agency of asynchronism
social media hasn't been healthy for me recently.
it used to be called "social networking" where you use it to keep in touch with friends, family, those who are close, those who have drifted away. i used to like seeing pictures of social gatherings and activities as memoirs. now it has become a media platform where people have become micro-celebrities - a person with a percentage of the fame, but all of the ascribed self-importance. it's become a way for people to signal their virtues and brag about themselves.it's been like this for a while, and i used to put up with it because i could keep sharing my insights to my followers without having to check in on them. now i've just quit it entirely. i may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but i maintain that if i truly cared about people, i'll ask them "what's up"
what i have against the current climate of social media is my perception of plasticity with people on the platform. the brains behind these companies have bright minds that managed to socially engineer us to a certain way that's brought the worst from us more than it has brought the best in us. structures of the past like ancient agoras, academies and their subsequent modernization managed to bring out the best in people while maintaining a certain barrier to entry that prevented the proliferation of poorly produced efforts. a certain level of discrimination is necessary for society. you wouldn't want uneducated and virally contagious people walking around freely being afforded the same level of autonomy as everyone else that has done their part to think critically and remain healthy. i'm not singling out the less privileged here. i see a bunch of smart people misusing their intelligence for fallacious and spottily substantiated statements on my news feed too. i like them on my works of fiction, but when people are convinced that they're as correct as they are real, then i don't like the truth being distorted.
unfortunately, people are motivated to reason within their presuppositions and against anyone that doesn't sing to the same tune. social media has been effective in being an empowering platform for communication, so much so that listening to others has taken a back seat to expressing yourself. when we keep talking over each other, the bridges between us break down and lose reciprocity of respect that is essential in a stable society.
so it sucks that thinking critically has been passe and is now overtaken by speaking critically.
it used to be called "social networking" where you use it to keep in touch with friends, family, those who are close, those who have drifted away. i used to like seeing pictures of social gatherings and activities as memoirs. now it has become a media platform where people have become micro-celebrities - a person with a percentage of the fame, but all of the ascribed self-importance. it's become a way for people to signal their virtues and brag about themselves.it's been like this for a while, and i used to put up with it because i could keep sharing my insights to my followers without having to check in on them. now i've just quit it entirely. i may be throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but i maintain that if i truly cared about people, i'll ask them "what's up"
what i have against the current climate of social media is my perception of plasticity with people on the platform. the brains behind these companies have bright minds that managed to socially engineer us to a certain way that's brought the worst from us more than it has brought the best in us. structures of the past like ancient agoras, academies and their subsequent modernization managed to bring out the best in people while maintaining a certain barrier to entry that prevented the proliferation of poorly produced efforts. a certain level of discrimination is necessary for society. you wouldn't want uneducated and virally contagious people walking around freely being afforded the same level of autonomy as everyone else that has done their part to think critically and remain healthy. i'm not singling out the less privileged here. i see a bunch of smart people misusing their intelligence for fallacious and spottily substantiated statements on my news feed too. i like them on my works of fiction, but when people are convinced that they're as correct as they are real, then i don't like the truth being distorted.
unfortunately, people are motivated to reason within their presuppositions and against anyone that doesn't sing to the same tune. social media has been effective in being an empowering platform for communication, so much so that listening to others has taken a back seat to expressing yourself. when we keep talking over each other, the bridges between us break down and lose reciprocity of respect that is essential in a stable society.
so it sucks that thinking critically has been passe and is now overtaken by speaking critically.
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