Many people who never could afford to call international family now speak and see each other daily. I also disagree that technology has made anyone more self-centered, but disagreeing with Socratic proclamations is as old as society itself.

> I also disagree that technology has made anyone more self-centered

Really? Well I might be biased but all I see these days is people trying really, really hard to curate the perfect internet image of themselves.

That started with IM/Skype style VOIP calling and has nothing to do with social media.

From a utility standpoint, social media seems to have largely filled the same role email used to among distant family.

>I also disagree that technology has made anyone more self-centered...

Emphasis mine, as a reminder to be careful with absolutes. It's a bit of a stretch to suggest that nobody has become more self-centered due to social media.

I saw a very interesting video of Michael Jackson filming himself in a mirror with one of the first handheld cameras. What was interesting about the video is that he's filming himself in the mirror and the first thing he says is "I'm not a narcissist." At the time, it was considered very narcissistic to film yourself, even for one of the world's biggest pop stars. When photos had limited distribution, their purpose was to remember what you had done in the past. Now, the purpose of photos is more to show off to others, so it's become the norm to include yourself in photos. I think it's fair to call this phenomenon self-centered in nature.

> Many people who never could afford to call international family now speak and see each other daily.

I get why electronic communication is a boon but I am sometimes confused by folks who prefer a public communication medium for their private comms.

Calling international for ‘free’ happened before social media; it was not as widespread but that would’ve eventually have happened without social media as the tech and products were already there quite some time before. I think we thank the mass uptake to smartphones more than social media.

> the most self-centered generation in history

Boomers?

Also I'm not sure cancel culture is a bad thing. It's just negative branding for what is essentially the first time marginalized groups could have their voices heard. People who are used to writing op-eds and never hearing any criticism of their ideas are finally getting some negative feedback and they're super mad about it. You get absolutely unreal outrage about that, like this NYT opinion:

> For all the tolerance and enlightenment that modern society claims, Americans are losing hold of a fundamental right as citizens of a free country: the right to speak their minds and voice their opinions in public without fear of being shamed or shunned.

That is the first sentence in the piece. Unreal. There has never been a right to say what you want without being shamed or shunned. Shaming and shunning is part of free speech. Boycotts are part of free speech.

That's how backwards this whole "cancel culture" outrage is. Better to call it accountability culture, or response culture, or feedback culture.

No amount of euphemisms makes up for what cancel culture really is-- cyberbullying at scale.

Scott Cawson, the creator of Five Nights at Freddy's, was doxxed, harassed, and had death threats issued against himself and his pregnant wife.

His crime against society? Being outed as a Republican political donor. Not a crime, just exercising his right to participate in democracy. His ability to do so was subsequently attacked and stripped from him by brave keyboard warriors.

Death threats are an actual crime. They are not free speech. Nobody's been held accountable for that though.

This is the problem with modern "equality" movements. They don't want parity at all. They just want to tilt things enough in their favor so they can be the ones doing the bullying.

I found the concepts that help a lot in discussing this in its essence are equality of opportunity vs equality of outcome.

> Death threats are an actual crime. They are not free speech. Nobody's been held accountable for that though.

There are laws about this. If they're difficult to enforce then somebody needs to make a decision about how much anonymity to allow on the internet, and other such difficult subjects. That's kind of the world we live in.

You realize that marginalized people get doxxed and have death threats made against them every single day, often multiple times per day, and nobody seems to hear about it? Because again, they're not famous or notable in any way, they have nobody to call up to write that op-ed or have their signal boosted. It doesn't make the threats to their lives less serious. They can't afford the "private security" that people often say they're getting in order to make their death threats seem more serious.

Are you interested in stopping such death threats in general on the internet? It's doable, but you'd have to make some sacrifices.

Almost like how you have to sacrifice being free from criticism if you really want free speech.

> You realize that marginalized people get doxxed and have death threats made against them every single day, often multiple times per day, and nobody seems to hear about it? Because again, they're not famous or notable in any way, they have nobody to call up to write that op-ed or have their signal boosted. It doesn't make the threats to their lives less serious.

What exactly is your point here? I know what you're getting at but dare not invoke their name. Sure, "marginalized people" getting threatened is a problem. They're not exactly without a platform-- they're perfectly capable of coordinating on Twitter and elsewhere to attack and deplatform anybody that dares oppose them. One of the more contentious ones literally uses the exact term "signal boosting" to issue calls to arms. So they're not exactly powerless either. America's "marginalized people" are apparently more effective than the Ku Klux Klan, since they get to intimidate opposition while masquerading as victims who cannot be challenged, lest they stalk and attack everyone associated with you and cost you your livelihood. We won't kill you, we'll just isolate you from your entire support network to ensure you and your family starve to death. Such magnanimous treatment from the uwu innocent widdle victim peopurrs! Better think twice before you speak out!

This isn't equality, nor is it a matter of free speech or criticism-- advancing a political cause through intimidation, violence and fear is literally the textbook definition of Terrorism. I expect nothing less though; every red flag of fraud has been repurposed by a certain demographic as central to their "identity," so why not normalize terrorism as a means of discourse while we're at it? Biden insists it's inbred gun hoarders we need to be worried about-- because we meet so many of those on a daily basis. Meanwhile, I have to play wordsmith with every fucking character I post online or my wife and children face death/rape threats and I get bricks thrown through my windows. You know, all the fun stuff the KKK used to do to blacks in the 60s. Remember: the people throwing the bricks are the real victims, and don't you dare suggest otherwise or you're next. That's just criticism coming through the window, and nobody deserves protection from that.

Your idea of marginalized people is a lie-- misdirection at best. Anytime white men (always white men) start wearing dresses and seeking political power, they form a child-sex cult, a hate group, or both. I once bought into their bullshit, but there's no fooling me twice.

What?

It's anybody who criticizes anybody. Women journalists in particular, BLM activists, climate change scientists. You realize there's been a wave of scientists who have left Twitter recently?

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/may/14/climate-...

I guess you're invoking something about trans people? I mean them too but honestly it's everybody.

> Death threats are an actual crime. Nobody's been held accountable for that though.

That seems like an odd claim to make. https://duckduckgo.com/?q=arrested+for+making+death+threats&...

> That's how backwards this whole "cancel culture" outrage is. Better to call it accountability culture, or response culture, or feedback culture.

Nah.

The issue with cancel culture is that those doing the canceling don't necessarily represent a majority of people. In fact, what they represent by necessity is a group of people who have the time on their hands to respond in force. Further, the main emotion driving cancel culture is outrage, an emotion carefully cultivated by media outlets because it's a great way to make money.

Those ingredients combined don't create "accountability", they create a mob. If you need to be convinced that mobs are a bad thing, look up Emmett Till.

>Boomers?

Every generation has its issues. Don't fall into the trap of thinking yours (ours) doesn't.

> If you need to be convinced that mobs are a bad thing, look up Emmett Till.

You compared things like BLM calling out systemic racism to the lynching of Emmett Till.

Congratulations, you have written the worst comment I have ever seen on HN.

They pulled out Emmett Till being beaten to death and I'm being hyperbolic?

> what is essentially the first time marginalized groups could have their voices heard

> There has never been a right to say what you want without being shamed or shunned

So... when the marginalized groups start getting cancelled, do I get to say "well they don't have a right not to be shunned"?

Live by the sword, die by the sword.

We're living in a new McCarthyism.

> So... when the marginalized groups start getting cancelled,

After all the things that have happened to marginalized groups throughout history, mean tweets are worse?

We're all living by the sword and dying by the sword called free speech. Conservatives are boycotting Bud Light. That's their right.

The backwardness of all of this is that people keep going on cable news and writing op-eds about various subjects and when they get criticized, they call up their friends at the NYT and get their opinion blasted to millions of subscribers complaining about a nobody in the middle of Ohio who called them a jerk on Twitter and got 10k likes.

Is nobody else seeing how this is lopsided?

Super sad somebody deleted their comment comparing marginalized people tweeting at millionaires to the lynching of Emmett Till. Really great stuff, it's why I'm on HN, for those big brain takes.

Social media has absolute changed the way people live their lives in my country - India.

Personally, it has made me lose interest in my favorite outdoor activity i.e. hiking because of too many people showing up. Ex: I won't set foot on a trail on weekends[0].

[0] https://i.imgur.com/7V4cd4Z.png

Mmm, overpopulation.

Will you be blaming social media for their overcrowded trains too?

https://imgur.com/gallery/2Xo9x

The comment you're responding to refers to India as their country.

I'm assuming they've witnessed the changes first hand in that case.

Social media (or any other means of advertising, past or present) has affected these things everywhere.

Even I complain about my inability to be alone on a trail in CA, or struggling to find campsites, occasionally shaking my fist at social media for it.

But the linked images from India showing extreme overcrowding has far more to do with the population size than social media. When you have that many people, any little force generating focused interest is getting multiplied by a huge number.

There are plenty of trails in India, this one just got advertised. You shouldn't conclude the world is overpopulated by looking at footage from a football cup match.

> You shouldn't conclude the world is overpopulated by looking at footage from a football cup match.

You shouldn't deny India is overpopulated when riding a train there resembles a footclub cup match.

Is Japan over-populated? Tokyo's trains are extremely crowded. Is US over-populated? LA traffic jams are crazy.

What is the definition of over-population? Over what area are you measuring it? Those train images are likely from just one city. There are other places where the trains just run like any other place.

India is such an outlier as a country... it's a unique combination of both massive absolute population of 1.4B+ and density of over 1000/mi^2.

We can split hairs about other places, and obviously lots of places have their population/crowding issues. The planet has a lot of people.

But India is just not useful as a data point for blaming social media for these phenomena because it's such an outlier. Practically anything informing the people of India of something somewhere of interest is going to generate a thundering herd of exceptional proportion. You don't need social media's help.

But where is that 1000/mi^2 measured? Because I went to plenty of places in India where I saw no one or very few people for a long time driving or hiking. It sounds, like always, this is looking at cities and around cities. Most countries are pretty empty if you don’t want to live in a city (and fortunately, I don’t).

Er.. is everywhere like that ?

At least people are getting outside and doing things together.

It’s the same in Ontario Canada, which can be frustrating.

But I am curious what activities are now missing all those people.

None of those things are exclusive to social media, some of them aren't even bad (gossip), and the rest have equal positives (misinformation = abundant information, bullying = uplifting each other).

I always question what intention does someone have painting social media in such broad strokes. Especially when we consider who actively gains from narrowing where information can be accessed.

I see your point, the problem with social media is the exposure and scale. Kids these days can't fool around like we did, someone is always recording and you can go viral. I read not long ago about kids with severe anxiety in school due to the constant fear of the wrong photo or video going on social media.

And the abundant information, is that really a good thing? How much of it is good? Remember the Trump election, the amount of outright lies thrown around and the level of polarization, with even family members unable to speak to each other.

I'm not saying there's nothing good at all between the mud, but on the whole I think it's been a disaster.

I think there was a sweet spot right before major social media adoption where lines were more clearly drawn. By that I mean you could find information if you needed/wanted to but you were constantly bombarded with it in tones that spoke it with 100% confidence with the sole purpose of getting you to click on something.

Information reduces uncertainty. A lot of talking or a lot of misinformation does not increase information but noise.

It is on average beneficial for LGBT+ kids, especially if their family or local culture are unsupportive or hostile.

I would have agreed with you until recently. It appears that much of the anti LGBT+ sentiment sweeping communities and legislatures is being driven via social media. This can easily swing the pendulum back to net negative.

I think the larger it grows the worse it gets.

Small group to talk to family or friends? Great!

The local community? Begin noticing dbags and crazies, people nasty to each other

National or larger? Forget about it, and now it's ratfucked by bad actors, shills, foreign intel, and other ilk.

Moderation also gets worse because these large entities try to create blanket standards with such a wide variation of cultures involved.

That’s my perception too. Most social media started kinda good because there were mostly enthusiasts at first, then they descend into insanity. I feel for my mom, caught up in Facebook because most people her age is also there. It’s a mix of political trolls and ignorant people arguing over things they don’t know with all kinds of fallacies together in a sort of crowd crazy that I see nowhere else. I try to make her leave sometimes, as it is bad for her mental health, but she doesn’t listen to me and I admit it would cut her out from the only group she’s part of, which is family spread across the country.

Your username is hilarious in context of this post. Sure there are a lot of horrible things that it's introduced. Replace social media with any other technology..what good have computers brought? What good has the automobile brought?

It is all perspective and humans will use tools for good and bad. There is plenty of good in the world thanks to social media.

I don't think there is any other technology that compares with social networks on the rate of bad to good consequences and is still widely adopted. Maybe mass manufactured military-spread drugs like they used in WWII. But it's quite hard to quantify those.

But, of course it created a bunch of good thing. Nothing that spreads that widely has only bad consequences. And yes, I like the good consequences quite a lot too. It's too bad most of the companies keeping those networks are adamant in destroying all the good value and keeping only the bad.

I think any technology must be judged based on what it turns out to be long term. Computers and vehicles, for all their issues, have brought untold advancement and comfort to society. Social media.. well you tell me.

What are the long term good things social media brought that we did not have before and would not have without it? Let’s say a world where internet had exploded as it did but instead with many, not connected, forums, newsgroups and irc servers. Would we not have the same benefits without the crap part? What good part did social media do here?

What on earth? I keep up with my (physically) distant friends through Facebook, people who I would have completely lost touch with if it weren't for social media.

This reads like you trying to stand between me and my friends. If you don't like social media that's fine for you, but the rest of us quite like it and that's no business of yours. Butt out.

You like social media but you take things written by random people on a forum as personal attacks?