VI posted something that caught my attention in the facebook thread: It caught my attention because I had been thinking just the opposite. Social media certainly is a vessel for stupid pointless bullshit a lot of the time, but I'm optimistic about the movement in general. The dynamic of how information gets shared is fundamentally changing, and I think the biggest problem right now is that we haven't learned how to use this new paradigm to our advantage. We're having fun posting pictures of animals sneezing and caps-locking self-righteous rants about things we know nothing about, but I believe there's the potential to turn this in to something really powerful, and I believe that's going to start happening more and more. Of course there's always going to be mindless bullshit. Of course. But, I believe (optimistically), that slowly - by trial and error - people are going to see that with a modicum of fact checking and critical thinking, we can expose and shut down a lot of shady shit going on in the world in a way that would have been absolutely impossible just 20 years ago. Focus: What do you think of the social media movement in general? More importantly, where do you think it's headed? Is The Man going to find a way to lock it down and control it? Are we going to distract ourselves with sneezing dogs to the point where it becomes even easier for powerful groups to hide evil shit?
I'm a afraid of social media. Whereas you could afford to make a mistake as any normal person would, if you do it now, you're the next category on @Midnight. Not only is your humiliation now global, you have to deal with those people telling you what a piece of shit you are. At least until you've either killed yourself from the shame, or become Amish. There are a few positives. It's nice to be able to enjoy an event with others en masse. Whether or not people post admit it publicly, I would hope that the arguments they get into help them at least empathize with the other side. It's forced real accountability from those that were untouchable before (hi, cops!). Information spreads like wildfire now. You'll get perspectives from others whether you want to or not. As to where it's headed, it feels like people use it for communication more than ever now. I'm not happy about the fact that privacy is pretty much dead. People willingly put their entire lives and interactions in public view. Screennames are being discarded in favor of Facebook profiles because it's more convenient. Until there is a massive data breach that completely obliterates public trust at Facebook, I can't see people's attitudes changing.
As someone who has always been very shy and reserved, I really didn't know a lot about other people, about the differences and similarities of us all. In terms of knowing people intimately, I had few friends growing up, and my extended family was just family - they didnt seem like people to me. With the transparency that people have on the internet, I learned so much, so many things that I wish I had known when growing up - especially about men. I could be wrong but I feel like my experiences would have been a lot different. But at the very least, in the here and now it has made me a lot more comfortable in my own skin.
As a whole, my guess is that social media is 99.9% vapid crap and the rest is actually useful (to whom it's useful for is another question). I think that as a people, our general "meh" response to privacy disappearing is a direct result of how willfully we're already giving it away (why give a shit about a security system if the front door to the house is always open?). I think people have started believing they're way more important than they actually are and the entitlement issues we see stem from the soap box people are allowed to stand on and shout from. When everyone's opinion is the most important, no one's is. We're too distracted. Crucial events occurring at the core of society go unnoticed or are quickly forgotten because the surface is wrapped in flashy fluff that diverts our attention. Frankly, I think we're stampeding toward Idiocracy and it scares the hell out of me. There are too few gleaming spots of hope that gain enough attention to make them more important than the next series of distractions being pumped through a fire hose at our face.
I kind of agree with you, but I've always thought it's not that we're not getting dumber, it's just that now everyone - including dummies - has a voice and a place to spew their nonsense. There are still smart people out there, and they're still out there doing cool shit… but yes, dummies are often the most vocal, making it seem like that's the overall trend. And let me be clear, even with my (uncharacteristic) optimism on this topic, I'm not picturing everyone on their computer respectfully debating world events and methodically deconstructing the all the wasteful, greed-driven, harmful parts of our world. I'm saying that as we see social media affecting/influencing real, actual world events (as we already are), smart people are going to realize that governments and huge corporations aren't the only ones with a voice anymore. Then if we can get the loud dummies on board with the the smart people's ideas, we could really stir some shit up.
Good luck. You'll need to have naked women with boobs that squirt liquor riding the large hadron colider to get people to even ask what the thing does (after they've googled the women to see if they've done amateur porn first).