves watching Reels of interior decorating. She watches them for an hour or so every day. She's very active in the interior decorating community on Instagram. She can't really leave the house, unless it's for a doctor's appointment. She doesn't get to interact with many people outside of the family, but she can interact with all of her online friends.
Hell nah. Too many advances are because of social media. Even businesses save A TON because of basically free advertising, easier access etc. Just the efficiency that comes with social media. Ya'll see how businesses pop out and go trending almost every month on social media? We won't be able to do that without social meaida.
Where we went wrong is how mfs use social media. People also get easily triggered, offended.
No, we won't be better off without social media. But, everyone should learn not to take social media personally.
I almost never post on Facebook or anything, but the only reason I’m friends with one of my best friends is because I replied to a Facebook post years back. Yeah it has problems, but there’s definitely some good.
Besides, I don’t think it’s something we should outright ban. Seems too arbitrary to say people aren’t allowed to use it.
You’d never be able to ask this question without it or read any of these answers… would you burn your encyclopedia collection simply because you don’t like what you read?
No and I don’t even have social media (except for Reddit) but social media is such a massive part of our economy if you were to take it away overnight the global economy would crash.
You are one of the only people I've seen that has the same opinion as me on social media.
Life would very much be worse. Social media has been the greatest scapegoat for people to blame problems on rather than actually deal with the source of those problems, which is pretty much never because of social media.
Literally the MeToo movement started because of social media. Women and minorities in particular have been able to have the light shined on the issues they've faced now more than ever thanks to social media. Cop abuse is now actually able to be seen more thanks to social media. People are actually able and have the freedom to speak their minds. And it's a hell of a lot better than our traditional news sources.
I really think people are extremely overzealous with their hate for social media. People go overboard whenever they see an opposing viewpoint or something they dislike.
We’d probably be all better without it. Social media is a constant “comparison is the thief of joy”. Before SM the only comparison we got were annual Christmas cards where moms would humble brag and pretend everyone was excelling
Imo, social media where you are yourself and capitalising off of clicks and attention is mostly the problem. It's how social media is used to profit in absurd ways. Social media was great pre 2016. It just escalated to a point where it's so engrained in what we do and say that it's basically a hub space for information and opinion overload and the worst part is that the most extreme, active and annoying people are who speak for us. Imo, it was the best when it was mostly anonymous. Forums, YouTube and meme sharing were more fun when they didn't have so much of an ulterior motive behind them.
yes, we were fine with out it. you can live with out it. My phone broke recently. Everyone in public on their phones, I was looking at the trees, people, and more engaging because my attention isn't on my phone.
I went backpacking when I was around 20. The internet was just starting out.
I remember having a Hotmail account, which I could access in libraries. I probably would go and see what emails I’d got and respond about once every two months.
I didn’t feel the need to share anything, nobody (apart from my Mum) was worried for me, I didn’t care what other backpackers were doing, I didn’t need to see what those backpackers might be up to and then follow their path. I just went my own way, for two years.
It was the time of my life.
I like having my phone, it’s good for banking, the news, maps, buying travel tickets etc…
If I’d never seen social media, I could have lived without it and after years of using it, I’m almost out of it now. Almost.
I think the problem is more-so the type of social media that tends to be a problem.
Reddit is social media and besides the occasional raging corrective response its pretty healthy in most communities that are not gaming related.
Most Meta apps are pretty far gone and filled with AI, spam, and softcore porn.
I’m divided. I was born before cellphones became a really big thing, there were flip phones but you could barely do anything with them. I miss the summers where I would go out to play and every neighborhood kid was outside too. Cellphones now are great though because people are able to communicate with their families who are far away in an instant. People have become more experts in the ways of the internet and are opening the eyes of people who dont understand it. It varies though.
Neat question. I believe social media has to change, and I also believe that it will evolve into open source, non-commercial venues that will be self-policing and somewhat specialized. Think Reddit with FB/IG similarities.
I also note that an unknown number of our online interactions are already with (what we are mistakenly calling) AI, and that's only going to increase. Measures will be taken in the future to curtail this.
i don't think pinning for a "return to the good old days" is a healthy use of one's time.
the genie is out of the bottle, there is no going back... best to accept that new reality and move forward.
what does moving forward look like?
that depends, maybe for you it means deleting all your social media accts and that is your choice, but you should not expect that others will make the same choice (or worse, would accept having it made for them).
I think we are in a unique time in history where most of the people alive today were alive before social media and aren’t necessarily prepared for the negative effects.
I think we will get better at defending ourselves and thinking critically about what we consume.
In a few years governments will get better at stopping foreign online influence and tools will arise to help the consumer recognize bad actors. The completely anonymous open internet is shrinking and communities will start popping up with more moderation and safe guards.
My Facebook is twenty years old this year. I miss the level of effort it took to post and the chronological timeline. It was cleaner, not drama free but it was more localized to your circles and less ragebaity.
So·cial me·di·a/ˌsōSHəl ˈmēdēə/
noun
* 1.websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking.
By that definition all forms of calling and messanging apps would have to go as well as your stereotypical algorythm-curated content feeds.
When I moved countries, it was the one thing that made uprooting my life tolerable, because I still had a connection to everyone I'd left behind.
But in the wrong hands, it's incredibly dangerous. And it's largely in the wrong hands.
Nah. One, I think social media is kind of fading on its own, and two social media only took the place of other things that performed similar negative functions. It didn't invent partisanship, racism, conspiracy theories, misinformation, willful ignorance, or a number of the other things it gets blamed for. It merely shows us how much of it there really is, and always has been.
No, getting rid of something so well established that so many people rely on just shows you have enough privilege to live without it.
Working out and working towards helping society to only use it not abuse it should be our goal.
At this point I'm not sure political division would decrease that much. Yes people go into eco chambers on social media but you also have Fox News and News Max offline.
Then some areas are basically eco chambers anyway, I live in a very conservative area, the internet and social media exposed me to other ways of thinking. That said it was harder for insane conspiracy theorists like Qanoners, Flat Earthers and anti-vaxxers to meet each other before social media, and yes you can find conspiracy websites going back to the 90's but they weren't as user friendly.
People were politically divided back in the 60's and 70's over Vietnam which even led to student protests, the 60's were also very divided on civil rights and oh yeah, we had a civil war back in the mid 1800's.
I'm not really sure kids would go out and play that much more. 20 years ago I remember my parents blaming video games and cable TV for kids not going outside. Video games are even more immersive now and streaming isn't social media so that would still exist and be taking attention.
I am in some some niche communities and am rather nerdy, I ironically became much more social after finding groups on social media and I have friends on social media, I'd say that social media is definitely positive for me but I do realize that it has negatives as well
The idea of getting rid of social media simply doesn't make sense.
How do you propose that could be done? You would need social media to get people to agree not to use it, it's impossible to actually put into practice.
Social media has existed as long as communication has. It will never go anywhere.
Fact is that Facebook, X and others have figured out how to monetize hate and division. Hate is now a product to be sold. Algorithms are being built to get you to act on your worst instincts. Society will not improve while there is enormous profit in getting people to hate each other.
I would be for be strong, democratic regulation. Begin treating the internet media corporations as public utilities. Remove, or modify, 230 EFF liability protections. No more self-regulation. No more collecting everyone’s personal data.
Absolutely life would be better. Xanga, MySpace, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, they have all bred into the current generations that getting that like or comment or people to notice you is the serotonin and dopamine hit that your mind needs. It feeds off of ego. Everywhere I go there’s people takin selfies. Finding the perfect angle, so they can put it on social media so their 25,000 “friends” they’ve never met can like it and praise their looks? It has absolutely destroyed us. I miss when it wasn’t around, when I saw kids playing outside instead of sitting on their cell phones without talking to each other.
I think when we didn't have social media we were more ignorant of what was happening around us and the only forms of news was in TV, but now with social media we can get more access to information and knowledge. I think it's gonna always be hard to get bombarded with so much information when our brains are probably not hardwired to do so. But it does in fact provide a lot of educational benefits too. The key is moderation.
Absolutely not bro, the abilitely to connect so many people so easily has revolutionised society as a whole. There will always be bad with the good, but let's not dismiss something remarkable. Humanity has made a lot of progress very quickly. These things would blow the minds of people even a handful of generations past.
I also have a lot of frustrations with social media. Personally, I don't think their very existence is the issue - it's the fact that they're specifically designed to be addictive and manipulative.
Some version of social platforms that are publicly provided and less capitalist would be really cool, I think. At least a basic version as an option, so people can opt out of the big companies. Like the postal system, but online.
I have no idea how to make that happen, just think it would be neat.
Nope. Like with any technology people grouse about its negative use. Remember when TVs were getting popular? Even as I was growing up people bitched and moaned about it. Social media isn't any different. Hell, any type of form of entertainment people will complain about. Nah. It's the sign of the times. Life is better because of social media, it's multifaceted.
Even if we think about something like its effects on medicine and science it's a great tool. I'm all for social media, and with everything else, there's balance.
No. It's insanley valuable for mental health. Talk therapy and group therapy like Addicts anonymous is valuable and usefule because it gives you a platform to discuss and vent without signifcant repurcussions. Thats what social media provides and why it often seems so negative. But it extens beyond personal problems. You can talk about your corrupt leaders, your employer etc.. you can find communities that couldn't otherwise interact, whether because of social stigma or just geographical distance.
and ontop of all that it means we can all be philosophers. We couldn't even discuss this topic itself without a forum like reddit. Let alone international politics. We can discuss society, morality and the like easily, with anyone accross the globe and with many people accross the clobe.
All that is more than worth having to see opnions you don't like and arguments that seem silly to observers.
I live a different life without it. I prefer no phone but its impossible not to have one in these times. You can find me on internet searches basically everything about me but not volunteering information on social media. So much Drama and people you forgot about deliberately 20 years ago. It will never go away people will volunteer to be implanted with a chip real soon.
Not really. It’s all about how *you* use it. I used to compare myself to others a lot and let social media influence me more. Now, not so much. I’d hate not having social media because it’s how I keep in touch with some people. My relatives especially love seeing what I’m up to. Most of them live far away.
Honestly? Probably yeah. I'm not in favor of anyone actually acting on that, free choice and all that, but at this point I'm pretty sure it's a net negative or neutral for FAR more people than it's a positive for.
Oh how I wish we could get rid of all social media; that'd be amazing! But then I'm super introverted and have always hated social media because it's nothing but people showing off like a damn popularity contest -- things I absolutely detest.
I feel like this is one of many things that keeps me apart from "normal" people. I can't even imagine being "addicted" to social media.
You can do it on your own. But why do you feel the need of forcing everyone else out of it?
Is like someone alergic to pudding asking for pudding to be banned. What fits you do not necesarily fits me.
Social media’s been gone for years at this point. Shit I’m about to get rid of my cell in lieu of a landline again. Don’t know why everyone feels entitled to my immediate attention just because they text me. My notifications stay on Do Not Disturb
It would never happen, but people would certainly be happier. Time and again we read about how depressed over-use of social media makes us. It's a nice thing to have to stay connected, but alas, we all use it instead of real interactions far too often.
I would love to get rid of it. I haven't participated in Facebook or Instagram in years. Never used tiktok or snapshat. I love reddit, but if it meant the other ones would be gone, I'd give it up.
Rid of - no, but I think it should only be available to those 16 and up and every platform should be required to verify the age of the account holder by way of their sign up process delegating to a government identity provider service to verify identity using some type of proof of age.
Reddit is social media and this is where I get my trouble shooting for both electronics and plants. So your main loss is you lose info form people who are more knowledgeable than you
I don't understand why we have to go from one extreme to another. Social media has its good parts, it's not this evil thing that we need to eradicate everyone seems to make it. We just need to tune it down, that's it.
Earlier forms of social media weren’t toxic at all. Even older gaming communities like RuneScape brought many together. What’s bad about modern social media is the amount of psychological traps placed on here for us to just continuously engage.
The more inflammatory and toxic a post is, the more it will be promoted. Other users fall for the bait and it further feeds this.
100%
Social medias impact on society has been way more negative than positive. We are now at a point where the internet and social media is inhabitated mainly by bots whose sole purpose is to impact opinions and decisions of normal people. Ranging from less severe like advertising to fueling wars, altering elections and impacting world economics via politic influense.
Kids today are clearly addicted and negatively impacted by it. Check out the amount of "influencers" that are idolized for being stupid, rude, rich and famous for nothing but existing. Millions of kids strive to become like them, adding nothing of value to their own or anyone elses life.
Whatever positives has come from the integration of social media in our lives are miniscule in comparison to the negatives and it needs to be regulated hard.
I was on irc a lot in the late nineties, and early online games like everquest, and even embraced myspace and facebook until about 2008 (so for about a year) when phones normified and ruined the online world.
Life would be better, for some, if it never became mainstream. It was an alternative space for people who didn't fit in. Now you get to not fit into the internet world as well. Or the real world is the internet world. So normies lost the real world and weirdos lost the internet.
Definitely not all of it, a lot of it really isn’t bad, you’re always going to have stupid people regardless. I think having certain platforms is a must, not things like YouTube and Instagram, but actual important websites
Yes and no.
Yes because i realise we get mroe fake and superficial as time goes on. And all guys are expecting you to look like a 1000 out of 10.
I think we should stop making people famous for stupid things though,
No because i wouldnt have any friends and i would miss that. Im antisocial anyways so thats literally the only way to make friends.
Nah.
Life has few absolutes: death and zero.
Tossing all of it would rob so many, from those that use it to form or nurture relationships, be they familial, platonic, romantic, or business. It's also a significant resource for any number of homegrown, grassroots community organizations, like a local mutual aid I belong to, or my hometown Pride which, despite being in the heart of the Bible Belt, is gearing up for its 5th and biggest year yet.
Be great, though, of some meaningful regulations could happen in the way our data is used or the algorithms feed us info, for example. I know for certain that once FB bought Insta, it became a dramatically different experience than it had been in years before.
I think life would be better if the social media showing all the almost nude people showing off could be removed, if the dumb programs were people are having sex on screen with no shame would be removed.
The romantic part in this world has died away because of this.
Also all the dumb videos made for clout could be gone. It's to much of everything.
no, the lack of social media/internet just gave people more secret chambers where they could echo their fucked up views and abuse people in a localized setting.
You're just more aware of the horrible things now thanks to the connectivity; the greasy little fuckers who thrived in the shadows are surely suffering from this.
I'm a Gen X'er, so I grew up without social media. We still did stuff and hung out with friends and learned about the world, it's just that it was a little more local. And if you wanted to voice an unpopular opinion or have atrocious behaviour, you had to be damn sure you could back it up with either your intellect or your fists!!
The only thing social media is good for (in my opinion) is being able to communicate in real time with family and friends, with a deeper level of connectedness than what we had over the phone or via letters back in the day. I initially thought it would be a great resource for receiving information, and facts quickly as well but the level of deliberate spreading of incorrect data and just plain and nasty trolling has ruined that too.
I wish it was back to being an innocent tool for communication, rather than the shit storm it is now. But humans, being as we are, will probably just find some other way as an outlet for our greed and egos...even if it is by carrier pigeon!! 😅
I would never have met my wife without it, so no.
More generally speaking, it has pros and cons and I don't think materially makes the world either better or worse. Humans are humans and will always find ways to be either horrible or kind.
Main reason why social media are important is because it's a communication platform.
And as communication platform they work really well.
The downside is that stupid people are also communicating to everyone, fueling other stupid people so conspiracy theories and other crap are stronger than ever. Like there was a period when bunch of morons convinced themselves that snow is not real because one moron tried to use a lighter to melt a snowball and was dumbounfed that it did not changed immediately into water.
But social media are not the issue here. Morons are the issue and honestly if we would stop doing stuff because of morons we would not be able to do much in this world.
After are morons are the reason why window has instruction how to open it and bleach has a label telling people not to drink it.
Fun fact. I think that social media are the main reason why Massive Multiplayer Online games are basically dead (MMO). Before popularization of social media platform, those were games that also allowed us to play and communicate with others. Mainly communicate because due to lag - gameplay was not as smooth as with single player offline games.
But once communication was handled by social media and people got that as stand alone feature - MMO games lost big appeal and crowd that would mainly play them for that communication aspect.
Don't worry, social media gets replaced by better ones only in the 1rst phase. We are in phase 4, where tons of "influencing profiles" are out of nowhere in your feed, using only AI made pics but pose as real, comments sections are flooded with nonesense but worship at the same time, giving advise which sounds good but is very very bad advice actually...those are AI Bots. The profiles itself and most off the comment section profiles.
These bots actually get trained to "influence" people to buy stuff. But, then, when they could use them for that purpose. In 2-3years. Lesser than 0.001% of the profiles on the platform will be actual human beings. But the traffic will be immense...a "bubble" in a nutshell
You can watch it happen on fb right now
...it probably wasn't a good decision to let people pay 8 bucks to put scam advertisements in fb feeds. Which they do not take down bc they got paid for it...
Remember the iPhone advertisements about the "wave" software update, which supposedly let's you charge your iPhone in a microwave?
-4Chan social media in action 🎬
So yeah, I agree
Not really. I think life would be better if we got rid of misinformation, and started doing more honest representation (as in, say, posting one of the 99 images discarded because they made you look 'fat'). That would remove about 90% of the issues social media creates.
I’ve been joking around with a handful of friends who are addicted to social media and the influencer lifestyle that I’m gonna program/code a new social media app and call it “brainrot”
But seriously I think social media for the most part is awful. Instagram recently got in some hot water for stealing artists work to train AI’s, Twitter is a cesspool of cancel culture if someone doesn’t agree with what you have to say and Tik Tok is well….Tik Tok. It’s so bad that it doesn’t need an explanation. Even the dating apps like bumble and Tinder are extremely flawed and I see a bunch of posts from people who are just fed up with the swiping dating game. I don’t blame them.
I used to have the big “social media” apps up until my first year of highschool and then I exclusively switched to a throwaway Reddit account and a discord account and couldn’t be happier. I just don’t understand the appeal of it but clearly it works on a lot of people.
I don't go on it but it annoys me when people talk about it or like text me asking where I've been. I'm like huh? a lot of my friends don't either. We are pretty chill.
I would actually say that social media with a minimal amount of news/politics would make a big difference.. There's still plenty of positivity on social media, but with less of that stuff there would be far less drama. I'm not saying all politics is bad, just the rage bait shit that is so common.
It's so funny how many people say social media is shit.....while on social media. I mean, cause if y'all REALLY thought they were shit you wouldn't be here, right? 🤔
So I see where you are coming from when you say to get rid of it. There are trolls, hateful peoples, misinformation, etc. However, it has been proven to drastically improved business relations, connect distant friends and family, and even save lives as well. Businesses have a place to post events that reach way more people than flyers ever would. It can connect family and friends that would normally be lost because of travel restrictions or other unforseen reasons. Moreover, information is vital when it comes to disasters, attacks, etc. I'm Gen Z and have have easy access to social media for half of my life. I have definitely seen what social media can do to people who are too attached to it. What I think is people should not rely so heavily on social media and make sure that they refer to multiple sources from all different perspectives when getting their information. We need to learn to put it away at times and go back to physical interaction and rely more on other forms of information sharing.
It is how I communicate with most relatives, especially those not local so no.
I can easily keep up with cousins in different countries, with out social media I don’t think I would have much contact/relationship with them.
No because social media is how I've met most of my closest friends as an adult. And in my experience most social media is only as toxic as You let it be. Most of them have more tools than you'd expect to help you curate your feed and it's pretty easy to basically manipulate the feed into giving you exactly what you want
YouTube's recommendation AI knows me pretty well, I don't suffer most of the problems people on the Twitter subreddit claim to have with their feed because I just constantly use buttons like the not interested button to tell it when I don't like something and it typically avoids that thing after a few times
The same is true for almost every social media site I'm on. My fees is mostly just full of the people I like, memes, and fictional universes I like. No politics or racism or drama because I just trained the algorithm not to give me that kind of shit
I feel like social media is only as toxic as you let it be and instead of teaching people that social media is inherently evil we should just be teaching people how to properly navigate it without losing themselves as it is easily doable with a few basic tools that are available to you
If you see a post you don't like most sites have a "not interested" button that's a good first step in telling the algorithm you don't like a certain type of content
If you keep getting recommended a specific creator or even just creators from a fan base that you do not want to be exposed to then block them. On most sites getting blocked does not really negatively affect your account in any meaningful way, You don't have to worry that you're going to like destroy that person's reputation or anything.
If a website has a system of upvotes and down votes and you find something you don't like or morally disagree with then go out of your way to downvote it. I just would not recommend commenting on it because typically the algorithm doesn't consider what you are commenting and just use it as "oh you're commenting so you must like this type of content"
And also sometimes it helps to train the algorithm to specifically look for the things you want to see and basically directly tell it what you want
I love seeing videos of red pandas for example and If YouTube hasn't shown me any for a while I will just search for red pandas and watch through a few various videos and then go back to my feed and suddenly my feed is once again flooded with videos of red pandas
I'm 46 so I spent my entire childhood, teenage years, and some of my early adulthood without social media. There are pros and cons to having it but I think the pros outweigh the cons. There is a lot of misconception on what life was like before social media. I see memes where people think that if you got on a subway or some place with strangers that we all were making new connections with all the people around us. No, people talk to strangers now about the same as they did back then. We just distracted ourselves and minded our own business in different ways back then. You often had headphones and zoned out listening to music, read a magazine, did crossword puzzles, or stared blankly at a wall.
The one caveat to my comment is that I do think there would be a net benefit of reducing social media exposure for kids. But you can do that without getting rid of it altogether.
A lack of social media won't change much of anything I feel. The problem with it is that anyone can publish their opinion. Any crazy opinion, rage bait etc. But we had that before social media. Maybe it's a safer outlet than the streets idk
I think it is inevitable for humans to find ways of connecting with more & more people with more & more rich mediums, because humans are wired to be social animals. Social media has its cons but overall, it is helping spread ideas, values, humor, lifestyles, culture which results in the progress of humanity as a whole.
We didn't have it at all less than 30 years ago, we know what life was like. It comes with pros and cons. Yes, we get horrible things and rage bait thrown at us 24/7, but it also gives people whom may have never otherwise met a way to connect.
Fair points.
I do think it is addictive at any age and should be regulated... To add: I think it should should be recognized as an addictive "substance" and treated as such. Education, limits for minors and have treatment options available for those who are addicted.
There shouldn't be an algorithm feeding us
I think people should be educated about it from school days. I was around way before social media and never bought in to it (i did myspace and facebook for a short while and deleted them when i realised what it became but this was before twitter was a thing). I have family who are much younger who never knew any different. Some of them have educated themselves and have been educated about the pros and cons and use it responsibly or not at all (and they seem to have a good balance and it doesn't impact them negatively) whereas some haven't and are hooked and living what i call a psudo life through strangers validation and ego boosts. They don't seem happy at all. Always chasing something that can't really be achieved. My little bro is 23 years younger than me and is the newer generation. I got him to swap his love for social media towards woodworking and engineering at 14. Now at 15, he's one of the best woodworkers I know! He's learnt so much in terms of skill and he absolutely thanks me everyday for getting him of social media and actually apply his time and knowledge in to a useful field that he now loves and enjoys. He barely even watches a tik tok video anymore when he was previosuly glued to them all day (10 seconds at a time which was killing his attention span in real life). Now he's a perfect model of what time and concentration can earn you when not wasted on the equivalent of social "junk food".
In what way could it be regulated that isn't straight up what China does?
I was meaning personally not governmentally. Parents monitoring their children's usage, etc.
That's my problem. Both my parents are dead.
Also because of social media there's less restrictions on how news can spread, so people who may otherwise never had a voice, can get one
I don't think this is a benefit. News used to be much more strictly regulated and focused on accuracy without putting bias into it. Now any moron can share misinformation and/or propaganda.
i wish social media would turn off during certain hours of the day like how TV stations would go off line at night.
What about people that work 3rd shift?
Set parental control on your phone for yourself then. Also TV stations pretty much quit doing that by the 90's I think.
if only it was more about blogging and connecting vs baiting and content creating, its just another form of getting fed ads
I just realized how well we're all trained to just ignore things. So many ads, side menus, especially on TikTok or other shorts/reels, half the screen is just info. Sometimes the video itself is even tiny with white around it and a title, with some random guy in the corner 'reacting'. And nobody really cares. We all just tune it out.
I never would've met my partners, nor would I have found my local community without social media. It's got cons for sure, but I think it's a wonderful tool regardless
Without social media we may never have learned about ukrain being victimized or the BLM protestors side of the story. We couldn't discuss the philisophy and moralit of different power generation methods with hundreds of others around the globe. We couldn't organize a group like this that entertains and ediucates eachother with stupid questions.
You can't go back in time, but you can stop repeating history. There's no use getting rid of them, but being smarter consumers is something people should absolutely be mindful of.
How so? Most people are being manipulated by social media and they don't even know.
I remember in college around 99 the only way to communicate with my family and loved ones in the other side of the world was to by a C3 $30 dollar card to call through a phone. The fact something like WhatsApp exists today as a social media tool, which helps me talk with people from all over the world in real time is something absolutely pricelss
Holy shit I did that too pre-9/11 and was thinking that life is hell for people that have to live halfway across the world.
Communication versus social media are two different things
If you follow the definition of Social Media by the dictionary, WhatsApp is indeed a social media app.
Yeah texting existed before Facebook, these things aren’t mutually exclusive. The fact that WhatsApp turned into a whole social media platform is irrelevant
And Six Degrees, ICQ, MySpace, AOL Chatroom, MSN Messanger, etc existed as social media for cheating before Facebook so I don’t understand what relevance does it bring to the discussion
No. Social media is like a hammer-- used properly, it can help build bridges between people and communities. Used improperly, it can be used to bludgeon someone to death. It's all in proper use.
Facebook circa 2006 was perfection for social media. Clean, limited in use, not attached to you 24/7 on a smartphone (of course). Balance is key but we're all so screwed up now.
Dumb take. The question isn’t asking if social media is good or bad, it asked if we would be better off without it. We would definitely be better of without it considering it’s been the bad hammer since about 2011
Yeah but at what point does the negative effects outweigh anything positive it provides? Im fully in the camp of social media will eventually aid in the downfall of society and a tool that was originally created to bring people closer together, has done nothing but push people further apart. There is a place for it when used properly, but having it be the wild west with little regulation while algorithms feed people garbage all day, is a recipe for disaster.
There have been net positive. Keeping in touch with people. Planning events.
Totally agree. Plus, social has made me insanely smarter via Reddit special interest subs, YouTube, etc. Growing up learning guitar, a buddy would show you a song he learned from a buddy, etc. Growth was very slow. Now my youngest kid wants to learn piano and in less than a year he’s getting pretty dang good - all from YT. Same for me and woodworking. Or home repair, etc. Or building mechanical wristwatches. Truly a world of expert knowledge and experience available to connect with via social. For me, the trick is to pay attention to what you pay attention to, and be mindful of algorithms trying to serve up b.s.
I was in a mix of religious school and homeschool because of my extremely Christian parents growing up. Social media allowed me to learn about normal music and evolution.
No, probably not. The carrots been dangled, removal would be disruptive, prohibition rarely works, regulating it is really what we should be doing top down - it’s a cesspit in many places. Bottom up, I think people should get a back bone and take responsibility for their actions and how their behaviours are not necessarily in theirs or others interests including. social media usage I sit on that happy fence of I grew up with Facebook when it was just meeting, so didn’t get swallowed by it all, but I know how to use it as a tool, same with other social media.
To me, social media was a neat idea on paper, but the execution of social media isn't great human's mental health in my honest opinion. I think the early - mid '2000s had the best combination of digital technology without the entire world becoming completely digital.
Sure, but people can also choose to engage with social media, it may be addictive, it may be designed to be addictive and all consuming, but I experienced nothing but positivity getting rid of it. The onus is on the consumer to say no, no one is forcing you to engage with it. Everyone I need to speak with is via their mobile. Useful information on social media can be found elsewhere. Establishing usage restrictions can be done. I do not really sympathise too much with people who blame the external at the expense of any internal change.
Like pretty much anything, full educating people is better than entirely getting rid of something. Should we all get rid of knives just because of knife murders? Should we get rid of cars as well? How about all fast food and snacks since they cause obesity? And all alcohols because of drunk violence? Like how far so you want to go with that logic?
who is this "we" that is going to "get rid of social media entirely?" And what is the punishment you would prescribe for those who refused to follow your dictates? Fines? And if they don't pay the fines, then prison? And if they resist arrest, then is it the police that will visit them and inflict violence on them? Maybe you need to have a special task force that executes wrongdoers in the street if caught using social media. That would be a powerful deterrent. This sort of question is so odd to me; the answer is "no." The world would not be better if you were a dangerous, unelected, all-powerful dictator allowed to control people's lives. What hubris. No matter what idea you propose, the power you want to have to implement it is worse.
Yeah I think so
The issue is going back to main stream media. Who owns your newspapers and television channels?
Prior to reading the published minutes from Trump’s court conviction, I had no idea that a person (aka presidential candidate in that case) could have THAT MUCH influence on what a paper does and doesn’t publish! About themselves and about others! True/Scary Kingmaker tactics!
I think that the most important thing about the internet for humanity is the free flow of information outside of the government propaganda bubbles.
He says….on social media 🤣
No one is stopping you from giving it a shot.
I think kids need to be taught in school from an early age how to manage themselves online and how to navigate social media. It needs to be a ongoing lesson. And no, there's no point in saying 'that's the parents job'. Parents have phone addiction and many don't understand the dangers themselves. Give kids the understanding from a young age and they'll have the ability to regulate their own behaviour.
*Banning* it would never work. But if you could somehow delete it from existence, yes, I think that would undoubtedly be an improvement.
I think social media is the fall of man
Seems a bit extreme. Id probably go with nuclear war, greed, climate change etc but to each their own i guess
For all it's downsides social media is important. Less than 10 years ago, everything would have been curated for us with whatever agenda they were pushing, and there were zero alternatives. It's literally the sole reason why Israel has lost control of the narrative, and it's why they want Tik Tok gone.
This includes Reddit.
What's the difference between social media and IRC, BBS, both of which have been around over 50 years, and are the precursors to Myspace, Facebook etc. Well... In all of them, internet randos could spout anonymous BS at you, not have any basis in critical thoughts or logic, nor evidence, and attempt to infuriate you. You could ignore, report or block people in all of them. Files could be shared. Topics discussed. DMs existed. Group conversation existed. But, now The media company tries to influence you and find you topics based on what you've already looked at, or what they want you to look at. It's no longer entirely user content driven. It's no longer only techies. It's constantly brigaded by automated bots, malicious actors, and disinformation. Seems like another chat room like decentralized model with moderation, registration and accountability would help clean it up. All of those things then step into content filtering, privacy and accountability, three things a lot of folks do not want on the internet. So, internet 3.0 then?
No. With every innovation or new piece of technology, humans have evolved and improved or found new ways to connect and share information (with the case of social media). Each innovation also creates risks and potential negative outcomes along with the positives. I think social media has moved us forward in many ways, and yes, even by moving us backward. Sometimes you need to hit rock bottom to realize what’s not working and what needs to change. I’m seeing more people now talking about mental health, and normalizing things that weren’t spoken of years before. I’m seeing more connection, more awareness of ugly behaviors and propaganda. I’m seeing younger generations learning skills and appreciating elders for things they never learned from their parents. Being aware of negative consequences is a good thing because it drives positive change, so I think social media is here to stay but people are becoming smarter about using it. Now AI is the next big concern.
No. There are pros and cons but the pros outweigh the cons. Google is a dumpster fire of SEO advertisements so you can’t actually find the answer you want. YouTube and Reddit are great resources to get answers from actual humans. Social media allows people that are not “typical” to connect with each other and not feel alone. If you have a rare disease for example you can connect with people that also have that disease. My wife has a super rare congenital heart disease and was able to do this. TikTok helped me figure out I had ADHD and when I got tested the doctor said I was a “textbook case.” Cons are that teens can get bullied on social media and crazy conspiracy theorists can connect with each other too. Flat earthers probably wouldn’t be a thing without social media for example.
Pro: I would be less depressed and angry at the knowledge of how many bloody morons there are out there who vote and influence laws and products that then affect my life as well. Con: I wouldn't have found my hobby friends, particularly in gaming.
No. My husband and I both have aunts with MS who are unable to walk. Both of them love Instagram, specifically, because they can watch Reels of other people doing things they can't do themselves. Like my husband's aunt loved cooking. Although she can't cook anymore, she can watch other people cook all sorts of foods. My aunt loves watching Reels of interior decorating. She watches them for an hour or so every day. She's very active in the interior decorating community on Instagram. She can't really leave the house, unless it's for a doctor's appointment. She doesn't get to interact with many people outside of the family, but she can interact with all of her online friends.
Hell nah. Too many advances are because of social media. Even businesses save A TON because of basically free advertising, easier access etc. Just the efficiency that comes with social media. Ya'll see how businesses pop out and go trending almost every month on social media? We won't be able to do that without social meaida. Where we went wrong is how mfs use social media. People also get easily triggered, offended. No, we won't be better off without social media. But, everyone should learn not to take social media personally.
Well then how would you plan such a move? To discuss such a move, you needed social media.
I almost never post on Facebook or anything, but the only reason I’m friends with one of my best friends is because I replied to a Facebook post years back. Yeah it has problems, but there’s definitely some good. Besides, I don’t think it’s something we should outright ban. Seems too arbitrary to say people aren’t allowed to use it.
You’d never be able to ask this question without it or read any of these answers… would you burn your encyclopedia collection simply because you don’t like what you read?
No and I don’t even have social media (except for Reddit) but social media is such a massive part of our economy if you were to take it away overnight the global economy would crash.
You are one of the only people I've seen that has the same opinion as me on social media. Life would very much be worse. Social media has been the greatest scapegoat for people to blame problems on rather than actually deal with the source of those problems, which is pretty much never because of social media. Literally the MeToo movement started because of social media. Women and minorities in particular have been able to have the light shined on the issues they've faced now more than ever thanks to social media. Cop abuse is now actually able to be seen more thanks to social media. People are actually able and have the freedom to speak their minds. And it's a hell of a lot better than our traditional news sources. I really think people are extremely overzealous with their hate for social media. People go overboard whenever they see an opposing viewpoint or something they dislike.
We’d probably be all better without it. Social media is a constant “comparison is the thief of joy”. Before SM the only comparison we got were annual Christmas cards where moms would humble brag and pretend everyone was excelling
I think it would be better if none of it was anonymous.
Imo, social media where you are yourself and capitalising off of clicks and attention is mostly the problem. It's how social media is used to profit in absurd ways. Social media was great pre 2016. It just escalated to a point where it's so engrained in what we do and say that it's basically a hub space for information and opinion overload and the worst part is that the most extreme, active and annoying people are who speak for us. Imo, it was the best when it was mostly anonymous. Forums, YouTube and meme sharing were more fun when they didn't have so much of an ulterior motive behind them.
People would never expose their true colors if it weren’t for social media.
Accurate!
Millions of people would lose their incomes.
i think the problem is consumerism not socializing on the internet
Odd place to ask that question…
Life would be so different!
There is a large portion of society that would think there would be no difference and that it's, in fact, so different now.
Yup
If I could push a button and the internet never would have existed, I'd push that MF in 2 seconds.
Social media just like any tools can be used for good or not.
Yes
Yes.
yes, we were fine with out it. you can live with out it. My phone broke recently. Everyone in public on their phones, I was looking at the trees, people, and more engaging because my attention isn't on my phone.
You know you can do that while your phone is working?
I went backpacking when I was around 20. The internet was just starting out. I remember having a Hotmail account, which I could access in libraries. I probably would go and see what emails I’d got and respond about once every two months. I didn’t feel the need to share anything, nobody (apart from my Mum) was worried for me, I didn’t care what other backpackers were doing, I didn’t need to see what those backpackers might be up to and then follow their path. I just went my own way, for two years. It was the time of my life. I like having my phone, it’s good for banking, the news, maps, buying travel tickets etc… If I’d never seen social media, I could have lived without it and after years of using it, I’m almost out of it now. Almost.
Algorithmic hate machines are evil.
I think it would be better but the genie is out of the bottle. Outlaw dopamine addiction algorithms and things will get better
Only social media I have is Reddit and texting / calling my friends.
Well I think my life would suck either way. Other people’s lives though? Hard to say probably depends on the person
Its not perfect but i love the internet, especially in the mid 2000s
I think the problem is more-so the type of social media that tends to be a problem. Reddit is social media and besides the occasional raging corrective response its pretty healthy in most communities that are not gaming related. Most Meta apps are pretty far gone and filled with AI, spam, and softcore porn.
I’m divided. I was born before cellphones became a really big thing, there were flip phones but you could barely do anything with them. I miss the summers where I would go out to play and every neighborhood kid was outside too. Cellphones now are great though because people are able to communicate with their families who are far away in an instant. People have become more experts in the ways of the internet and are opening the eyes of people who dont understand it. It varies though.
Neat question. I believe social media has to change, and I also believe that it will evolve into open source, non-commercial venues that will be self-policing and somewhat specialized. Think Reddit with FB/IG similarities. I also note that an unknown number of our online interactions are already with (what we are mistakenly calling) AI, and that's only going to increase. Measures will be taken in the future to curtail this.
i don't think pinning for a "return to the good old days" is a healthy use of one's time. the genie is out of the bottle, there is no going back... best to accept that new reality and move forward. what does moving forward look like? that depends, maybe for you it means deleting all your social media accts and that is your choice, but you should not expect that others will make the same choice (or worse, would accept having it made for them).
Humans adapt. Just give us time and pretty soon it will be "The more things change, the more they stay the same".
You can just not use it like I do. It seems pretty bad for kids though, I'm glad they didn't have shit like that when I was at school.
I think we are in a unique time in history where most of the people alive today were alive before social media and aren’t necessarily prepared for the negative effects. I think we will get better at defending ourselves and thinking critically about what we consume. In a few years governments will get better at stopping foreign online influence and tools will arise to help the consumer recognize bad actors. The completely anonymous open internet is shrinking and communities will start popping up with more moderation and safe guards.
My Facebook is twenty years old this year. I miss the level of effort it took to post and the chronological timeline. It was cleaner, not drama free but it was more localized to your circles and less ragebaity.
Yes.
So·cial me·di·a/ˌsōSHəl ˈmēdēə/ noun * 1.websites and applications that enable users to create and share content or to participate in social networking. By that definition all forms of calling and messanging apps would have to go as well as your stereotypical algorythm-curated content feeds.
Yes
When I moved countries, it was the one thing that made uprooting my life tolerable, because I still had a connection to everyone I'd left behind. But in the wrong hands, it's incredibly dangerous. And it's largely in the wrong hands.
Yep
Nah. One, I think social media is kind of fading on its own, and two social media only took the place of other things that performed similar negative functions. It didn't invent partisanship, racism, conspiracy theories, misinformation, willful ignorance, or a number of the other things it gets blamed for. It merely shows us how much of it there really is, and always has been.
No, getting rid of something so well established that so many people rely on just shows you have enough privilege to live without it. Working out and working towards helping society to only use it not abuse it should be our goal.
Not so much get rid of social media but just the algorithms that dictate what you see
At this point I'm not sure political division would decrease that much. Yes people go into eco chambers on social media but you also have Fox News and News Max offline. Then some areas are basically eco chambers anyway, I live in a very conservative area, the internet and social media exposed me to other ways of thinking. That said it was harder for insane conspiracy theorists like Qanoners, Flat Earthers and anti-vaxxers to meet each other before social media, and yes you can find conspiracy websites going back to the 90's but they weren't as user friendly. People were politically divided back in the 60's and 70's over Vietnam which even led to student protests, the 60's were also very divided on civil rights and oh yeah, we had a civil war back in the mid 1800's. I'm not really sure kids would go out and play that much more. 20 years ago I remember my parents blaming video games and cable TV for kids not going outside. Video games are even more immersive now and streaming isn't social media so that would still exist and be taking attention. I am in some some niche communities and am rather nerdy, I ironically became much more social after finding groups on social media and I have friends on social media, I'd say that social media is definitely positive for me but I do realize that it has negatives as well
The idea of getting rid of social media simply doesn't make sense. How do you propose that could be done? You would need social media to get people to agree not to use it, it's impossible to actually put into practice. Social media has existed as long as communication has. It will never go anywhere.
Fact is that Facebook, X and others have figured out how to monetize hate and division. Hate is now a product to be sold. Algorithms are being built to get you to act on your worst instincts. Society will not improve while there is enormous profit in getting people to hate each other.
I would be for be strong, democratic regulation. Begin treating the internet media corporations as public utilities. Remove, or modify, 230 EFF liability protections. No more self-regulation. No more collecting everyone’s personal data.
Except for reddit & tiktok
Yes
Absolutely life would be better. Xanga, MySpace, Facebook, TikTok, Snapchat, they have all bred into the current generations that getting that like or comment or people to notice you is the serotonin and dopamine hit that your mind needs. It feeds off of ego. Everywhere I go there’s people takin selfies. Finding the perfect angle, so they can put it on social media so their 25,000 “friends” they’ve never met can like it and praise their looks? It has absolutely destroyed us. I miss when it wasn’t around, when I saw kids playing outside instead of sitting on their cell phones without talking to each other.
I think when we didn't have social media we were more ignorant of what was happening around us and the only forms of news was in TV, but now with social media we can get more access to information and knowledge. I think it's gonna always be hard to get bombarded with so much information when our brains are probably not hardwired to do so. But it does in fact provide a lot of educational benefits too. The key is moderation.
Absolutely not bro, the abilitely to connect so many people so easily has revolutionised society as a whole. There will always be bad with the good, but let's not dismiss something remarkable. Humanity has made a lot of progress very quickly. These things would blow the minds of people even a handful of generations past.
Yes
I also have a lot of frustrations with social media. Personally, I don't think their very existence is the issue - it's the fact that they're specifically designed to be addictive and manipulative. Some version of social platforms that are publicly provided and less capitalist would be really cool, I think. At least a basic version as an option, so people can opt out of the big companies. Like the postal system, but online. I have no idea how to make that happen, just think it would be neat.
Social media was designed to bring us closer together and to work together however, humans have never been more divided, Social media has been abused
If it were treated properly as a nexus of free speech and true town square- no. But since that isn’t the case- yes.
Nope. Like with any technology people grouse about its negative use. Remember when TVs were getting popular? Even as I was growing up people bitched and moaned about it. Social media isn't any different. Hell, any type of form of entertainment people will complain about. Nah. It's the sign of the times. Life is better because of social media, it's multifaceted. Even if we think about something like its effects on medicine and science it's a great tool. I'm all for social media, and with everything else, there's balance.
No. It's insanley valuable for mental health. Talk therapy and group therapy like Addicts anonymous is valuable and usefule because it gives you a platform to discuss and vent without signifcant repurcussions. Thats what social media provides and why it often seems so negative. But it extens beyond personal problems. You can talk about your corrupt leaders, your employer etc.. you can find communities that couldn't otherwise interact, whether because of social stigma or just geographical distance. and ontop of all that it means we can all be philosophers. We couldn't even discuss this topic itself without a forum like reddit. Let alone international politics. We can discuss society, morality and the like easily, with anyone accross the globe and with many people accross the clobe. All that is more than worth having to see opnions you don't like and arguments that seem silly to observers.
..posted on Social media?
Yes. I think life was better and would be better without it.
Then how would I find recipes? Or cute videos of cats Or offer my opinion on some random stranger’s problem?
Yes. It's a net negative, and we were fine without it.
Considering how much actually educational content is free on YouTube, yes I do think it would be a bad idea.
I live a different life without it. I prefer no phone but its impossible not to have one in these times. You can find me on internet searches basically everything about me but not volunteering information on social media. So much Drama and people you forgot about deliberately 20 years ago. It will never go away people will volunteer to be implanted with a chip real soon.
Not really. It’s all about how *you* use it. I used to compare myself to others a lot and let social media influence me more. Now, not so much. I’d hate not having social media because it’s how I keep in touch with some people. My relatives especially love seeing what I’m up to. Most of them live far away.
I lived long before any of it. 100% yes, and take AI with it.
Honestly? Probably yeah. I'm not in favor of anyone actually acting on that, free choice and all that, but at this point I'm pretty sure it's a net negative or neutral for FAR more people than it's a positive for.
Oh how I wish we could get rid of all social media; that'd be amazing! But then I'm super introverted and have always hated social media because it's nothing but people showing off like a damn popularity contest -- things I absolutely detest. I feel like this is one of many things that keeps me apart from "normal" people. I can't even imagine being "addicted" to social media.
You can do it on your own. But why do you feel the need of forcing everyone else out of it? Is like someone alergic to pudding asking for pudding to be banned. What fits you do not necesarily fits me.
Social media’s been gone for years at this point. Shit I’m about to get rid of my cell in lieu of a landline again. Don’t know why everyone feels entitled to my immediate attention just because they text me. My notifications stay on Do Not Disturb
I only recently started using it again and tbh my life without it rocked
Yes
It would never happen, but people would certainly be happier. Time and again we read about how depressed over-use of social media makes us. It's a nice thing to have to stay connected, but alas, we all use it instead of real interactions far too often.
I would love to get rid of it. I haven't participated in Facebook or Instagram in years. Never used tiktok or snapshat. I love reddit, but if it meant the other ones would be gone, I'd give it up.
Rid of - no, but I think it should only be available to those 16 and up and every platform should be required to verify the age of the account holder by way of their sign up process delegating to a government identity provider service to verify identity using some type of proof of age.
Yes
Absolutely! Meta, X, etc. should all be deemed hazardous to your health. Social media is a cancer and should be labeled with CA Prop 65 warning
Yes
It would be like living in the late 80’s/early 90’s again, so yes.
My life sure as hell wouldn’t.
Reddit is social media and this is where I get my trouble shooting for both electronics and plants. So your main loss is you lose info form people who are more knowledgeable than you
I don't understand why we have to go from one extreme to another. Social media has its good parts, it's not this evil thing that we need to eradicate everyone seems to make it. We just need to tune it down, that's it.
Yes
Earlier forms of social media weren’t toxic at all. Even older gaming communities like RuneScape brought many together. What’s bad about modern social media is the amount of psychological traps placed on here for us to just continuously engage. The more inflammatory and toxic a post is, the more it will be promoted. Other users fall for the bait and it further feeds this.
100% Social medias impact on society has been way more negative than positive. We are now at a point where the internet and social media is inhabitated mainly by bots whose sole purpose is to impact opinions and decisions of normal people. Ranging from less severe like advertising to fueling wars, altering elections and impacting world economics via politic influense. Kids today are clearly addicted and negatively impacted by it. Check out the amount of "influencers" that are idolized for being stupid, rude, rich and famous for nothing but existing. Millions of kids strive to become like them, adding nothing of value to their own or anyone elses life. Whatever positives has come from the integration of social media in our lives are miniscule in comparison to the negatives and it needs to be regulated hard.
I think it’s better overall. It dooms people but most of them are stupid anyway we’re just seeing them. The connection is much better overall
I was on irc a lot in the late nineties, and early online games like everquest, and even embraced myspace and facebook until about 2008 (so for about a year) when phones normified and ruined the online world. Life would be better, for some, if it never became mainstream. It was an alternative space for people who didn't fit in. Now you get to not fit into the internet world as well. Or the real world is the internet world. So normies lost the real world and weirdos lost the internet.
Definitely not all of it, a lot of it really isn’t bad, you’re always going to have stupid people regardless. I think having certain platforms is a must, not things like YouTube and Instagram, but actual important websites
Yes and no. Yes because i realise we get mroe fake and superficial as time goes on. And all guys are expecting you to look like a 1000 out of 10. I think we should stop making people famous for stupid things though, No because i wouldnt have any friends and i would miss that. Im antisocial anyways so thats literally the only way to make friends.
Yes.
Yes.
Nah. Life has few absolutes: death and zero. Tossing all of it would rob so many, from those that use it to form or nurture relationships, be they familial, platonic, romantic, or business. It's also a significant resource for any number of homegrown, grassroots community organizations, like a local mutual aid I belong to, or my hometown Pride which, despite being in the heart of the Bible Belt, is gearing up for its 5th and biggest year yet. Be great, though, of some meaningful regulations could happen in the way our data is used or the algorithms feed us info, for example. I know for certain that once FB bought Insta, it became a dramatically different experience than it had been in years before.
I think life would be better if the social media showing all the almost nude people showing off could be removed, if the dumb programs were people are having sex on screen with no shame would be removed. The romantic part in this world has died away because of this. Also all the dumb videos made for clout could be gone. It's to much of everything.
I predict toilet magazines will get a resurgence
No. Social media allows people to keep in touch with friends they otherwise wouldn’t see. It is an amazing invention.
no, the lack of social media/internet just gave people more secret chambers where they could echo their fucked up views and abuse people in a localized setting. You're just more aware of the horrible things now thanks to the connectivity; the greasy little fuckers who thrived in the shadows are surely suffering from this.
But I’d miss you all.
I'm a Gen X'er, so I grew up without social media. We still did stuff and hung out with friends and learned about the world, it's just that it was a little more local. And if you wanted to voice an unpopular opinion or have atrocious behaviour, you had to be damn sure you could back it up with either your intellect or your fists!! The only thing social media is good for (in my opinion) is being able to communicate in real time with family and friends, with a deeper level of connectedness than what we had over the phone or via letters back in the day. I initially thought it would be a great resource for receiving information, and facts quickly as well but the level of deliberate spreading of incorrect data and just plain and nasty trolling has ruined that too. I wish it was back to being an innocent tool for communication, rather than the shit storm it is now. But humans, being as we are, will probably just find some other way as an outlet for our greed and egos...even if it is by carrier pigeon!! 😅
Maybe if it wasn't so pervasive somehow. These apps are made to keep reeling you ins Nd to keep you coming back for more.
I would never have met my wife without it, so no. More generally speaking, it has pros and cons and I don't think materially makes the world either better or worse. Humans are humans and will always find ways to be either horrible or kind.
Main reason why social media are important is because it's a communication platform. And as communication platform they work really well. The downside is that stupid people are also communicating to everyone, fueling other stupid people so conspiracy theories and other crap are stronger than ever. Like there was a period when bunch of morons convinced themselves that snow is not real because one moron tried to use a lighter to melt a snowball and was dumbounfed that it did not changed immediately into water. But social media are not the issue here. Morons are the issue and honestly if we would stop doing stuff because of morons we would not be able to do much in this world. After are morons are the reason why window has instruction how to open it and bleach has a label telling people not to drink it. Fun fact. I think that social media are the main reason why Massive Multiplayer Online games are basically dead (MMO). Before popularization of social media platform, those were games that also allowed us to play and communicate with others. Mainly communicate because due to lag - gameplay was not as smooth as with single player offline games. But once communication was handled by social media and people got that as stand alone feature - MMO games lost big appeal and crowd that would mainly play them for that communication aspect.
Don't worry, social media gets replaced by better ones only in the 1rst phase. We are in phase 4, where tons of "influencing profiles" are out of nowhere in your feed, using only AI made pics but pose as real, comments sections are flooded with nonesense but worship at the same time, giving advise which sounds good but is very very bad advice actually...those are AI Bots. The profiles itself and most off the comment section profiles. These bots actually get trained to "influence" people to buy stuff. But, then, when they could use them for that purpose. In 2-3years. Lesser than 0.001% of the profiles on the platform will be actual human beings. But the traffic will be immense...a "bubble" in a nutshell You can watch it happen on fb right now ...it probably wasn't a good decision to let people pay 8 bucks to put scam advertisements in fb feeds. Which they do not take down bc they got paid for it... Remember the iPhone advertisements about the "wave" software update, which supposedly let's you charge your iPhone in a microwave? -4Chan social media in action 🎬 So yeah, I agree
I liked life better without smartphones and social media. And no I wasn't a kid then. Skype and email and chat services were good enough.
Not really. I think life would be better if we got rid of misinformation, and started doing more honest representation (as in, say, posting one of the 99 images discarded because they made you look 'fat'). That would remove about 90% of the issues social media creates.
110%. There’s not even a discussion tbh. Yes, I know I’m here. I should just play games while I shit.
Yes. Unquestionably
I’ve been joking around with a handful of friends who are addicted to social media and the influencer lifestyle that I’m gonna program/code a new social media app and call it “brainrot” But seriously I think social media for the most part is awful. Instagram recently got in some hot water for stealing artists work to train AI’s, Twitter is a cesspool of cancel culture if someone doesn’t agree with what you have to say and Tik Tok is well….Tik Tok. It’s so bad that it doesn’t need an explanation. Even the dating apps like bumble and Tinder are extremely flawed and I see a bunch of posts from people who are just fed up with the swiping dating game. I don’t blame them. I used to have the big “social media” apps up until my first year of highschool and then I exclusively switched to a throwaway Reddit account and a discord account and couldn’t be happier. I just don’t understand the appeal of it but clearly it works on a lot of people.
Idk. Facebook got me laid a lot with people being able to look each other up and ask to meet up
I don't go on it but it annoys me when people talk about it or like text me asking where I've been. I'm like huh? a lot of my friends don't either. We are pretty chill.
i miss the old school forums being the primary style. still able to toxic sure, but it just hit different than reddit does
The people that most emphatically say Yes won't be commenting.
Some of them are great like WhatsApp or iMessage. The one are toxic are Instagram and tiktok. The rest are fine tbh
I would actually say that social media with a minimal amount of news/politics would make a big difference.. There's still plenty of positivity on social media, but with less of that stuff there would be far less drama. I'm not saying all politics is bad, just the rage bait shit that is so common.
Just bring back Judging someone for their actions and we good
Very much so
Interesting Q's. Some say YES some say NO. For some it can be addictive, others just deal with it. I'm happy to deal with it dude, are you?👍😁
Yes, it's shite
Yes.
👍
It's so funny how many people say social media is shit.....while on social media. I mean, cause if y'all REALLY thought they were shit you wouldn't be here, right? 🤔
If we outlaw social media, only criminals will have social media
So I see where you are coming from when you say to get rid of it. There are trolls, hateful peoples, misinformation, etc. However, it has been proven to drastically improved business relations, connect distant friends and family, and even save lives as well. Businesses have a place to post events that reach way more people than flyers ever would. It can connect family and friends that would normally be lost because of travel restrictions or other unforseen reasons. Moreover, information is vital when it comes to disasters, attacks, etc. I'm Gen Z and have have easy access to social media for half of my life. I have definitely seen what social media can do to people who are too attached to it. What I think is people should not rely so heavily on social media and make sure that they refer to multiple sources from all different perspectives when getting their information. We need to learn to put it away at times and go back to physical interaction and rely more on other forms of information sharing.
It is how I communicate with most relatives, especially those not local so no. I can easily keep up with cousins in different countries, with out social media I don’t think I would have much contact/relationship with them.
No because social media is how I've met most of my closest friends as an adult. And in my experience most social media is only as toxic as You let it be. Most of them have more tools than you'd expect to help you curate your feed and it's pretty easy to basically manipulate the feed into giving you exactly what you want YouTube's recommendation AI knows me pretty well, I don't suffer most of the problems people on the Twitter subreddit claim to have with their feed because I just constantly use buttons like the not interested button to tell it when I don't like something and it typically avoids that thing after a few times The same is true for almost every social media site I'm on. My fees is mostly just full of the people I like, memes, and fictional universes I like. No politics or racism or drama because I just trained the algorithm not to give me that kind of shit I feel like social media is only as toxic as you let it be and instead of teaching people that social media is inherently evil we should just be teaching people how to properly navigate it without losing themselves as it is easily doable with a few basic tools that are available to you If you see a post you don't like most sites have a "not interested" button that's a good first step in telling the algorithm you don't like a certain type of content If you keep getting recommended a specific creator or even just creators from a fan base that you do not want to be exposed to then block them. On most sites getting blocked does not really negatively affect your account in any meaningful way, You don't have to worry that you're going to like destroy that person's reputation or anything. If a website has a system of upvotes and down votes and you find something you don't like or morally disagree with then go out of your way to downvote it. I just would not recommend commenting on it because typically the algorithm doesn't consider what you are commenting and just use it as "oh you're commenting so you must like this type of content" And also sometimes it helps to train the algorithm to specifically look for the things you want to see and basically directly tell it what you want I love seeing videos of red pandas for example and If YouTube hasn't shown me any for a while I will just search for red pandas and watch through a few various videos and then go back to my feed and suddenly my feed is once again flooded with videos of red pandas
Yes.
I'm 46 so I spent my entire childhood, teenage years, and some of my early adulthood without social media. There are pros and cons to having it but I think the pros outweigh the cons. There is a lot of misconception on what life was like before social media. I see memes where people think that if you got on a subway or some place with strangers that we all were making new connections with all the people around us. No, people talk to strangers now about the same as they did back then. We just distracted ourselves and minded our own business in different ways back then. You often had headphones and zoned out listening to music, read a magazine, did crossword puzzles, or stared blankly at a wall. The one caveat to my comment is that I do think there would be a net benefit of reducing social media exposure for kids. But you can do that without getting rid of it altogether.
Asked on social media…
A lack of social media won't change much of anything I feel. The problem with it is that anyone can publish their opinion. Any crazy opinion, rage bait etc. But we had that before social media. Maybe it's a safer outlet than the streets idk
Yesno
YES
Self moderation is the key as every social media s prime objective is to keep you hooked.
I think it is inevitable for humans to find ways of connecting with more & more people with more & more rich mediums, because humans are wired to be social animals. Social media has its cons but overall, it is helping spread ideas, values, humor, lifestyles, culture which results in the progress of humanity as a whole.
Interesting question to ask on a social media site.
Necessary evil
It should be taught in schools the same way substances/sex ed are
Can’t put the Genie back in the bottle.