Published on 12, July, 2020
Discussion topic for today - Social Media. I would be interested to hear people's thoughts on this. I believe social media has destroyed the fabric of civilisation. We have lost the ability to "agree to disagree" and to tolerate opinions and beliefs contrary to our own, screeching names and insults at anyone who disagrees with us and calling for them to be cancelled.
We have become extraordinarily self obsessed and narcissistic, endlessly taking photos of ourselves and posting our every thought to the world. Most of all though I believe we have become incredibly unhappy and unable to experience real life. Most people I see are far more interested in filming and posting their lives to curate a perfect online profile of themselves than in actually living those wonderful moments that make life worth while. For instance, if you see a beautiful sunset is your first instinct to stand there and contemplate its wonder or to post a picture of it online? There's lots more that could be said on this discussion, especially the effect on young people.
Would be interested to hear everyone's opinions
Like many tools, social media can be used for good and bad. A concern for me, and something that I believe leads to a lot bad uses and therefore abuse is the fact that social media posts are largely unattributable and therefore there is no accountability. People can say whatever they want and there is no repercussion. So they do. This also leads to bad actors who wish to destabilise our society using social media to sow disinformation and foment unrest. Newspapers and mainstream online media are attributable and therefore accountable. Whilst they might have a political bias or be controlled by media families, this is known and can be taken into account when interpreting output. So many people rely on social media for their news and opinion and I think this is very dangerous.
Well said.I prefer to read a paper but very critically. There is a problem with people swallowing the news uncritically also though. Some people will believe what they read in the press and some will believe everything on social media and the internet. Knowing what to believe and what to discount is key.That is always going to be hard for a lot of people unfortunately. It's complex stuff.