The problems with Social Media

[Refuge]

Baby Photos drive me crazy! I get it. It's great that my friends have kids. I don't need to be updated every day. I feel bad for the generation that was born in this decade. 10 years from now they'll be so embarrassed by all those pictures.

I'm glad Facebook didn't exist in 1979. My baby pictures would've had cute little me surrounded by horrible '70s fashions. And, yes, from what I can tell from old photos of my family and the general area, the "70s" lasted until 1982.

That's kind of funny. I can see in my head this photo of me wearing hotpants, lol. Some poor skinny kid with blue hotpants and a pink blouse. I don't think they were even still in fashion For some reason too people used to take pictures of their cars. You were rounded up to pose in front of some relatives car.

 

[fireproof78]

I think social media is making it more difficult to socialize in real life.

 

[Santaman]

I'm not on social media, it's a walled garden where you get spoonfed carefully crafted media/adverts/whatever created around your profile which they'll sell to the highest bidder for insane prices, you are just a milk cow, a product, they will create a nice bubble around you, you'll never discover something new forget thinking outside the box...
As for friends, the real ones e-mail me, phone me, talk to me or even send me snail mail, others have asked me to join Stalkbook or other social media, and then stopped talking to me when I declined.
I've seen so much stupid drama, so many people envious of other people's "perfect" lives which aren't perfect because everyone is keeping up appearances anyway.
Ah well, sometimes social media is amusing, some media drugged celebrity obsessed zombie took a turn on his bicycle.. about 5 meters before the actual corner, I bet faceplanting the tarmac at least will have stomped some sense into him...

 

[TrekMD]

I'm not a big fan of social media. I had a Facebook account that I closed after a year or so. "Friend" requests from people I didn't know, notifications of stupid stuff that was being posted, etc. etc. I removed whatever information and/or pictures I had and cancelled the account. I went to Google+ which I found much better as I preferred the "circles" way to organize people and topics so I would only see what I wanted to see. I'm still on Google+ which works just fine for me. The people I would communicate with via social media are on it also. Recently I opened a new Facebook account for the sole purpose of looking into some groups in Facebook that are exclusive to it. I have zero friends on it but I can be in the groups I want to follow. That's the extent of my use for it.

 

[Lord Garth]

For some reason too people used to take pictures of their cars. You were rounded up to pose in front of some relatives car.

Dead accurate. One of my best friends has a family picture just like this, circa 1985.

 

[Qonundrum]

I've kept FB friends down to around the 40 mark, and most are family.

Listen to this guy. He is a bit stupid, but his words say some interesting things (most of his vids are good, if you can get past his hyperactivity). Interesting stuff. Remember listen to the words.

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Hyper people are animated, fun, and are as unsung as they are derided. I only say that from real life empirical experience. And the fact he hasn't succumbed to any male-pattern baldness yet.

He should do another piece on coworkers who chatter all effing day, which destroys the concentration of everyone around them.

If nothing else, thanks to him, will Steve Jobs still be seen as some sort of deity better than _____?

And I like his nose. It's so bulbous!

 

[Australis]

You should look at some of his other stuff, entertaining and with some solid info embedded.

Particularly like his Dwayne Johnson one and the one called Death of Science, more relevant to Australia but still interesting.

 

[Marc]

two articles that show just how obnoxious and intrusive social media is.

A couple meet on an plane flight and it's live tweeted to the world - include identifying the two people involved which for the woman led to harassment and abuse
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/sta...easy-answers-to-issues-of-privacy-online.html

and this one is truly sickening. Don't help people injured in a car accident make but make sure you can take your fucking selfies with the injured and dying.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-07-11/indian-selfie-obsession-hits-new-low/9982380

Generally not one for damage to personal property but if the socially ignorant with their selfies and twitter suddenly found their phones smashed I wouldn't shed any tears.

 

[Miss Chicken]

I think those people would be toxic and obnoxious even if they weren’t on social media, social media gives them a platform to show how horrid they can be.

When I first took photography up as a hobby I rarely took photos of people without their permission unless they were doing something very public (ie at a protest march, dancing at a festival, playing sports etc). I certainly would never post anything that would be embarrassing for others. I don’t think any of my Facebook friends would either.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

The trouble with social media that seems to have been even more pronounced in the last year or maybe I've just gotten more attuned to it.

Everybody has different thresholds for what they consider polite versus impolite, funny versus rude, legitimate criticism versus negativity, debate versus drama. And so few people respect that others' thresholds are different from theirs. So you get these chain reaction of hostility, starting from totally normal innocent discourse.

"I thought the race was good in general but I wasn't a fan of this aspect of it."
"Why do we have so much NEGATIVITY AND DRAMA on this forum lately?"
"Wow, you're being so self righteous, I'm going to complain about all the complaining now!"
"YOU'RE being self righteous."
"I wasn't being negative, I was just giving constructive criticism, loosen up."

Or, related to photos of babies and such.
Person A: "I had such a great time on my vacation, here's a picture of me and my family!"
Person B: "That's great, those babies are cute, I'm so glad they're happy."
Person C: "People who post how great a time they're having on the internet are just exaggerating and making people jealous who don't have it so good!"
Person B: "Why would you be jealous of Person A having such a great vacation?"
Person C: "I'M SO SICK OF YOU, not everybody is as perfect as you, you are COMPLETELY WITHOUT EMPATHY!"

Or
Person A: "This is a joke about this thing some people take seriously."
Person B: "You must be some kind of degenerate to joke about that! I am better than you!"
Person A: "Man, people who think other people can't joke about things they personally take seriously are jerks."
Person C: "Oh, so you mean you hate all people with PTSD?!"


It can be amazing how little respect people have for the natural differences in people's experiences and ideas, when they know they are in an open forum. Just goes to show the little bubbles we all live in that makes it so easy to read any dissonance with our worldview as just being some kind of monster.

Then there's the people who phrase their blatant trolling as a joke, then when you complain accuse you of having no sense of humor, they're not even misinterpreting other people's good intentions, they're just being dicks, but it will fuel any and all fires going on.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I don't know if there's any way we could find a balance where people are respectful enough of people's differences not to be openly flippant, disrespectful or rude to any group of people, but also be aware enough that our own sensitivities are not absolute to react reasonably when anybody starts treading close to our own.

That's probably the balance both sides of the 'political correctness' battle fails to find. One battle holds up all personal sensitivities as moral absolutes, and the other side rejects them completely and then ridicules them. If we could be aware and respectful to personal sensitivities but not treat them as absolutes, civil discourse would improve a hundred fold.

How do we manage that in real life? Probably a combination of having something to lose by making somebody angry and having instant facial feedback to see the nuanced emotions and social cues.

 

[TribbleFeeder]

I think it's toxic. I've talked about this with a bunch of my girl friends. We get gratification from Instagram, so much so that it negatively or positively affects our self esteem. For instance, I'm at a point where if I post a picture and it gets less than 100 likes, I will usually just delete it. How awful is that? That I base my photos off of the critical response they get. If that was the case with everything, we wouldn't have ever seen season 2 of TOS.

I think we are so submerged as a culture (especially us millennials) in what people see when they look at us and how cool we are viewed that we are losing our substance. It's all about how we are perceived, not about how we perceive ourselves. For instance, I'm a gamer. I've always been one since I was a kid, because I was fucking lonely haha. I love anything gaming related, especially console based. Guys sometimes like that about me (until they realize I will sit there in my day old pajamas and smelly armpits for 8 hours straight and play endlessly) so some of my girl friends have adopted the "gaming persona" when they meet guys. They'll casually bring up Call of Duty and ask them what their K/D is, even though they don't know much about the game. It's an image thing. They'll post pictures of themselves on Instagram in a risqué outfit with an xbox controller and tag #gamergirl. But in the midst of this they're losing themselves. They're losing track of their real interests, things that they actually like that make them interesting. Like my one friend who does this actually really likes mid century modern art, which is SO cool, but she'll never post about it.

I also constantly compare myself to people who have more followers or likes, I'm like what am I doing wrong? Why don't people like me???? And that is a rabbit hole straight into the emotional gutter.

I just think social media allows us to feed into these behaviors and pretend that we're people we're not. It's gives us a platform for inauthenticity. I don't know if that's a real word. But I feed into it too, even if it's just a little bit. Social media nips at our insecurities. It's like yelling at me "PEOPLE WILL LIKE YOU IF YOU SHOW CLEAVAGE" but in reality that will just leave me feeling more empty and more lost. I'm working on trying not to feel tied to my instagram, but it's so hard! And I know what you're going to say...

 

[TribbleFeeder]

Oh as for FaceBook, I have 1500 friends, most of which I met once or don't know well and I hate it. Angry, Toxic environment where everyone is contentious. I barely use it these days for pretty much all the same reasons you guys listed in the past 50 posts.

 

[Spot261]

I pop onto FB from tie to time because, reasons, typically to use it as a surrogate image hosting service of truth be told. I've a good few hundred friends (about 900 I think), but as with @TribbleFeeder, the vast majority are people with whom I have very little interaction there or elsewhere other than to bolster each other's count.

I'm not a huge social media fan in general and do prefer the good old days of internet forums where the subject matter led the agenda and friendships formed on the basis of shared interests, whereas FB et al largely seem to be driven by social pressures and imperatives Ironically this seems to actually limit the range of potential interactions by focussing the radar on real world contacts and increasing the exposure to people we would have known anyway rather than opening doors to new ones based on opinions and interests.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

The best way to explain social media is this:

TWITTER: I'm eating a donut
FACEBOOK: I like donuts
FOURSQUARE: This is where I eat donuts
INSTAGRAM: Here's a vintage photo of a donut
YOUTUBE: Here I am, eating a donut
LINKEDIN: My skills include donut eating
PINTEREST: Here's a recipe for donuts
LASTFM: Now listening to "Donuts"
G+: I'm a Google employee who likes donuts
REDDIT: Let's talk about something completely irrelevant to this picture of donuts
TREKBBS: There are no donuts in the Federation

(I made that last one up. )

 

[1001001]

I think it's toxic. I've talked about this with a bunch of my girl friends. We get gratification from Instagram, so much so that it negatively or positively affects our self esteem. For instance, I'm at a point where if I post a picture and it gets less than 100 likes, I will usually just delete it. How awful is that? That I base my photos off of the critical response they get. If that was the case with everything, we wouldn't have ever seen season 2 of TOS.

I think we are so submerged as a culture (especially us millennials) in what people see when they look at us and how cool we are viewed that we are losing our substance. It's all about how we are perceived, not about how we perceive ourselves. For instance, I'm a gamer. I've always been one since I was a kid, because I was fucking lonely haha. I love anything gaming related, especially console based. Guys sometimes like that about me (until they realize I will sit there in my day old pajamas and smelly armpits for 8 hours straight and play endlessly) so some of my girl friends have adopted the "gaming persona" when they meet guys. They'll casually bring up Call of Duty and ask them what their K/D is, even though they don't know much about the game. It's an image thing. They'll post pictures of themselves on Instagram in a risqué outfit with an xbox controller and tag #gamergirl. But in the midst of this they're losing themselves. They're losing track of their real interests, things that they actually like that make them interesting. Like my one friend who does this actually really likes mid century modern art, which is SO cool, but she'll never post about it.

I also constantly compare myself to people who have more followers or likes, I'm like what am I doing wrong? Why don't people like me???? And that is a rabbit hole straight into the emotional gutter.

I just think social media allows us to feed into these behaviors and pretend that we're people we're not. It's gives us a platform for inauthenticity. I don't know if that's a real word. But I feed into it too, even if it's just a little bit. Social media nips at our insecurities. It's like yelling at me "PEOPLE WILL LIKE YOU IF YOU SHOW CLEAVAGE" but in reality that will just leave me feeling more empty and more lost. I'm working on trying not to feel tied to my instagram, but it's so hard! And I know what you're going to say...

The problem with an online image is that if people like that image, they don't necessarily like you. The degree to which social media allow you to be yourself is probably the degree to which it is beneficial. If you are not genuine, then it would be difficult to take much pride or esteem from people liking your ingenuine self. Reinforcement (likes, followers, whatever) can shape anyone. I suppose if you're not careful, the gap between your genuine self and the person/behavior they are reinforcing can get uncomfortable.

 

[Butters]

The best way to explain social media is this:

TWITTER: I'm eating a donut
FACEBOOK: I like donuts
FOURSQUARE: This is where I eat donuts
INSTAGRAM: Here's a vintage photo of a donut
YOUTUBE: Here I am, eating a donut
LINKEDIN: My skills include donut eating
PINTEREST: Here's a recipe for donuts
LASTFM: Now listening to "Donuts"
G+: I'm a Google employee who likes donuts
REDDIT: Let's talk about something completely irrelevant to this picture of donuts
TREKBBS: There are no donuts in the Federation

(I made that last one up. )

The last one could be a thread unto itself.

 

[TribbleFeeder]

I suppose if you're not careful, the gap between your genuine self and the person/behavior they are reinforcing can get uncomfortable.

Right on the money.

 

[Spot261]

The problem with an online image is that if people like that image, they don't necessarily like you. The degree to which social media allow you to be yourself is probably the degree to which it is beneficial. If you are not genuine, then it would be difficult to take much pride or esteem from people liking your ingenuine self. Reinforcement (likes, followers, whatever) can shape anyone. I suppose if you're not careful, the gap between your genuine self and the person/behavior they are reinforcing can get uncomfortable.

I actually vote conservative IRL

 

[Refuge]

I also constantly compare myself to people who have more followers or likes, I'm like what am I doing wrong? Why don't people like me???? And that is a rabbit hole straight into the emotional gutter.

I just think social media allows us to feed into these behaviors and pretend that we're people we're not. It's gives us a platform for inauthenticity. I don't know if that's a real word. But I feed into it too, even if it's just a little bit. Social media nips at our insecurities. It's like yelling at me "PEOPLE WILL LIKE YOU IF YOU SHOW CLEAVAGE" but in reality that will just leave me feeling more empty and more lost. I'm working on trying not to feel tied to my instagram, but it's so hard! And I know what you're going to say...

You're not doing anything wrong, 'likes' are usually self-serving and are not about the person getting the like but rather the one giving it.

Your comment about social media in general is reflected here in these forums. People think they are making friends, finding validation, preaching to the converted when it's all just fleeting. A pass time for entertainment.

There is something I miss with everyone being so into Facebook etc. They used to be the ones that would Email me and now they expect me to hangout on Facebook! Not going to happen.