Has social networking been a net-positive for the world?
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March 28, 2024, 11:18:39 AM
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  Political Debate (Moderator: Torie)
  Has social networking been a net-positive for the world?
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Author Topic: Has social networking been a net-positive for the world?  (Read 2006 times)
The world will shine with light in our nightmare
Just Passion Through
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« on: September 21, 2022, 08:53:05 AM »

To be clear, we're defining social media here as any platform where there's virtually unlimited access to information, much of it fake, and can be posted for a wide audience. That includes Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and Snapchat.  Atlas/TE doesn't count here.

I'm always nostalgic for the pre-social networking days, when the only one that really existed was MySpace. I tend to look at the past with rose-colored glasses, but there was a charm to relatively small communities like Atlas being in place of modern social networking platforms, which in many cases is just a bunch of strangers yelling at each other.
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FEMA Camp Administrator
Cathcon
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« Reply #1 on: September 21, 2022, 09:07:45 AM »

Twitter -> Arab Spring -> Syrian Civil War -> Russian intervention -> overstretch of Russian forces -> Armenian vulnerability -> conflict in the South Caucasus, 2020 & 2022.

Net negative.
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It’s so Joever
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« Reply #2 on: September 21, 2022, 05:38:39 PM »

I swear y’all would be opposed to the printing press if you were alive back then. You could make a meme thread from this.
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DaleCooper
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« Reply #3 on: September 21, 2022, 07:23:15 PM »

The way it encourages people to interact with each other is way worse than all the fake news. I think the fake news is something we can respond to and learn to see through, but I don't know that we'll ever recover from the anti-social behavior that "social" media has instilled in us. We really don't deserve to recover either, in my opinion.
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TheTide
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« Reply #4 on: September 21, 2022, 08:32:44 PM »

I swear y’all would be opposed to the printing press if you were alive back then. You could make a meme thread from this.

Being for or against it isn't the question.
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FT-02 Senator A.F.E. 🇵🇸🤝🇺🇸🤝🇺🇦
AverageFoodEnthusiast
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« Reply #5 on: September 22, 2022, 11:27:49 AM »

No, but secular blogging on the otherhand...
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Santander
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« Reply #6 on: September 22, 2022, 01:15:13 PM »

TikTok is my main source of self-esteem, so yes.
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Biden his time
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« Reply #7 on: September 22, 2022, 05:14:58 PM »

Yes (Normal)
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beaver2.0
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« Reply #8 on: September 22, 2022, 07:23:36 PM »

In some ways it has and in other ways it has not.  I lean towards saying it has not been a net positive.
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Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee
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« Reply #9 on: September 28, 2022, 12:04:30 PM »

I swear y’all would be opposed to the printing press if you were alive back then. You could make a meme thread from this.

The paranoia about witchcraft and resulting killing of "suspected witches" was stirred up thanks to the printing press. It existed before, but nothing like it did after the publication of certain works purporting to be authoritative on the subject.
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dead0man
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« Reply #10 on: September 30, 2022, 11:25:33 PM »

allowing people who would never talk to talk is a good thing.  Keeping in touch with distant relatives and old friends is nice.  Or getting together with strangers who like the things you like and can spread information or discuss the thing.  These things would be impossible or at least slow and less user friendly without social networking.  People use these services everyday to do just those things.  Yes, many people use it to be assholes or spread lies (though I don't think people knowingly spread lies very often, what happens much more often is they spread false facts because they didn't verify the facts because the facts matched their preconceived thoughts on the issue.  If you think only Trumpies/right wingers are guilty of this I have a bridge to sell you), and some people use cars to drive into crowds, the state uses electricity to kill people, bad guys use guns to make doing violence easier, many thousands of people have died from fire, water has ruined countless things.


All good things have a dark side to them and they are all hated by some people in the first few decades of wide spread use.
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President Punxsutawney Phil
TimTurner
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« Reply #11 on: September 30, 2022, 11:46:21 PM »

Mild no, for now. But once we adjust and develop mechanisms to counterbalance the bad effects, it should be unequivocally positive overall.
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Middle-aged Europe
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« Reply #12 on: October 05, 2022, 06:46:47 AM »

No (rmal)
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Grumpier Than Uncle Joe
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« Reply #13 on: October 05, 2022, 03:47:59 PM »

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Progressive Pessimist
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« Reply #14 on: October 05, 2022, 07:37:35 PM »

F*** no! It might even be, or almost certainly is, the common denominator for why humanity's worst impulses seem so amplified these days.
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LeavingHope
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« Reply #15 on: October 08, 2022, 03:43:26 PM »

No.
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Meclazine for Israel
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« Reply #16 on: October 20, 2022, 08:17:50 AM »

Utterly negative.

And I don't blame Mr Zuckerberg.

It has revealed a side of humanity we didn't need to see.

In 2023, I am going back to a Nokia flip phone with no text or email functionality.

Just phone calls only and the name of the person appears on the LCD screen.
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DaleCooper
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« Reply #17 on: October 20, 2022, 01:45:27 PM »

It's the worst invention since the nuclear bomb.
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Orwell
JacksonHitchcock
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« Reply #18 on: October 20, 2022, 07:19:06 PM »

I'd say it's a net positive, it lets you keep up relationships over time better. There are definitely negative consequences too, but I think by and large it's a positive thing.
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President Punxsutawney Phil
TimTurner
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« Reply #19 on: October 20, 2022, 07:21:39 PM »

I'd say it's a net positive, it lets you keep up relationships over time better. There are definitely negative consequences too, but I think by and large it's a positive thing.
The scale to which social media has changed things dwarfs the scale to which those changes are a net good or bad, more generally.
Overall, society needs balancing mechanisms regardless.
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The Right Honourable Martin Brian Mulroney PC CC GOQ
laddicus finch
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« Reply #20 on: November 01, 2022, 05:05:18 PM »

This question gets to the heart of the concept of "freedom". Increased freedom always needs to be balanced by increased self-control. This is actually my take on libertarianism - I'm naturally inclined to libertarian values, more so than liberal, conservative, socialist or totalitarian ones. But I don't find libertarianism to be convincing as a political ideology, because freedom needs to be balanced by self-control.

The problem is the advancement of human society has outpaced the evolution of our monkey brains. Humans are very smart animals when it comes to innovating and creating, but we're all held back by innate human characteristics. Dating apps can be a great thing, you can meet way more people than you would in daily life, it gives you the opportunity and freedom to find someone you really connect with. But it doesn't change the negative aspects of human nature. It also gives you the "freedom" to get addicted to empty, meaningless validation, or the "freedom" to indulge your most selfish and lustful demons. Social media can be a great place to learn new things, hear perspectives you otherwise wouldn't have, and see things from other people's POV, but it can also be a place where you indulge the tribalism, ignorance, and close-mindedness that we all have deep down, or lose touch with the real world in favor of a virtual "reality".

So I don't know if on a grand scheme of things this is a positive or a negative thing. At a societal level, it probably leans negative as of this exact moment in history - but at an individual level, it is what you make of it, and can be a very positive thing. The best thing we as individuals can do in a free society is to be disciplined and introspective people, and control the vices of our innate human imperfection with the virtues of our capacity to reason. This applies to anything you do in life, but I think even more so for social networking.
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PSOL
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« Reply #21 on: November 01, 2022, 06:31:10 PM »

Entirely positive and nonsense blaming social media for leading to negative election results according to the top minds of Talk Elections should really show just how bad this argument is.
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