A professional acquaintance quit Twitter last week. “It’s engineered to promote toxicity, lies and polarization,” he wrote. “I’m done.”
Yep, Twitter and its cousins Facebook and YouTube and others encourage hate and won’t accept responsibility for abetting the poisoning of our public square.
The companies encourage visits, posts, likes, follows, shares and replies because they sell our participation. And nothing gooses their revenue like conflict.
Sure, social media delivers benefits, especially connection. So we ante up participation, which seems free, only to keep paying ever more in in-kind costs: broken relationships, putrid political shouting and broadly accepted distortions and lies about important public health and election issues.
I’d quit ’em all if my day job permitted. For now, I’ll:
Never post, like or share sketchy, false, mean-spirited or rancid posts or links.
Never follow or friend people or institutions that regularly post sketchy, false, mean-spirited or rancid material.
And never join social-media scrums. Whether they’re about politics or the merits of pineapple on pizza, they add nothing of value for anyone except the social media robber barons and their shareholders.
Yep, I’m with you on that. I refuse to acknowledge even the existence of those-who-shall-not-be-mentioned, much less respond to or share such images or information. But, I can’t quit FB. (Have no truck w/ its cousins) It is how I keep connected w/ my tribe from far and near. Yesterday, I learned of a dear friend’s tragedy: her daughter, living in South Africa, died as a result of the chaos, food and medicine deprivation. The daughter left a two year-old and a fourteen year-old. Without FB, my friend’s community at large would not be able to support her in the ways we can.
Social media is definitely toxic, as well as an enormous time waster. I”m on Facebook and Twitter and that is already enough – none of this Instagram and TikTok nonsense for me. If I’m honest, I’m only on social media for the memes, cat videos, and to remember birthdays.