I have to agree with him.

https://www.fastcompany.com/40...ipping-apart-society

Facebook’s former vice president for user growth Chamath Palihapitiya recently gave a talk at the Stanford Graduate School of Business that’ll probably make you think twice about your social media use (via the Verge). The entire talk is well worth a watch, but some of his most prominent remarks included:

That he feels “tremendous guilt” about Facebook. “I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.”
“The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created [including the hearts, likes, and thumbs up of various social media channels] are destroying how society works.” He added, “[There’s] no civil discourse, no cooperation; [only] misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem–this is not about Russians ads. This is a global problem.”
Regarding an incident in which seven innocent men in India were lynched after a hoax about kidnappings spread through WhatsApp: “That’s what we’re dealing with. And imagine taking that to the extreme, where bad actors can now manipulate large swathes of people to do anything you want. It’s just a really, really bad state of affairs.”
Unsurprisingly, when it comes to social media, his children “aren’t allowed to use that shit.”

Ya don't say... I have no Facebook, Tweeter, Instawhatever, etc, and I don't feel like I'm missing a thing.

I've labelled it anti-social media for a long time with my family and friends

I disagree that social media "caused it." Society was always good at ripping itself apart. Social Media aka the internet, just made it faster.

In a world where advertisers earn money by getting clicks, being divisive does that. We are in the age of opinions, people always had opinions they were just unable to scale it at a rate as fast as the internet provides.

15 years ago you only had do deal with your crazy uncle bob at the holidays. Now it's 24/7 crazy Bob.

People have and always will be assholes, they just now have a medium that allows them to broadcast it to the world.

I agree and have had to curb my use. It's mainly to keep in touch with family/friends and my car groups. I post nothing political anymore.

He's more or less right, and so is Deqlyn.

Don't do social media of any kind, never will. Social media is largely an exercise in self validation via the approval of others. Farcebook, twatter, and Instagrab are toxic data mining venues, as far as I'm concerned.

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:
Don't do social media of any kind, never will.

Actually, you do.

You just don't bother with the mind-numbing, meaningless, impersonal Facespace crap.

Insofar as Web Fora constitute Social Media, I participate.

Compared to Facebook Et al. I think we can agree that my exposure to the genre is pretty limited.

Even so, I catch myself exhibiting a couple of associated behaviors in a minor sort of way:

1. I have WAY more friends on line than I do in person. I don't worry unduly about this as people in my age group with similar interests are pretty thin on the ground around here. I've actually met about a dozen or so of my cyber-friends either via travelling to their part of the world or having them travel to mine, and so far every one has been the person I expected them to be based on their on-line persona.

2. I find myself getting a little miffed if I post something and no one replies. It's the old "nobody likes me, I'm gonna go sit in the garden and eat worms" response and it's beyond childish. I have to remind myself of that occasionally.

Still, I'd hate like hell to go back to pre-Internet days. Even my wife has climbed onto the "look it up on the computer" wagon.

quote:

Originally posted by parabellum:

quote:

Originally posted by gearhounds:
Don't do social media of any kind, never will.

Actually, you do.

You just don't bother with the mind-numbing, meaningless, impersonal Facespace crap.

I was just wondering what he thought SigForum was.

SigForum is my social media. It's safe here. No exgirlfriends, no high school dorks, no former friends that will expect me to be the old df. I have shed the chrysalis of my past and do not intend for it to reanimate.

Really? What a shock.

No FACEBOOK here, either. Or TWEETS.

The world doesn't need to know how I spend my days or live my life.

I can appreciate the advantages of being able to keep up with births, deaths, family additions, etc. in today's far-flung families and circles of friends. But, I'm satisfied to let the wife play those games and just keep me informed.

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:
Even my wife has climbed onto the "look it up on the computer" wagon.

But your shelf space is free for more books with all those damn encyclopedias gone!

quote:

That he feels “tremendous guilt” about Facebook.

Enough to give back all the money he made?

Yeah . . . that's what I thought.

I enjoy social media, and not just sigforum; I’m also on FB. People who are getting “ripped apart” are just bad at using it. My FB feed is exclusively guns, art and birds with an honorable mention to friends. There are several people I like in real life who I’ve unfriended because they use FB in a way I don’t like: either too many posts or argumentative posts or whatever.

Bottom line, social media is like anything else: use in moderation, stay in control, don’t be an asshole, etc. Follow a few guidelines and it’ll be an informative asset in your life. Let it control you, and you’ll be unhappy. That’s been my experience anyway.

quote:

Originally posted by Deqlyn:

quote:

Originally posted by PHPaul:
Even my wife has climbed onto the "look it up on the computer" wagon.

But your shelf space is free for more books with all those damn encyclopedias gone!

Indeed. And no need to buy updates every year. At the rate things are changing these days, can you imagine the size/expense of an Encyclopedia Britannica?

Besides, I need that shelf space for my Heinlein and Spider Robinson collection...