by dada » Wed Dec 14, 2016 9:35 pm
I can only speak for myself, here. I don't like the social media bubble world. It has nothing to do with the targeted ads, or the information farming. That's just the way of the internet. It has something to do with the way it subtly shapes the thought process. It doesn't matter how insightful and intelligent, revolutionary or enlightening your words and images are, they are undermined by the format. You've lost before you start.
Maybe we think we can break out of it somehow. We try to see it as a tool, and not a drug. Of course some just don't care. Smart people are as susceptible to the allure as anyone.
Think about how this works. You have a hundred, five hundred, two thousand 'friends.' This becomes your echo chamber. A super special tweet gets twenty million shares. Leaving aside the engineering, that's just twenty million. Is that the world? Hardly. It's twenty million privileged users. Consumers, getting a fix.
So I don't know. It's difficult to put into words what's bugging me about it all. I'm still letting it work in me, the words usually come when they're ready. For the last year or so I haven't looked at other people's stuff on facebook, only posted, and responded when people 'tagged' me in things. I didn't like the feeling of when I have an interesting thought, or see a pretty thing, one of my first reactions was, 'oh, I have to share this.' So for the last four months I haven't gone on social media at all. I feel better.
Every once in a while I still get that 'oh, I have to share this on social media' impulse. Maybe I haven't quite found the words to explain it, but I know that feeling when I feel it. It really does feel like an addiction. And I'm looking for freedom, so.
And maybe that's the difference. We're all looking for different things out of life.
Both his words and manner of speech seemed at first totally unfamiliar to me, and yet somehow they stirred memories - as an actor might be stirred by the forgotten lines of some role he had played far away and long ago.