The Segregation of Social Media
Oct. 4th, 2017 12:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
penpusherI previously mentioned I quit Facebook again this past week. It's not the first time I quit but hopefully it will be the last (in that I'll never go back). I can't foresee returning but I never thought I was going to return about a year ago when I did, so there is a slim possibility.
One of my friends from the juggling group that I regularly attend talked with me about leaving. See, there is a Facebook group for our juggling community and one of the things that is lost when you leave that platform is that you are removed from all of those groups as well.
I mentioned the time suck that Facebook requires, and frankly it is a bigger time suck than LJ could ever be, if only because there are so many people that you feel compelled to interact with on a regular basis, and there are news sources and other stuff and the app constantly sends notifications about what stuff your friends are sending. Insidious doesn't even begin to cover it.
But then I also mentioned how being on Facebook really wasn't all that much fun for me. Really, if something is taking up a portion of your life, you better be having fun in somewhat equal proportions to the amount of time you're spending. Otherwise, that's time badly spent. And my friend said something interesting. He said "You like to post those social change issues. I don't think that stuff really plays on there."
He went on to say that "you can't change anyone's mind about things, certainly not in a format like that." That wasn't specifically why I quit, but I was taken somewhat aback by the statement anyway. He typically didn't comment on anything in my feed at all, sticking with just commenting to things in the juggling group. It was rather an interesting insight specifically because he obviously saw what I posted but never commented. And that's a reflection on the nature of social media, generally. I think when I post comments, it is going to rub some people the wrong way, specifically because that is the nature of politics and the nature of what our politics is doing to the people of this country. Life isn't as simple as many believe it is for many citizens of this land.
I responded that the problem when we talk about "social change" issues is that there are a lot of people that don't even know a problem exists. People live their lives with the assumption that everyone is dealing with the circumstances they face in about the same way.
THAT ISN'T TRUE.
And the first step in hoping to fix that is through discussing it, because why would anyone who has been insulated and is busy trying to live their life know or understand the circumstances of someone else who has a very different experience? The only way to start is by talking about the facts of a situation, at least letting people hear about it, seeing if they understand it and reaching out to others for help and support. It's how we erase assumptions and replace those with facts.
He agreed with my points, so that was a small victory, but it made me think about everything to do with social media and how difficult it can be. I'm sure there are people on LJ who do not agree with my politics. Certainly at least one person removed me from their LJ specifically because of that element, and likely others have as well along the way. And that's the segregation of social media. People who do not share the same thoughts and values as you do typically don't belong on your feed because that will just cause annoyance or anger. It will make you upset and you don't use social media to get upset. Unless you do. But that's a different kind of circumstance.
I do visit a couple of message boards that are specifically political and are mostly conservative. I go there for a couple of reasons. First, I like to read what someone who has a different point of view is saying about various topics. If I want some culture shock, I visit Breitbart, a site that I guess is back under the control of former Trump aide, Steve Bannon, but was run in the interim by a guy who graduated from my Alma Mater, much to my shame and regret.
I never comment to anything at that board because that would be begging for abuse. People there have views of reality that are so distorted, it doesn't make sense to attempt to engage them in rational discourse. Just treat it like an horrific traffic accident, slow down, view it, shake your head, say a prayer and keep moving.
But there are a couple of boards that are a little more to the center and I will bat some concepts back and forth with some of the people on those boards. The one I most frequently attend is Scott Adams' blog. Adams, who draws the "Dilbert" comic strip, has become something of a political savant after his commentary about how he thought Trump would do during the 2016 election turned him into a Cable News talking head, a year ago. He's now trying to convert his success into a payday by getting his readers to join him on some other social media platform where he'll likely get a payday for bringing new eyeballs to see ads on the other site he's coercing folks to join.
The point is that most people who post on Adams' current blog don't quite expect someone with a liberal, or as they prefer, "libtard" mindset to come to that group and start posting stuff that doesn't align with their opinions. But I've had some successes along the way, or at least the people I converse with said they understood what I was saying, which is a pretty big step, from my POV, or better, if they don't respond to the point, it means they have no response, and that's a victory, too.
This is the issue when it comes to social change. We can't stay segregated. That's helping fuel the problem. Everyone needs to hear what the aggrieved are saying when it comes to how society is treating them, and then we have to do something to help them. Unless we are not acting in the way we claim we intend to be. How do we face the view of ourselves if we're being honest about what we believe?
But at the very least, we have to keep talking with one another. Cutting off communication, choosing to insulate around only people that believe everything that you do? That's creating an echo chamber, a situation where we can only hear our own beliefs, and everything becomes warped when we have a situation like that. We have to continue to challenge each other, to be willing to state what we actually think and to listen when someone has a different view. That's the way to help the country and continue to move forward.
There's a famous quote that reads "My country, right or wrong." But there's another part to that famed phrase: "if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right."
Here's hoping.
One of my friends from the juggling group that I regularly attend talked with me about leaving. See, there is a Facebook group for our juggling community and one of the things that is lost when you leave that platform is that you are removed from all of those groups as well.
I mentioned the time suck that Facebook requires, and frankly it is a bigger time suck than LJ could ever be, if only because there are so many people that you feel compelled to interact with on a regular basis, and there are news sources and other stuff and the app constantly sends notifications about what stuff your friends are sending. Insidious doesn't even begin to cover it.
But then I also mentioned how being on Facebook really wasn't all that much fun for me. Really, if something is taking up a portion of your life, you better be having fun in somewhat equal proportions to the amount of time you're spending. Otherwise, that's time badly spent. And my friend said something interesting. He said "You like to post those social change issues. I don't think that stuff really plays on there."
He went on to say that "you can't change anyone's mind about things, certainly not in a format like that." That wasn't specifically why I quit, but I was taken somewhat aback by the statement anyway. He typically didn't comment on anything in my feed at all, sticking with just commenting to things in the juggling group. It was rather an interesting insight specifically because he obviously saw what I posted but never commented. And that's a reflection on the nature of social media, generally. I think when I post comments, it is going to rub some people the wrong way, specifically because that is the nature of politics and the nature of what our politics is doing to the people of this country. Life isn't as simple as many believe it is for many citizens of this land.
I responded that the problem when we talk about "social change" issues is that there are a lot of people that don't even know a problem exists. People live their lives with the assumption that everyone is dealing with the circumstances they face in about the same way.
THAT ISN'T TRUE.
And the first step in hoping to fix that is through discussing it, because why would anyone who has been insulated and is busy trying to live their life know or understand the circumstances of someone else who has a very different experience? The only way to start is by talking about the facts of a situation, at least letting people hear about it, seeing if they understand it and reaching out to others for help and support. It's how we erase assumptions and replace those with facts.
He agreed with my points, so that was a small victory, but it made me think about everything to do with social media and how difficult it can be. I'm sure there are people on LJ who do not agree with my politics. Certainly at least one person removed me from their LJ specifically because of that element, and likely others have as well along the way. And that's the segregation of social media. People who do not share the same thoughts and values as you do typically don't belong on your feed because that will just cause annoyance or anger. It will make you upset and you don't use social media to get upset. Unless you do. But that's a different kind of circumstance.
I do visit a couple of message boards that are specifically political and are mostly conservative. I go there for a couple of reasons. First, I like to read what someone who has a different point of view is saying about various topics. If I want some culture shock, I visit Breitbart, a site that I guess is back under the control of former Trump aide, Steve Bannon, but was run in the interim by a guy who graduated from my Alma Mater, much to my shame and regret.
I never comment to anything at that board because that would be begging for abuse. People there have views of reality that are so distorted, it doesn't make sense to attempt to engage them in rational discourse. Just treat it like an horrific traffic accident, slow down, view it, shake your head, say a prayer and keep moving.
But there are a couple of boards that are a little more to the center and I will bat some concepts back and forth with some of the people on those boards. The one I most frequently attend is Scott Adams' blog. Adams, who draws the "Dilbert" comic strip, has become something of a political savant after his commentary about how he thought Trump would do during the 2016 election turned him into a Cable News talking head, a year ago. He's now trying to convert his success into a payday by getting his readers to join him on some other social media platform where he'll likely get a payday for bringing new eyeballs to see ads on the other site he's coercing folks to join.
The point is that most people who post on Adams' current blog don't quite expect someone with a liberal, or as they prefer, "libtard" mindset to come to that group and start posting stuff that doesn't align with their opinions. But I've had some successes along the way, or at least the people I converse with said they understood what I was saying, which is a pretty big step, from my POV, or better, if they don't respond to the point, it means they have no response, and that's a victory, too.
This is the issue when it comes to social change. We can't stay segregated. That's helping fuel the problem. Everyone needs to hear what the aggrieved are saying when it comes to how society is treating them, and then we have to do something to help them. Unless we are not acting in the way we claim we intend to be. How do we face the view of ourselves if we're being honest about what we believe?
But at the very least, we have to keep talking with one another. Cutting off communication, choosing to insulate around only people that believe everything that you do? That's creating an echo chamber, a situation where we can only hear our own beliefs, and everything becomes warped when we have a situation like that. We have to continue to challenge each other, to be willing to state what we actually think and to listen when someone has a different view. That's the way to help the country and continue to move forward.
There's a famous quote that reads "My country, right or wrong." But there's another part to that famed phrase: "if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right."
Here's hoping.