And yes, I’m aware of the irony of posting this on social media, but I truly think that it is an awful thing that has happened humanity.
And to be absolutely clear, I do acknowledge that there are benefits: it allows people who are distant to remain in touch, for example. Or it can be used to put out critical information (think COVID-19 for example).
But let’s face it — there’s another face to it also, one that brings out the worst of humanity. How far do you have to scroll on any platform before you find toxicity? Divisive, inflammatory comments that bring out the absolute worst in us. All because people have different opinions on any topic (the problem of course is not in people having different opinions, but in giving the masses the means to express their differing opinions is really what leads to too many civilised conversations descending into barbaric insults and word slinging. Try as hard as you like to disengage, friction will always produce heat.)
Moreover, how much misinformation has been spread on social media platforms over the years? I don’t think I need to say much more about that.
And to be clear: I’m not saying these issues and others are exclusive to social media — they certainly existed long before, perhaps even as early as when man first learned to communicate with one another — but the creation of social media is possibly the biggest chunk of fuel on the fire of discord, and regardless of where you go — whether it be Facebook, or Reddit, or Snapchat, or twitter, or YouTube, or Lemmy, or text messaging, or internet forums, or whatever other platforms exist out there, you will not find a platform that is not plagued — nay, riddled — with such awfulness. And no, I’m absolutely not saying that I myself have not played my fair part in toxicity because I have, but I’m willing to admit it. Are you?
Social media is fine. Algorithmic feeds and rewarding "engagement" is where we went wrong.
Facebook actually used to be a decent platform. I remember it used to be a decent way to keep in touch with your circle of family and friends.
It all changed when they unilaterally switched everyone's feeds from being chronological to algorithmic with no way to change it back.
It used to be, the first post on your feed was the newest, and once you started seeing old posts, you knew you were "caught up". Overnight, the first dozen posts on your feed were always at least two weeks old, and rarely by people you actually knew, but because two jackasses have been arguing over eyebrows or whatever in the comments, they're pushed to the top because "engagement".
Over time, this led to a noticeable shift in the posts people would make. Instead of being simple, boring posts to catch people up on what's happening in your life, people started posting their opinions, hot takes, and this slowly evolved into what we currently readily recognize as "engagement bait".
This caused people to slowly become disjointed from their circle of family and friends. Either you were also posting non-informative engagement bait, or your posts were being hidden. Either way, ads and engagement became king, keeping in touch with people became secondary.
To push traffic even higher, Facebook refactored their site and app to require more clicks/touches to find/message your friends, and fewer clicks/touches to interact with posts on your feed. At this point, keeping in touch with people required more effort than engaging with algorithmic slop, and the descent has been accelerating ever since then.
It went from connecting with your friends to connecting with strangers, in an environment where most people weren't in to connect with strangers.