Yes, there are many arguments that can be brought up about differences between newspapers and social media, etc., but I strongly feel like it is essentially the same kind of neo-ludditism that will play out the exact same way. Something new will come up after social media, and then people will jump on that as the next thing that "degrades the society". We can already see a micro-version of that, with people lamenting how "back in the old days, blog posts were long form and meaningful, not like those tweets and instagram posts".
People are always looking for the 'surprising' reasons why society is really in decay and everyone's living their day-to-day lives completely blind to it - except us few who know better.
There's huge demand for this sort of thing to be true, it's been the basis of every cult ever, plenty of extreme political movements, religions, and a million think pieces through history. Yet life and culture always ends up being far more boring and resilient than predicted.
Oh wow, I haven't even thought of that one until you mentioned it, but it certainly seems to ring true for the people I know as well.
When you're recording your own podcast.
You come on a discussion platform like Hackernews to voice your own thoughts and opinions?
So is a discussion platform better for the mind in that sense?
But when do you get a free thought that's entirely your own? Just a moment when someone or something isn't barking at you to listen to this or buy that. I at least can't think clearly about something else if someone is reciting a story to me. Scary when most podcasts also have advertising, so you are getting a subconscious dose of that during all your waking hours.