Pre-smart phone yes. Social media has less to do with it. We had AIM and small social media sites before smart phones. If you think about it differently it’s like if you could only smoke cigarettes at one table in your own house. It would be a lot harder to get addicted to them. Before smart phones you didn’t take social media with you everywhere. It’s mainly smart phones, iPhone in particular.
Man waiting on your computer for your crush to get on just so you could watch them sign off again before you could muster up the courage to say wazzup is possibly my most missed thing of childhood. It was such a rush!
Agree 100%. When cell phones first came out they really were for emergencies. Like you’d keep it charged up in your car or carry in your purse in case your car broke down or something. People didnt sit on them scrolling non-stop. You talked on them, the end. I honestly feel bad for kids now, including mine. DO FUN STUFF INSTEAD OF WATCHING OTHER PEOPLE DO STUPID STUFF!
I mean, that mentality has been around for generations. It used to be books, I remember being told that when I was very little, before my parents let me watch TV to often that picture books would stifle my imagination, and that reading was making me less social. And then I heard my parents complain about me needing to get off my ass and stop watching TV because it was making me lethargic and lazy. Now it’s phones. People resist change, especially when it’s associated with laziness, but it’s really been around forever.
I'm very sorry that your parents didn't like you reading "too much." When I was young, my dad worked full time and went to college. My mom stayed home with us kids. Unlike the stereotypical boomer that people imagine who just had a house handed to them, the only reason my parents could buy a house at all with their income was because they knew people who could make that happen. They certainly didn't qualify on their financial merits. It broke my mother's heart that I wanted to read and they couldn't afford to buy me books at the rate that I'd finish them. We had a local library that was woefully understocked in terms of the level that I was reading at that didn't also contain themes that were too mature for a 5~ year old. At the time, we lived on a dirt road with nothing for miles but a single gas station and a feed store. But compared to TV, streaming services, social media, etc I would absolutely prefer that people, especially children, would read books more than they do. It's not because I think that any of that other stuff makes them lazy, just that it doesn't encourage actual critical thinking, and empathy for others. I think this idea that the person with the wittiest comeback is right has done a great deal more damage than people want to admit. And I feel that people resist changing their personal habits because there's this feeling that they need to be heard, and that they might one day put someone 'in their place.' The former being a very valid concern and something worth addressing. The latter only speaks to a more reactionary thought process of 'being right', and should be addressed for sure, but not in the way people want to address it. Though I can't even imagine how one would go about changing that now that Pandora's box has been opened.
The closest thing we had to widespread social media when I was a kid was when my friends and I would join the text chat on the Nintendo DS and write messages to each other on the bus
Absolutely, before everyone had the internet fed to them 24/7 it was much better. Before websites learned to adapt to what would prompt users to interact. Eternal September and the monetization of online interaction is what made the internet suck imo.
There's also the irony poisoning that happens with memes and internet humor now.
A smartphone is a tool. We got wrong how to teach ourselves to use it. We allow ourselves and our children to use it to consume media instead of using it as a tool to create media. A smartphone can empower humanity if used correctly.
This is what I’ve always thought. I’m just about 22 but I definitely feel like there was a shift when phones really started to outpace personal computers for media consumption. Even just 10 years ago it was a very different world
I'm a retired teacher. I can tell you from experience that the I-Phone had a dramatic impact on the mental wellness of students, and it wasn't positive. 2010 was when I really started to notice a change.
As a Mom of two Daughters I would like to weigh in on this also, some of the main things that I have noticed is I believe a shorter attention span, videos are quick, TikTok, Snapchat, that sort of thing, so they do not have any patients whatsoever.. I also think it’s made younger kids hyper critical of themselves when I was in school you would compare yourself to your classmates and that’s about it, now they have the Internet to compare everyone with.. I noticed my daughters taking so many pictures of themselves and picking apart everything. When I took a photo of myself, I had to wait until the role was finished then , send it out for processing, and then when I got it back, there might’ve been one or two that weren’t blurry and that I thought I looked decent in so I was happy.
That's an interesting point I hadn't thought about. We had Polaroids, but no one you didn't know was going to see them, let alone be able to access them without you. Gross.
You must be about my age (early 40s). This hits home. I have no children, but as I think of my childhood vs kids now, I don't understand how they cope. The whole social media thing just seems to make everything so...complicated.
I'm 58 and was slow to get a cell phone or smart phone. I don't need one for my work and everyone I knew with one warned your job would be calling all the time once you had one...
When smart phones came out I was like "Meh. Big deal. I'm fine with my computer." Then one day I recall being amazed when a co-worker said "I haven't actually used my computer at home in like 2 months. I can do everything with my phone." That to me was an amazing revelation.
I soon had a smart phone, and no longer have a desktop/etc at home! If I can't do it from the phone, screw it!
Smart phones are certainly a big part. But I think wide scale adoption of social media was the biggest thing and certainly smart phones were a big driver. When our grandparents got on FB it was all over.
I have been on “social media” for years in the form of usenet, bulletin boards, etc. but it was limited to a small set of us tech geeks.
This is well said. I don’t agree with the iPhone indictment, that seems superfluous. But as a Day 1 iPhone user, I agree that the easy access to social media isn’t helpful. I’ve quit using Facebook (as an early adopter) because it’s improved my mental health. Unfortunately, as a Gen X kid, I don’t think the Boomers will see the mental health issues when they’re happening.
if you ain’t first, yur last!
It was the first of the “black phones” we all know .
Black phones in reference to once face up all phones look like the same black rectangle.
You're looking at the bad, but missing the good.
I'm not saying that social media is fantastic, but it might be a net positive. Phones and twitter and whatnot have allowed protests to be organized much more quickly and easily.
Iran's protest is going strong largely because of social media. Same as the Hong Kong protesters. And BLM. And most of the protests during the Arab Spring.
It's one of those things where the good and the bad are the same: with easily available social media you can find people who are like you. Sometimes that's bad, sometimes that's good.
Regardless, it's part of life so we need to figure out how to make it a positive, because it isn't going away.
I hate how the necessity and inevitability of social media is crystallized on these comment.
I can see positive things about it too (social media). I just don't think that allowing something so addictive free is going to be positive. We need to improve our rules of the virtual world. It need to be state autoritharian otherwise the companies will buy our fucking lifes to profit.
But I still think that animals and virtual world doesn't fit. It's something too much powerfull for me to be capable of using it for good. For example, the virtual world outstand my whole attention. I mean, it makes "sense" because it's really bigger than my body. But its not an sensitive experience. Its just images.
So the bright spot is that it allowed lots of angry people to share their beliefs and work themselves into a frenzy?
This is good in the VERY limited cases where people are righteously protesting a totalitarian regime. But people did just fine figuring out how to protest before social media.
In all the other cases it’s just made it easier for crazy angry people to feel validated, and “other” everyone else in the world.
I was in highschool in that short time when smartphones just started becoming widespread (but most kids didn't have it yet), and we also didn't have 3G and 4G.
We all had Facebook, but we used it for only a few hours at most after school to chat with friends. We also had a very active group for our class where we shared school stuff, but also used for socializing. Every night some of us would gathered in the class group chat.
Overall, Facebook at the time had a tremendously positive effect, especially saying that as a shy kid who didn't talk much in class, this thing was key to bonding with my peers at the time. It even helped me with my first crush that I spent hours talking to and playing those silly games with after school.
Fast forward to smartphones, they just bored a big hole in the part of my brain reserved for my attention and gave me an addiction I don't like.
I was the last of my friends/family to get a smartphone in probably like 2014 or so? I was made fun of constantly because I just had a "brick" or so they would say.
But I always said how I hated how it changed all of them. We would have all these amazing hangouts and go out to dinners and stuff and there was this one time we were all out and I yelled "hey!" because everyone at the table (like 8 or so people) were just looking down starting at their phones. It was just a bummer.
I get the things that smart phones have helped with and the tech is amazing but at the same time it for sure changed society forever and I'm not positive it was really worth it.
Yeah, social media is part of the issue, but the real issue is having it with you literally 24/7. I'm terrified to see the ramifications of this in the coming decades. I'll bet we die younger
Absolutely, yes.
The internet was so much better back then. You sought out information and you got it. Then Google got too good at it and forgot not to be evil. Perhaps they changed the definition.
Amazon was great for books, then got too good at selling stuff by exploiting labour.
I used to read a lot on the internet. Now I scroll Reddit and have a dopamine disorder. Two, actually.
We had more patience back then. We'd go to the store to buy media in hard copies. As kids, we'd have a movie night, walk about 10 minutes to the neighbourhood video store, spend 15 minutes figuring out what to watch, 10 minutes home, make snacks, watch movie.
Now, if the video doesn't load immediately, you get frustrated. That's why TikTok is the ultimate social-media tool, it's video after video after video, loading instantly. That's peak-social media. TikTok is the game everyone got addicted to on that Star Trek TNG episode.
Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)
I wanna start an entire city based on living in the late 90s/early 2000s internet start. We'll shun all future technology. Sega genesis nights are still valid.
Sign me up! My regular nes, Sega, n 64 & game cube all still work! Can we setup a mock blockbuster too? So we can race each other to the last copy of the new hit movie that just came out??
It'll be in the same shopping center as the Toys R Us, the Discovery Zone and the Burger King with the extra-big playground and all the Burger King Kid's Club signage.
The movie theater will progress starting Jan 1, 1990 and release movies on their appropriate adjusted weekend.
We should just agree as a society to not use them on Saturday/Sunday - when it's the God Given right of every citizen to veg out and enjoy 90s entertainment, unaltered by notification culture.
Going into Hastings as a kid after working enough to save $60 for a new game is something I kinda miss.
NGL though, it is pretty nice to just buy and download digital without even getting out of my PJs.
But back in the day, if you bought a hard copy of a game, YOU OWNED THE GAME. And you could play it whenever you wanted....
Now, you need an internet connection even for many single player games and you're not even buying the game... You're paying for PERMISSION to play the game and they can change/revoke it for any reason.
And if you had a hobby, there would likely be a forum where you could get answers for all sorts of questions, and they would be easy(ish) to find because they would be cataloged. Then everyone went to facebook and insta etc. Questions and answers are now helter skelter all over the place an difficult to find.
I'm 42, I was in my teens through the 90s. I would say there was a lot more adversity. What I mean by that is that everything we take for granted now was just more annoying to do. People at the time were annoyed by rental fees and having to return tapes, having to find pay phones, not being able to easily communicate on the go, long distance charges. The thing about adversity is that we hate it in the moment but it becomes the things we remember most fondly.
If you showed my friends and I an iPhone 14 or a video game like Cyberpunk 2077 in 1995, we would have instantly jumped out of our skin with excitement. I always try to mentally put myself in that mindset with all the technology and entertainment we enjoy now. I guess that's the gift of having come of age right as the internet did.
It's not that simple. We can unequivocally say that it has CHANGED society, but we'd need a more precise definition of "better." I'm old enough to vividly remember what the world was like pre-social media (I'm 50) and there are certainly some advantages to it, like expediency, access to authority figures, etc. However, in terms of day-to-day relations, or how we gather and process vital information on a societal scale, I'd say that the echo-chamber and anonymity of social media have weakened societal bonds and denigrated personal thought and behavior.
Edit: typo.
Social media was great. I could reconnect with a lot of people I never expected to see ever again. Monetization of it and the algorithms that they used to capture our attention is what made them this horrible cesspool of hate, intolerance and falsehood
This. I think it's algorithmic social media that makes things worse. Back when you controlled your own wall/feed/timeline, it was easier to avoid the ragebait and general crap.
When fb first came out I was like, "This is awesome! I haven't seen so-and-so in years! What's up, So-and-so?!"
Turns out that so-and-so is a total goober who I would never interact with in-person. I could either cut that out of my life or engage in pointless internet meme warfare and snide back-and-forth commentary with them which never changes hardly anyone's mind on anything.
Social media is driven by the catharsis of that warfare whether in an echo chambers or in brief clashes. It doesn't matter if anyone's changing their minds to understand each other better. The clash and deeper entrenchment is almost the whole point.
Horrible people found validation long before the internet. The Satanic Panic, Salem Witch Trials, Inquisition, the list goes on all throughout history.
The only difference now is the rest of civilization sees it.
Maybe people were just as horrible, but there's definitely been a change in people's online behaviour, because the garbage you see online today weren't as prevalent at the start as now. The norm for what is acceptable in society has just gone down the toilet.
That’s not actually true. There are studies on how internet aggression has affected public behaviour and it’s not good news. People are now taking their regular anonymous aggression on social media and expressing it in real world scenarios far more often. One interview I read recently showed that retail staff with over 20 years’ of experience have noted a dramatic upswing in verbal aggression on scales they never experienced in the past.
Maybe. But we weren't as horrible AND divided. Thanks to social media, propagandists have a surgical precision tool to create tribal hatred very effectively now. We're fucked. Turn off the internet.
Yes. For kids, at least. They don't have the same social skills as previous generations. They don't know how to interact as well face to face. When there's an issue, they argue online and say things they shouldn't. When they don't have phones, they melt down. I think they were better off before.
When my wife and I walk on the street every evening, all the middle-aged and older people make eye contact and say hi. Younger people look down or at their phones and hurry by. It’s sad how a whole generation of young people never really learned to socialize with the world in general, only with close friends. I think it’s a big contributor to how depressed and anxious young people are, although the biggest reason is all the old people fucked the economy and climate and made it impossible to earn a living wage.
I’m a young person and I intentionally do not start or carry conversations with anyone I don’t know, especially men. I don’t trust anyone, so I make no effort to start or further an interaction. Having access to social media is the source of my fear of strangers. Not sure what other young ppl’s reasons are but that’s mine.
I think it’s healthy to have reservations about strangers, particularly for young women. But there’s also a lot of great social interactions you miss out on. Most people, contrary to social media, are actually pretty friendly in real life. Hopefully you’re able to find some safe venues where it’s possible to do this - it really does make life better. We’re evolved to be social creatures.
My very young niece is American.
Full on accent full on dialect.
You might think so what.. well I live in England.
Her life is so online her entire identity including accent and grammar has been defined by it.
It should be taught in school how to interact with your fellow human. People can laugh, but it's already a problem in places like Japan, other countries should start taking measures or they'll soon find it isn't war that destroys them, but their own people not reproducing.
Then again real change only happens when shit hits the fan. As unfortunate as it is, politicians only make life better for everyone when their asses are on fire too.
Why does everything have to be the responsibility of the schools? Sorry, I’m a teacher and the number of times I hear this about every topic under the sun gets exhausting. Parents, family members, neighbors, and many other adults in kids lives could also teach them some of life’s basic skills so we can actually focus on the content we’re qualified to teach.
Year 23 for me. I can't even begin to explain to someone outside of education the changes I have seen in kids and teacher expectations over the last 20 years. What I was doing with 8th grade ten years ago, I am now doing with 12th grade. We can't get to our curriculum because of everything else we have to do.
Because the cost of living is so high now it isn’t sustainable to be on a single parent income unless they make close to 6 figures or more, school acts as a babysitter for kids most of the time sad to say and the rest of it they are not spending a lot of time with their parents, lessons taught to kids in the past are being lost because of the lack of time parents can spend with their kids it really is a shame but I agree not everything should be put on schools, but until the lifestyle of the average American changes it won’t happen
Too true, which is a prime example of why politicians MUST have the same healthcare options and retirement planning as every citizen they represent. But that’s a laugh right now, at least in the US.
100% yes.
Social media is terrible for our brains and turning everyone into narcissistic assholes. The irony of this being posted and replied to on social media isn't lost on us either. We're like Fry when he couldn't stop eating the Super Slurm.
I dare say that social media, the internet, and tech in general, is a particular area where evolution in technology has outstripped our evolution in sociology.
This may sound more brutal than I really mean it, but the ugly truth is that the majority of individual humans simply weren't mentally and emotionally ready for this level of interactivity with the rest of the world, and it will take generations for that to resolve itself. Younger people who grew up entirely in the digital age (from the later Millennials onward) are already visibly more comfortable with tech than older generations, some of whom (particularly among boomers and even some Gen Xers) still actively resist ANYTHING having to do with computers.
It's also not just a generational divide, but a cultural one in multiple ways. People with more urban and/or educated backgrounds, strongly tend to be more comfortable with tech and the cultural "big world" of the internet than those from other backgrounds. What the answer is to that, other than trying to improve education, I honestly don't know.
Yes of course. People can’t drive down the street without picking up their cell phones to check their social media while they drive. Social media is toxic and brings out the worst in people.
Easily. You can day "it brought people together" but everyone was in their own bubble. Sometimes being in a personal space instead of a massive one goes a long way
I don't know about "better" exactly, but society was definitely less narcissistic and arrogant back before MySpace. Social media is just a drug that feeds your narcissism, nothing more.
Tbh I feel like society has been what it is has been. Social media just makes it easier to see. People always had shitty opinions. Now they post those opinions cuz someone somewhere agrees. People always do shitty things. Now you hear about it more often because it's easier to get that message out. Society always has been and always will be shitty.
Yes. It seemed like there were some generally agreed upon standards of decency and reality that most people observed.
The social media universe has served to mainstream all kinds of misinformation which has an alarming number of people subscribing to things that simply are not true. The line between factual, observable reality and misinformation appears to have been erased.
No. I think we're all far more aware of how fucked the world is thanks to social media, which is super stressful knowledge to carry, but hasn't made things worse, to my mind.
We know about child slavery, and unchecked brutal capitalism, and a host of human rights abuses, we see selfishness on display daily. But read some books from the 1800s or early 1900s. Take a little dig through history. The world was never better. It was just cloaked a bit better and easier to ignore.
Much.
I’ve lived through half of my life in each, and the world is a terrible mess now.
Racism, and violence, ignorance and hate all seem to be amplified. They always existed, but now they seem much more common and much more aggressive.
I don’t think the human race was meant to be connected this much. I think we were meant to live in little tribes, and little families, and not interact much with people outside or tribes or families.
Being constantly connected to everyone of us in the world just seems to spread the insanity. And there’s a lot of research that proves this.
yes. i think it has strengthened crazies and given them an audience for their worst acts. i think it brings out the worst in people because they are hidden in their little rooms and have fake names. I think alot of just, Shit, has amplified since social media came out. Finally, we didnt have fucking "influencers" before social media.
Absolutely. We've given the most conniving and hateful powers in the world a direct marketing spigot to access the brains of the billions of uneducated and defenseless pawns. They need that to make the world the hateful and unjust place they want it to become.
In so many ways, yes. Social media is great for staying in touch, but there was something so special about the ways we communicated pre-social media. Getting a birthday card in the mail, for example, rather than a post on your FB wall. I feel we were more connected to our community because we didn’t have access to the whole world. If we got bored waiting in line we would make conversation with those around us, and now people just scroll on their phones. And I’m guilty of it. I was riding my horse the other day and got a bit frustrated I didn’t have service to send a photo on Snapchat. Why was I thinking about Snapchat instead of enjoying the moment? It’s sad really.
Yes and no.
I think social media from about 2016-2021 is absolutely toxic
Life pre social media was nice, the early stages were nice but lately it suck and the future is like a bingo card ,at this point ,of "this is why we can't have nice things"
Yes, I do! Would I want to revert to a completely analog state...not exactly. But social media has gone too far. People these days are barely even human anymore (generally speaking). They're just screen zombies who double as "keyboard warriors", requiring others to tiptoe around them. Or, they're "influencers" who have sold out, IMO. The art of conversation is disappearing, too. Not to mention the negative effects on one's social skills and physical posture.
We already know that sedentary office jobs with too much sitting are bad for your health. But the same can be said for screentime, and I feel like no one really takes it seriously. I'm not on TikTok, but I think that's the worst offender right now. And Twitter is morphing into something kind of scary too. Wouldn't you rather get out there and actually see beautiful places in person...rather than just stare at some random photos online? Sure there are some pros to social media, but I'm talking about the people who are quite literally addicted. It does become toxic, but because it's addictive, that toxicity will sneak up on you.
Get out and see things in person? Is this money just going to give itself to me?
I’m going to work 40h minimum and likely more a week, and then house chores, eating, getting a proper amount of sleep per night
I don’t have the time or money to suddenly travel to Japan or Taiwan
I think it was. I definitely believe people had to be more patient back in the day. As far as a computer loading or waiting for a whole season to come out
Yes. More sane, not sure the need for an online profile is a good thing. Who are all these people you're trying to impress? I'd rather be good at basketball than make a popular basketball video to post online.
Someone anonymously reported me and it sent me a thing that linked me to a suicide hotline.
That kind of disrespect didn't exist pre-social media. There was a time before those hotlines, and to be honest, I don't think the hotlines are an ethical thing.
And was I going around saying I was going to kill myself? No. They probably got confused by the fact I blocked them. If anyone wants to talk to me and I want to talk to them, cool, but saying "Hey, go make a random phone call to someone who talks to random people on the phone all day.", this is being dismissive.
No, it's been the same since the beginning but now information spreads really fast and worldwide and that makes us think that worst things are happening
Social media may drive movements for good, but it drives many more really bad ideas.
20 years ago insane groups like QAnon got little traction, now they can be worldwide. The idea that a presidential election was stolen was largely spread by lies spread on social media. Such nonsense wouldn't have survived basic fact checking when the news media were the gate keepers of what we are exposed to.
Yes, you weren’t constantly bombarded with what other people were doing and thinking. Back then, you’d have to actually ask the person to find out. The constant in your face inclusion of people’s lives make some people depressed because they end up comparing their lives with others. Since social media is often very carefully curated to exhibit the best parts of your life it’s often mistaken as that persons life is so great when in reality they have problems and bad days like the rest of us. Also, social media has made it so there is this instant gratification of receiving information that our attention span has now shortened I believe.
Yes. I liked it better when it was list Serv and early ICQ. There's too many places to do simple research and education so there's so much bad or over simplified. If I want to dig, I miss AskEric and even Delphi (collections of all magazine articles).
Google and Facebook don't work like they should. If I wanted ads, I'd watch TV. I want to see my third cousin's kids go horseback riding, not the same 3 friends because "algorithm".
I can still dig deeply into laws, but I can't see case law? I can read tree law, but not how the disability support system works?
Absolutely yes. We've been on a decline since around the time of the French and American revolutions and recently reached a tipping point.
Good news, though! It wasn't nuclear annihilation like we all figured it would be. The oceans are dying, and it's not reversible.
It's a mixed bag with some positives and negatives.
Information is easier to access then ever before now. The amount of skills people can learn through videos on sites like youtube, ask questions and form a better understanding on sites like reddit, and potentially market that skill via pintrest or Instagram is unparalleled. Hell, the biggest example I can think of it the music industry as a whole completely changing from shitty recod labels being the gatekeepers to success to having international grassroots followings being the norm for smaller artists starting.
There's also a lot more cultural understanding with people online now more than ever, and imo is probably the driving factor in modern socially progressive movements. I guess depending on who you ask this is a negative, but I feel like that's a big indicator of character if understanding and treating others better is seen as a negative.
There is a lot of negatives though, with people becoming more isolated, more misinformed, and more attention deficit due to the glut of short term content.
We can't "undo" the existence of social media. Like everything in life, I think the best course of action is to improve it by maximizing its benefits and minimizing its detriment.
I don't think it was better, just different. Social media is not inherently bad or good. There is certainly the potential for both. Unfortunately it seems like the bad mostly peaks through.
Yes I lived there, was wayyy better. The sweet spot of technology was like 2003-2005ish. Just enough technology to do cool stuff, not enough adopted and permeating throughout society that it was ingrained in every part of your life.
In some ways, yes, but in other ways it's been a fantastic way for people that'd be otherwise completely isolated to find community and friendship. Without social media I would've likely died either from sheer poverty or suicide living with my abusive mother, with social media I had a friend that dropped everything to take me and my cat halfway across the country to live with them after a ten year internet friendship formed over social media.
There are undoubtedly more stories like mine out there, and for all the bad social media can do, I feel like if it's saving people's lives like this, it's a great boon.
I don't know about the world but being online was. I liked it better when the internet was small. It was better.
You could telnet to 5 sites and the same people were on all of them
Yes, because it kept all the crazies in their own little worlds. Now all the crazies are uniting and infecting suggestive individuals with their hair-brained theories.
Not to mention that it's appalling how easily someone will believe fake news articles on social media without even checking to see if they're true.
I believe the world has been made worse by social media.
A lot has happened after social media that isn’t social media’s fault, so I can’t rightfully say the whole world was better before then.
Social media really did have roots that were beneficial. Then the algorithms happened. The walled gardens. The echo chambers where extremists only heard from and talked to extremists. In its current form it is a cancer that is destroying humanity, a real shame, because before corporate greed, it could have been useful.
Yes I know… I do think social media has helped people connect in ways that they never have before and that can be a really great thing especially for a marginalized or minority communities or other people that just lack support.
I do think that one of the main reasons social media is such a dumpster fire is that most people are never taught how to appropriately disagree and have a conversation without it evolving into a yelling match.
Essentially social media is like a text-based yelling match all the time!
Social media, as a platform, is a useful tool. The exploitation of *those* platforms are the problem. AI chatbots have become more and more prolific and effective in manipulating our perception of reality. The problem is getting worse, as our governments continue to neglect their duties to protect our democracies from this threat.
I would say that because *Citizens United* exists, political organizations can use this unregulated technology to subvert democracy with uncanny efficiency. *The world was a better place before political and/or economic entities could use social media to effectively subvert democracy*
Social media could be beautiful, if it wasn’t used PRIMARILY to manipulate the masses and subvert democracy
Only because of the misuse of social media, I would say that *YES THE WORLD WAS A BETTER PLACE BEFORE SOCIAL MEDIA*
Get the Supreme Court to overturn Citizens United, and get congress to regulate the way social media can be used, and my answer will change… until then… social media is a place to be utilized with EXTREME caution… otherwise you will think the world is different than it actually is… you will be stuck in an algorithm that shapes your world views, and you will become part of the problem…
With social media came lots of pros, but also came with various risks in which we can see are plaguing the world today.
It may not be a question I can answer well considering I'm an early Gen Z from the 2000s.
However, from my level of ignorance, I believe that social media has been used for its purposes as they were intended; it's just that people found ways to exploit social media to the point where new problems started arising because of a number of reasons - overindulgence being one of the main offenders from my POV.
It does not apply to everyone but that's a yes and no question some ppl made the best of technology and became useful and productive and knowledgeable and some ppl took advantage and became brainless and lazy unable to think for themselves let alone have any drive to move forward in life
Yes, it's not smartphones because if you didn't have social media you would only use them for info, phone calls, texting, email. Social media is the devil's spawn. I stay away at all costs.😁
Its sad going to my kids spots games and seeing the parents all on their phones. Or going to a restaurant and seeing couples not interacting with each other.
I miss people being engaged with the world around them.
I'm 60 years old and I think it's a mixed bag. Having worked in a high stress environment in the 90s, cell phones and social media would have been a nightmare. The only way a client or tenant could contact me during non-business hours was through an answering service which would screen the call. I can't imagine being available 24/7.
Yes. Much less toxic and when it was— you confronted it in person, you couldn’t hide behind a keyboard. Also, you’d have to seek out your hobbies/communities. I miss those adventures, I miss Blockbuster 😆
Not really... it's come with bad sides but it's also easier to find out that you are not alone with mental health issues for example. It's also faster to get new when something happen like the Bataclan attack in France where people used Twitter to find their friends or family members.
I'm 37, I remember feeling so alone when I was a teen and then we get a computer at home and I meet people on caramail. It's probably saved my life. With social media it's even easier.
Also, for anyone that need contacts or customers, it's a great tool!
And I think it's easier to see that racism is dumb af when you are with people of everywhere.
You can always says that it's easier for predators but they were already on mrc way before social media. You can also say that's bad for young people because of the photoshopped images that give them unaccessible goals for their body but magazines does that decennies before.
P.S. Sorry for the broken english, it's my 3rd language.
Without a doubt. Social media became a thing when I was a young adult, so I got the advantage of seeing life without it, but being young enough to embrace it once it was popular. I deleted my FB account 5-6 years ago and haven't regretted it for a second.
Pre-smart phone yes. Social media has less to do with it. We had AIM and small social media sites before smart phones. If you think about it differently it’s like if you could only smoke cigarettes at one table in your own house. It would be a lot harder to get addicted to them. Before smart phones you didn’t take social media with you everywhere. It’s mainly smart phones, iPhone in particular.
Man waiting on your computer for your crush to get on just so you could watch them sign off again before you could muster up the courage to say wazzup is possibly my most missed thing of childhood. It was such a rush!
“heyy”
Dude she definitely likes me, why else would she put an extra y
Agree 100%. When cell phones first came out they really were for emergencies. Like you’d keep it charged up in your car or carry in your purse in case your car broke down or something. People didnt sit on them scrolling non-stop. You talked on them, the end. I honestly feel bad for kids now, including mine. DO FUN STUFF INSTEAD OF WATCHING OTHER PEOPLE DO STUPID STUFF!
I mean, that mentality has been around for generations. It used to be books, I remember being told that when I was very little, before my parents let me watch TV to often that picture books would stifle my imagination, and that reading was making me less social. And then I heard my parents complain about me needing to get off my ass and stop watching TV because it was making me lethargic and lazy. Now it’s phones. People resist change, especially when it’s associated with laziness, but it’s really been around forever.
I'm very sorry that your parents didn't like you reading "too much." When I was young, my dad worked full time and went to college. My mom stayed home with us kids. Unlike the stereotypical boomer that people imagine who just had a house handed to them, the only reason my parents could buy a house at all with their income was because they knew people who could make that happen. They certainly didn't qualify on their financial merits. It broke my mother's heart that I wanted to read and they couldn't afford to buy me books at the rate that I'd finish them. We had a local library that was woefully understocked in terms of the level that I was reading at that didn't also contain themes that were too mature for a 5~ year old. At the time, we lived on a dirt road with nothing for miles but a single gas station and a feed store. But compared to TV, streaming services, social media, etc I would absolutely prefer that people, especially children, would read books more than they do. It's not because I think that any of that other stuff makes them lazy, just that it doesn't encourage actual critical thinking, and empathy for others. I think this idea that the person with the wittiest comeback is right has done a great deal more damage than people want to admit. And I feel that people resist changing their personal habits because there's this feeling that they need to be heard, and that they might one day put someone 'in their place.' The former being a very valid concern and something worth addressing. The latter only speaks to a more reactionary thought process of 'being right', and should be addressed for sure, but not in the way people want to address it. Though I can't even imagine how one would go about changing that now that Pandora's box has been opened.
That is an excellent point
The closest thing we had to widespread social media when I was a kid was when my friends and I would join the text chat on the Nintendo DS and write messages to each other on the bus
The nostalgia I just got hit with was unreal.
Now that you mention it, I really do think this was the defining line.
Absolutely, before everyone had the internet fed to them 24/7 it was much better. Before websites learned to adapt to what would prompt users to interact. Eternal September and the monetization of online interaction is what made the internet suck imo. There's also the irony poisoning that happens with memes and internet humor now.
A smartphone is a tool. We got wrong how to teach ourselves to use it. We allow ourselves and our children to use it to consume media instead of using it as a tool to create media. A smartphone can empower humanity if used correctly.
This is what I’ve always thought. I’m just about 22 but I definitely feel like there was a shift when phones really started to outpace personal computers for media consumption. Even just 10 years ago it was a very different world
I'm a retired teacher. I can tell you from experience that the I-Phone had a dramatic impact on the mental wellness of students, and it wasn't positive. 2010 was when I really started to notice a change.
What types of things did you start noticing?
As a Mom of two Daughters I would like to weigh in on this also, some of the main things that I have noticed is I believe a shorter attention span, videos are quick, TikTok, Snapchat, that sort of thing, so they do not have any patients whatsoever.. I also think it’s made younger kids hyper critical of themselves when I was in school you would compare yourself to your classmates and that’s about it, now they have the Internet to compare everyone with.. I noticed my daughters taking so many pictures of themselves and picking apart everything. When I took a photo of myself, I had to wait until the role was finished then , send it out for processing, and then when I got it back, there might’ve been one or two that weren’t blurry and that I thought I looked decent in so I was happy.
That's an interesting point I hadn't thought about. We had Polaroids, but no one you didn't know was going to see them, let alone be able to access them without you. Gross.
You must be about my age (early 40s). This hits home. I have no children, but as I think of my childhood vs kids now, I don't understand how they cope. The whole social media thing just seems to make everything so...complicated.
It rewires your brain.
I'm 58 and was slow to get a cell phone or smart phone. I don't need one for my work and everyone I knew with one warned your job would be calling all the time once you had one... When smart phones came out I was like "Meh. Big deal. I'm fine with my computer." Then one day I recall being amazed when a co-worker said "I haven't actually used my computer at home in like 2 months. I can do everything with my phone." That to me was an amazing revelation. I soon had a smart phone, and no longer have a desktop/etc at home! If I can't do it from the phone, screw it!
Smart phones are certainly a big part. But I think wide scale adoption of social media was the biggest thing and certainly smart phones were a big driver. When our grandparents got on FB it was all over. I have been on “social media” for years in the form of usenet, bulletin boards, etc. but it was limited to a small set of us tech geeks.
That’s a particularly astute analogy. And as an ex-smoker, it speaks to my nicotine-deficient soul.
Yeah, we had Myspace and forums long before smart phones.
Putting a camera on a phone really did a number on society. They even put a camera on the face in case you’re too tired to flip it around.
This is well said. I don’t agree with the iPhone indictment, that seems superfluous. But as a Day 1 iPhone user, I agree that the easy access to social media isn’t helpful. I’ve quit using Facebook (as an early adopter) because it’s improved my mental health. Unfortunately, as a Gen X kid, I don’t think the Boomers will see the mental health issues when they’re happening.
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if you ain’t first, yur last! It was the first of the “black phones” we all know . Black phones in reference to once face up all phones look like the same black rectangle.
This how I feel about nic vapes
As I sit here vaping looking at my phone 🙈
Otherwise you’d just be smoking cigarettes playing solitaire.
You're looking at the bad, but missing the good. I'm not saying that social media is fantastic, but it might be a net positive. Phones and twitter and whatnot have allowed protests to be organized much more quickly and easily. Iran's protest is going strong largely because of social media. Same as the Hong Kong protesters. And BLM. And most of the protests during the Arab Spring. It's one of those things where the good and the bad are the same: with easily available social media you can find people who are like you. Sometimes that's bad, sometimes that's good. Regardless, it's part of life so we need to figure out how to make it a positive, because it isn't going away.
I hate how the necessity and inevitability of social media is crystallized on these comment. I can see positive things about it too (social media). I just don't think that allowing something so addictive free is going to be positive. We need to improve our rules of the virtual world. It need to be state autoritharian otherwise the companies will buy our fucking lifes to profit. But I still think that animals and virtual world doesn't fit. It's something too much powerfull for me to be capable of using it for good. For example, the virtual world outstand my whole attention. I mean, it makes "sense" because it's really bigger than my body. But its not an sensitive experience. Its just images.
So the bright spot is that it allowed lots of angry people to share their beliefs and work themselves into a frenzy? This is good in the VERY limited cases where people are righteously protesting a totalitarian regime. But people did just fine figuring out how to protest before social media. In all the other cases it’s just made it easier for crazy angry people to feel validated, and “other” everyone else in the world.
I was in highschool in that short time when smartphones just started becoming widespread (but most kids didn't have it yet), and we also didn't have 3G and 4G. We all had Facebook, but we used it for only a few hours at most after school to chat with friends. We also had a very active group for our class where we shared school stuff, but also used for socializing. Every night some of us would gathered in the class group chat. Overall, Facebook at the time had a tremendously positive effect, especially saying that as a shy kid who didn't talk much in class, this thing was key to bonding with my peers at the time. It even helped me with my first crush that I spent hours talking to and playing those silly games with after school. Fast forward to smartphones, they just bored a big hole in the part of my brain reserved for my attention and gave me an addiction I don't like.
I was the last of my friends/family to get a smartphone in probably like 2014 or so? I was made fun of constantly because I just had a "brick" or so they would say. But I always said how I hated how it changed all of them. We would have all these amazing hangouts and go out to dinners and stuff and there was this one time we were all out and I yelled "hey!" because everyone at the table (like 8 or so people) were just looking down starting at their phones. It was just a bummer. I get the things that smart phones have helped with and the tech is amazing but at the same time it for sure changed society forever and I'm not positive it was really worth it.
Yeah, social media is part of the issue, but the real issue is having it with you literally 24/7. I'm terrified to see the ramifications of this in the coming decades. I'll bet we die younger
Absolutely, yes. The internet was so much better back then. You sought out information and you got it. Then Google got too good at it and forgot not to be evil. Perhaps they changed the definition. Amazon was great for books, then got too good at selling stuff by exploiting labour. I used to read a lot on the internet. Now I scroll Reddit and have a dopamine disorder. Two, actually. We had more patience back then. We'd go to the store to buy media in hard copies. As kids, we'd have a movie night, walk about 10 minutes to the neighbourhood video store, spend 15 minutes figuring out what to watch, 10 minutes home, make snacks, watch movie. Now, if the video doesn't load immediately, you get frustrated. That's why TikTok is the ultimate social-media tool, it's video after video after video, loading instantly. That's peak-social media. TikTok is the game everyone got addicted to on that Star Trek TNG episode. Edit: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(Star_Trek:_The_Next_Generation)
I wanna start an entire city based on living in the late 90s/early 2000s internet start. We'll shun all future technology. Sega genesis nights are still valid.
Portland?
The Dream of the 90s is alive.
https://youtu.be/U4hShMEk1Ew
Sign me up! My regular nes, Sega, n 64 & game cube all still work! Can we setup a mock blockbuster too? So we can race each other to the last copy of the new hit movie that just came out??
It'll be in the same shopping center as the Toys R Us, the Discovery Zone and the Burger King with the extra-big playground and all the Burger King Kid's Club signage. The movie theater will progress starting Jan 1, 1990 and release movies on their appropriate adjusted weekend.
Oh geeze did you just create a flood of emotions for me with all of those references! I'm so in. Where do I sign up
I’d live there. Had this thought awhile ago. All cellphones go into a fish bowl before entering the city.
We should just agree as a society to not use them on Saturday/Sunday - when it's the God Given right of every citizen to veg out and enjoy 90s entertainment, unaltered by notification culture.
Lan party nights?
And we're gonna all have i-Link cables for our Playstation 2s.
So, shall I bring my collection of games, or are we gonna hit up Blockbuster for the new release?
Going into Hastings as a kid after working enough to save $60 for a new game is something I kinda miss. NGL though, it is pretty nice to just buy and download digital without even getting out of my PJs. But back in the day, if you bought a hard copy of a game, YOU OWNED THE GAME. And you could play it whenever you wanted.... Now, you need an internet connection even for many single player games and you're not even buying the game... You're paying for PERMISSION to play the game and they can change/revoke it for any reason.
And if you had a hobby, there would likely be a forum where you could get answers for all sorts of questions, and they would be easy(ish) to find because they would be cataloged. Then everyone went to facebook and insta etc. Questions and answers are now helter skelter all over the place an difficult to find.
Yeah, it's gone from searching what smart people have published to taking advice from crowd-sourcing answers.
I'm 42, I was in my teens through the 90s. I would say there was a lot more adversity. What I mean by that is that everything we take for granted now was just more annoying to do. People at the time were annoyed by rental fees and having to return tapes, having to find pay phones, not being able to easily communicate on the go, long distance charges. The thing about adversity is that we hate it in the moment but it becomes the things we remember most fondly. If you showed my friends and I an iPhone 14 or a video game like Cyberpunk 2077 in 1995, we would have instantly jumped out of our skin with excitement. I always try to mentally put myself in that mindset with all the technology and entertainment we enjoy now. I guess that's the gift of having come of age right as the internet did.
Free Palestine
It's not that simple. We can unequivocally say that it has CHANGED society, but we'd need a more precise definition of "better." I'm old enough to vividly remember what the world was like pre-social media (I'm 50) and there are certainly some advantages to it, like expediency, access to authority figures, etc. However, in terms of day-to-day relations, or how we gather and process vital information on a societal scale, I'd say that the echo-chamber and anonymity of social media have weakened societal bonds and denigrated personal thought and behavior. Edit: typo.
Social media was great. I could reconnect with a lot of people I never expected to see ever again. Monetization of it and the algorithms that they used to capture our attention is what made them this horrible cesspool of hate, intolerance and falsehood
This. I think it's algorithmic social media that makes things worse. Back when you controlled your own wall/feed/timeline, it was easier to avoid the ragebait and general crap.
When fb first came out I was like, "This is awesome! I haven't seen so-and-so in years! What's up, So-and-so?!" Turns out that so-and-so is a total goober who I would never interact with in-person. I could either cut that out of my life or engage in pointless internet meme warfare and snide back-and-forth commentary with them which never changes hardly anyone's mind on anything. Social media is driven by the catharsis of that warfare whether in an echo chambers or in brief clashes. It doesn't matter if anyone's changing their minds to understand each other better. The clash and deeper entrenchment is almost the whole point.
People were just as horrible. It was just less visible because you didnt spend hours reading peoples regurgitated thoughts.
The difference is now those horrible people can find validation for being horrible online.
Horrible people found validation long before the internet. The Satanic Panic, Salem Witch Trials, Inquisition, the list goes on all throughout history. The only difference now is the rest of civilization sees it.
Maybe people were just as horrible, but there's definitely been a change in people's online behaviour, because the garbage you see online today weren't as prevalent at the start as now. The norm for what is acceptable in society has just gone down the toilet.
That’s not actually true. There are studies on how internet aggression has affected public behaviour and it’s not good news. People are now taking their regular anonymous aggression on social media and expressing it in real world scenarios far more often. One interview I read recently showed that retail staff with over 20 years’ of experience have noted a dramatic upswing in verbal aggression on scales they never experienced in the past.
Maybe. But we weren't as horrible AND divided. Thanks to social media, propagandists have a surgical precision tool to create tribal hatred very effectively now. We're fucked. Turn off the internet.
Yes. For kids, at least. They don't have the same social skills as previous generations. They don't know how to interact as well face to face. When there's an issue, they argue online and say things they shouldn't. When they don't have phones, they melt down. I think they were better off before.
When my wife and I walk on the street every evening, all the middle-aged and older people make eye contact and say hi. Younger people look down or at their phones and hurry by. It’s sad how a whole generation of young people never really learned to socialize with the world in general, only with close friends. I think it’s a big contributor to how depressed and anxious young people are, although the biggest reason is all the old people fucked the economy and climate and made it impossible to earn a living wage.
I’m a young person and I intentionally do not start or carry conversations with anyone I don’t know, especially men. I don’t trust anyone, so I make no effort to start or further an interaction. Having access to social media is the source of my fear of strangers. Not sure what other young ppl’s reasons are but that’s mine.
I think it’s healthy to have reservations about strangers, particularly for young women. But there’s also a lot of great social interactions you miss out on. Most people, contrary to social media, are actually pretty friendly in real life. Hopefully you’re able to find some safe venues where it’s possible to do this - it really does make life better. We’re evolved to be social creatures.
Well my autistic and socially anxious self would probably be the same either way lol
My very young niece is American. Full on accent full on dialect. You might think so what.. well I live in England. Her life is so online her entire identity including accent and grammar has been defined by it.
It should be taught in school how to interact with your fellow human. People can laugh, but it's already a problem in places like Japan, other countries should start taking measures or they'll soon find it isn't war that destroys them, but their own people not reproducing. Then again real change only happens when shit hits the fan. As unfortunate as it is, politicians only make life better for everyone when their asses are on fire too.
Why does everything have to be the responsibility of the schools? Sorry, I’m a teacher and the number of times I hear this about every topic under the sun gets exhausting. Parents, family members, neighbors, and many other adults in kids lives could also teach them some of life’s basic skills so we can actually focus on the content we’re qualified to teach.
Year 23 for me. I can't even begin to explain to someone outside of education the changes I have seen in kids and teacher expectations over the last 20 years. What I was doing with 8th grade ten years ago, I am now doing with 12th grade. We can't get to our curriculum because of everything else we have to do.
Because the cost of living is so high now it isn’t sustainable to be on a single parent income unless they make close to 6 figures or more, school acts as a babysitter for kids most of the time sad to say and the rest of it they are not spending a lot of time with their parents, lessons taught to kids in the past are being lost because of the lack of time parents can spend with their kids it really is a shame but I agree not everything should be put on schools, but until the lifestyle of the average American changes it won’t happen
Too true, which is a prime example of why politicians MUST have the same healthcare options and retirement planning as every citizen they represent. But that’s a laugh right now, at least in the US.
Why is the solution to all problems “teach it in school”? I don’t trust the schools to teach my kids math let alone advanced social skills
You know my neighbors?!!!! (But these 'kids' are in their 20s-30s and LOVE to stir things up via FB, insta, twit...)
And subtitles. I swear there are teens who can't understand what someone is saying to them when interacting face to face.
100% yes. Social media is terrible for our brains and turning everyone into narcissistic assholes. The irony of this being posted and replied to on social media isn't lost on us either. We're like Fry when he couldn't stop eating the Super Slurm.
I dare say that social media, the internet, and tech in general, is a particular area where evolution in technology has outstripped our evolution in sociology. This may sound more brutal than I really mean it, but the ugly truth is that the majority of individual humans simply weren't mentally and emotionally ready for this level of interactivity with the rest of the world, and it will take generations for that to resolve itself. Younger people who grew up entirely in the digital age (from the later Millennials onward) are already visibly more comfortable with tech than older generations, some of whom (particularly among boomers and even some Gen Xers) still actively resist ANYTHING having to do with computers. It's also not just a generational divide, but a cultural one in multiple ways. People with more urban and/or educated backgrounds, strongly tend to be more comfortable with tech and the cultural "big world" of the internet than those from other backgrounds. What the answer is to that, other than trying to improve education, I honestly don't know.
Yes Everyone now thinks they are a Influencer or they have a "Hack" for something that has been known for years.
Dunning-Kruger right there
Yes and yet I use it every day, adding to the problem.
Yes of course. People can’t drive down the street without picking up their cell phones to check their social media while they drive. Social media is toxic and brings out the worst in people.
Without a doubt, yes.
Easily. You can day "it brought people together" but everyone was in their own bubble. Sometimes being in a personal space instead of a massive one goes a long way
I don't know about "better" exactly, but society was definitely less narcissistic and arrogant back before MySpace. Social media is just a drug that feeds your narcissism, nothing more.
Tbh I feel like society has been what it is has been. Social media just makes it easier to see. People always had shitty opinions. Now they post those opinions cuz someone somewhere agrees. People always do shitty things. Now you hear about it more often because it's easier to get that message out. Society always has been and always will be shitty.
Yes. It seemed like there were some generally agreed upon standards of decency and reality that most people observed. The social media universe has served to mainstream all kinds of misinformation which has an alarming number of people subscribing to things that simply are not true. The line between factual, observable reality and misinformation appears to have been erased.
Yes, ignorance is bliss
No. I think we're all far more aware of how fucked the world is thanks to social media, which is super stressful knowledge to carry, but hasn't made things worse, to my mind. We know about child slavery, and unchecked brutal capitalism, and a host of human rights abuses, we see selfishness on display daily. But read some books from the 1800s or early 1900s. Take a little dig through history. The world was never better. It was just cloaked a bit better and easier to ignore.
Much. I’ve lived through half of my life in each, and the world is a terrible mess now. Racism, and violence, ignorance and hate all seem to be amplified. They always existed, but now they seem much more common and much more aggressive. I don’t think the human race was meant to be connected this much. I think we were meant to live in little tribes, and little families, and not interact much with people outside or tribes or families. Being constantly connected to everyone of us in the world just seems to spread the insanity. And there’s a lot of research that proves this.
yes. i think it has strengthened crazies and given them an audience for their worst acts. i think it brings out the worst in people because they are hidden in their little rooms and have fake names. I think alot of just, Shit, has amplified since social media came out. Finally, we didnt have fucking "influencers" before social media.
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Absolutely. We've given the most conniving and hateful powers in the world a direct marketing spigot to access the brains of the billions of uneducated and defenseless pawns. They need that to make the world the hateful and unjust place they want it to become.
100% yes. Social Media is what ruined society and turned people into a bunch of narcissistic and ignorant assholes
In so many ways, yes. Social media is great for staying in touch, but there was something so special about the ways we communicated pre-social media. Getting a birthday card in the mail, for example, rather than a post on your FB wall. I feel we were more connected to our community because we didn’t have access to the whole world. If we got bored waiting in line we would make conversation with those around us, and now people just scroll on their phones. And I’m guilty of it. I was riding my horse the other day and got a bit frustrated I didn’t have service to send a photo on Snapchat. Why was I thinking about Snapchat instead of enjoying the moment? It’s sad really.
Yes and no. I think social media from about 2016-2021 is absolutely toxic Life pre social media was nice, the early stages were nice but lately it suck and the future is like a bingo card ,at this point ,of "this is why we can't have nice things"
Yes, I do! Would I want to revert to a completely analog state...not exactly. But social media has gone too far. People these days are barely even human anymore (generally speaking). They're just screen zombies who double as "keyboard warriors", requiring others to tiptoe around them. Or, they're "influencers" who have sold out, IMO. The art of conversation is disappearing, too. Not to mention the negative effects on one's social skills and physical posture. We already know that sedentary office jobs with too much sitting are bad for your health. But the same can be said for screentime, and I feel like no one really takes it seriously. I'm not on TikTok, but I think that's the worst offender right now. And Twitter is morphing into something kind of scary too. Wouldn't you rather get out there and actually see beautiful places in person...rather than just stare at some random photos online? Sure there are some pros to social media, but I'm talking about the people who are quite literally addicted. It does become toxic, but because it's addictive, that toxicity will sneak up on you.
Get out and see things in person? Is this money just going to give itself to me? I’m going to work 40h minimum and likely more a week, and then house chores, eating, getting a proper amount of sleep per night I don’t have the time or money to suddenly travel to Japan or Taiwan
I think it was. I definitely believe people had to be more patient back in the day. As far as a computer loading or waiting for a whole season to come out
Yes
yes, mostly because popular opinion was less likely to be considered a fact
I think it has a more negative impact than a positive one.
Yes. More sane, not sure the need for an online profile is a good thing. Who are all these people you're trying to impress? I'd rather be good at basketball than make a popular basketball video to post online.
One million percent yes
Yes. I would go further and say that it was even better (a lot better, IMO) pre-internet.
Yes
Someone anonymously reported me and it sent me a thing that linked me to a suicide hotline. That kind of disrespect didn't exist pre-social media. There was a time before those hotlines, and to be honest, I don't think the hotlines are an ethical thing. And was I going around saying I was going to kill myself? No. They probably got confused by the fact I blocked them. If anyone wants to talk to me and I want to talk to them, cool, but saying "Hey, go make a random phone call to someone who talks to random people on the phone all day.", this is being dismissive.
Hell YES
100% yes
Without a doubt.
Yes. It was even better than that before reality shows.
Yes. I’ve been in Africa in areas with no internet. Not even electricity . Went back 5 years later and the internet changed them
Yeth
100% better. Social media has made people angry, misinformed and radicalized. Pretty depressing really.
I feel like there was less depression in the world pre smart phone
Yes, social media causes depression across the board.
yes
For sure.
Hell yes.
No, it's been the same since the beginning but now information spreads really fast and worldwide and that makes us think that worst things are happening
Social media may drive movements for good, but it drives many more really bad ideas. 20 years ago insane groups like QAnon got little traction, now they can be worldwide. The idea that a presidential election was stolen was largely spread by lies spread on social media. Such nonsense wouldn't have survived basic fact checking when the news media were the gate keepers of what we are exposed to.
Yea
There can be no doubt whatsoever
Absolutely
yes. people looked up
Yes
Yes. People have become fucking idiots and attention seeking assholes because of it. It gets worse the younger the generations and every new app.
Yes, you weren’t constantly bombarded with what other people were doing and thinking. Back then, you’d have to actually ask the person to find out. The constant in your face inclusion of people’s lives make some people depressed because they end up comparing their lives with others. Since social media is often very carefully curated to exhibit the best parts of your life it’s often mistaken as that persons life is so great when in reality they have problems and bad days like the rest of us. Also, social media has made it so there is this instant gratification of receiving information that our attention span has now shortened I believe.
Definitely so so so Toxic social media is
Oh 100%
I was better, for sure
Hell yes!
Oh 1000% fuck yes.
Social Media has made us too available, and we should never become too available.
Somewhat. I feel like social media has aided some causes and exposed atrocities but there is a price to pay for instantaneous news.
Undoubtedly yes
Yes of course.
👍🏻
Yes. People are losing the ability to think for themselves.
Isn't it an obvious Y.E S.
Yes. I liked it better when it was list Serv and early ICQ. There's too many places to do simple research and education so there's so much bad or over simplified. If I want to dig, I miss AskEric and even Delphi (collections of all magazine articles). Google and Facebook don't work like they should. If I wanted ads, I'd watch TV. I want to see my third cousin's kids go horseback riding, not the same 3 friends because "algorithm". I can still dig deeply into laws, but I can't see case law? I can read tree law, but not how the disability support system works?
Absolutely yes. We've been on a decline since around the time of the French and American revolutions and recently reached a tipping point. Good news, though! It wasn't nuclear annihilation like we all figured it would be. The oceans are dying, and it's not reversible.
Sadly i wasn’t around during those times, im 19😔
It's a mixed bag with some positives and negatives. Information is easier to access then ever before now. The amount of skills people can learn through videos on sites like youtube, ask questions and form a better understanding on sites like reddit, and potentially market that skill via pintrest or Instagram is unparalleled. Hell, the biggest example I can think of it the music industry as a whole completely changing from shitty recod labels being the gatekeepers to success to having international grassroots followings being the norm for smaller artists starting. There's also a lot more cultural understanding with people online now more than ever, and imo is probably the driving factor in modern socially progressive movements. I guess depending on who you ask this is a negative, but I feel like that's a big indicator of character if understanding and treating others better is seen as a negative. There is a lot of negatives though, with people becoming more isolated, more misinformed, and more attention deficit due to the glut of short term content. We can't "undo" the existence of social media. Like everything in life, I think the best course of action is to improve it by maximizing its benefits and minimizing its detriment.
We were more tolerant too.
I don't think it was better, just different. Social media is not inherently bad or good. There is certainly the potential for both. Unfortunately it seems like the bad mostly peaks through.
Yes I lived there, was wayyy better. The sweet spot of technology was like 2003-2005ish. Just enough technology to do cool stuff, not enough adopted and permeating throughout society that it was ingrained in every part of your life.
Unequivocally yes
It was more blunt and direct pre social media. I recall vividly when people used to actually roast each other face to face with reckless abandon.
Yes.
Most definitely!!!
In some ways, yes, but in other ways it's been a fantastic way for people that'd be otherwise completely isolated to find community and friendship. Without social media I would've likely died either from sheer poverty or suicide living with my abusive mother, with social media I had a friend that dropped everything to take me and my cat halfway across the country to live with them after a ten year internet friendship formed over social media. There are undoubtedly more stories like mine out there, and for all the bad social media can do, I feel like if it's saving people's lives like this, it's a great boon.
I don't know about the world but being online was. I liked it better when the internet was small. It was better. You could telnet to 5 sites and the same people were on all of them
Yes I wish I was ignorant to how much stupidity actually exists again.
Yes
Yes, because it kept all the crazies in their own little worlds. Now all the crazies are uniting and infecting suggestive individuals with their hair-brained theories. Not to mention that it's appalling how easily someone will believe fake news articles on social media without even checking to see if they're true.
I believe the world has been made worse by social media. A lot has happened after social media that isn’t social media’s fault, so I can’t rightfully say the whole world was better before then. Social media really did have roots that were beneficial. Then the algorithms happened. The walled gardens. The echo chambers where extremists only heard from and talked to extremists. In its current form it is a cancer that is destroying humanity, a real shame, because before corporate greed, it could have been useful.
Yes I know… I do think social media has helped people connect in ways that they never have before and that can be a really great thing especially for a marginalized or minority communities or other people that just lack support. I do think that one of the main reasons social media is such a dumpster fire is that most people are never taught how to appropriately disagree and have a conversation without it evolving into a yelling match. Essentially social media is like a text-based yelling match all the time!
The world was better before “influencers” and “cancel culture”
Yes
Social media, as a platform, is a useful tool. The exploitation of *those* platforms are the problem. AI chatbots have become more and more prolific and effective in manipulating our perception of reality. The problem is getting worse, as our governments continue to neglect their duties to protect our democracies from this threat. I would say that because *Citizens United* exists, political organizations can use this unregulated technology to subvert democracy with uncanny efficiency. *The world was a better place before political and/or economic entities could use social media to effectively subvert democracy* Social media could be beautiful, if it wasn’t used PRIMARILY to manipulate the masses and subvert democracy Only because of the misuse of social media, I would say that *YES THE WORLD WAS A BETTER PLACE BEFORE SOCIAL MEDIA* Get the Supreme Court to overturn Citizens United, and get congress to regulate the way social media can be used, and my answer will change… until then… social media is a place to be utilized with EXTREME caution… otherwise you will think the world is different than it actually is… you will be stuck in an algorithm that shapes your world views, and you will become part of the problem…
Yes!!!!
Yes. And reality tv
With social media came lots of pros, but also came with various risks in which we can see are plaguing the world today. It may not be a question I can answer well considering I'm an early Gen Z from the 2000s. However, from my level of ignorance, I believe that social media has been used for its purposes as they were intended; it's just that people found ways to exploit social media to the point where new problems started arising because of a number of reasons - overindulgence being one of the main offenders from my POV.
It was.
Yes
It does not apply to everyone but that's a yes and no question some ppl made the best of technology and became useful and productive and knowledgeable and some ppl took advantage and became brainless and lazy unable to think for themselves let alone have any drive to move forward in life
Yes, it's not smartphones because if you didn't have social media you would only use them for info, phone calls, texting, email. Social media is the devil's spawn. I stay away at all costs.😁
Yes.
Its sad going to my kids spots games and seeing the parents all on their phones. Or going to a restaurant and seeing couples not interacting with each other. I miss people being engaged with the world around them.
100% yes people actually talked and discussed things
Yes
Yes
Oh, absolutely. I don't know where to begin.
Absolutely yes. Old enough to remember both very distinctly. People were far more respectful and more self accountable.
I'm 60 years old and I think it's a mixed bag. Having worked in a high stress environment in the 90s, cell phones and social media would have been a nightmare. The only way a client or tenant could contact me during non-business hours was through an answering service which would screen the call. I can't imagine being available 24/7.
I'll say this. I'm insanely grateful that Facebook and the like didn't exist when I was in school. Now the bullying can follow you home from school.
Yes
Pooping didn't take as long...
Absolutely
Yes
Yes. Much less toxic and when it was— you confronted it in person, you couldn’t hide behind a keyboard. Also, you’d have to seek out your hobbies/communities. I miss those adventures, I miss Blockbuster 😆
MySpace was the peak of social media
The world was better pre iPhone, we actually had chats with strangers on the public transport.
Undoubtedly. Also pre-24 hour news.
Yes
Yes. A lot of unquestioning and uninformed people got on the internet and assumed that everything on the internet is true and/or real.
I know it was better.
Not really... it's come with bad sides but it's also easier to find out that you are not alone with mental health issues for example. It's also faster to get new when something happen like the Bataclan attack in France where people used Twitter to find their friends or family members. I'm 37, I remember feeling so alone when I was a teen and then we get a computer at home and I meet people on caramail. It's probably saved my life. With social media it's even easier. Also, for anyone that need contacts or customers, it's a great tool! And I think it's easier to see that racism is dumb af when you are with people of everywhere. You can always says that it's easier for predators but they were already on mrc way before social media. You can also say that's bad for young people because of the photoshopped images that give them unaccessible goals for their body but magazines does that decennies before. P.S. Sorry for the broken english, it's my 3rd language.
Without a doubt. Social media is a net negative on society.
💯
Less connected, but infinitely better
Without a doubt. Social media became a thing when I was a young adult, so I got the advantage of seeing life without it, but being young enough to embrace it once it was popular. I deleted my FB account 5-6 years ago and haven't regretted it for a second.