Thinking critically about social media: Seven reasons to be sceptical about social media optimism

in #sndbox-alpha6 years ago (edited)

View this post on Hive: Thinking critically about social media: Seven reasons to be sceptical about social media optimism


I've moved to Hive, along with most other people, following Justin Sun's takeover of Steem in the Spring of 2020. I believe hive is a lot more decentralised than Steem!

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I think social media is overrated but I think it's better than spectator sports.

I think for most people it is just a spectator sport.

Although where steemit is concerned, we might be looking at something of a step backwards, since the majority of 'users' aren't even watching!

At least with social media you don't have to drive to somewhere pay for parking expensive concessions and an expensive ticket. Also I think we are less exposed to ads on social media.

You have a good point there. I hope to someday help change things in the future. Overall I think the Steem blockchain is performing ok other than the price of Steem.

Really amazing post! Thank you so much for putting it together @revisesociology.

As toxic as social media currently is for a lot of people, there really are a lot of good communities and examples, I think people just need assistance in crafting their feeds - perhaps education around the impact of social media; I'm seeing a bit more of that at least.

I guess it's about being able to interact with a community within the platform in a healthy way.

Anyway, there's no denying they weren't designed for us.

This piece really reminds me of a talk I saw the other week called, "What's wrong with tech utopias," it was a lovely talk to about 40 people, and decentralisation was on the tips of their tongues in describing what needs to happen to improve our relationship with technology.

You've really added a lot of understanding to my perspective of mass-social media, thanks a bunch.

Thank you kindly for the nice comment!

It is amazing how quickly those big four tech companies have grown to prominence in the global economy, but maybe decentralization is the next big thing?!

Great information and insights @revisesociology ... I have been thinking about these very things! You have put it together well... This is the first post of yours I have read, I'm impressed and like what your doing here. Anxiously awaiting more developments on this subject. Resteemed? Check.

I suspect that this is just the tip of the iceberg, social engineering is way more complex than we fathom. Someone is playing with primordial mechanisms in suit of their desired end. Pass me some tin foil! Perhaps, those guys talking about "how they're probing our brain waves" weren't just some lunatics after all! ;)

Thanks so much.

This was supposed to be the first (Actually it's the second, from one I did much early) post in a massive series setting up an analytical framework for an investigation of social media and then steemit as a comparison.

Despite being what I'm most interested in, and it also being an effort on my part to write about something other than 'me' or 'steemit' it's largely been ignored...

I think you may have been the only person who read it.

Still, I'm sure it'll get rewarded once I link it as part of the series....

It does interest me, critical approaches to social media. The rest of the book I'm reading is also great - but challenging. It's by a youngish academic whose struggling to put his complex ideas across clearly... it's a thing in academia... some of them 'overcook' the intellectualism and aren't able to express themselves clearly until edition 3 or 4.

The emergence of social media has changed our lives. Our children are growing up in a completely different world than we did. Their attachment to devices and dependence on connection through social media is something me have never seen before in our lifetime. I think we are yet to even scratch the surface of the impacts this might have on the development of kids and society as a whole.

Very true - we're really only 10 years in to the social media age!

Excellent post. The world needs more focus on all the dangers that come with social media. Even more so to children, teens, and young adults.

I didn’t remember the Web2.0 graphic anymore but seeing it again I recall scoffing at the decentralization hinted at. Ironically enough it took almost a decade for decentralization truly to find root, even though Sir Tim Berners-Lee followed up with Web3.0 in 2006 already, or the Internet of Infrastructure.

I'll get onto Web 1, 2 and 3.0 next week, I'm taking my time reading, summarizing and reworking Christian Fuch's 2017 A critical Introduction to Social Media... it's pretty interesting, good basis for analysis.

Effectively prosumers produce content for free, creating a sort of ‘digital commons’ - the owners of the platforms then use those commons to sell advertising space/ time, thus extracting surplus value from the prosumers.

I can't agree more. I think constantly about small things that we learn in life that we use to educate other sin our writing. Even content driven sites or clickbait articles use writers that source their information from your writing, your hard work, your unpaid labour, and then churn this out by spinning the words and gain the credit and the capital. It's a dog eat scholar world out there.

Great work! Yes social media has changed the world ,also it has pros and cons, but it is still up to us to use this properly . Think before you click

Yes - absolutely! Hopefully with a bit more awareness we can start to use it more carefully!

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