created by Some_Concept_3547 on 19/01/2025 at 18:04 UTC
366 upvotes, 76 top-level comments (showing 25)
Comment by AutoModerator at 19/01/2025 at 18:04 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
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Comment by Important_Wrap9341 at 19/01/2025 at 18:19 UTC
45 upvotes, 3 direct replies
Yes. SM used to be a fun way to share what is going on in your life with your friends and family. Now its just a bunch of propaganda and AI videos. Its also just an echo chamber.
Comment by jonnyrockets at 19/01/2025 at 18:26 UTC
16 upvotes, 4 direct replies
It’s a nice thought, but flawed. You can do BOTH but once you get deep into social media, there’s a point where you can’t get past the absurdity - and you don’t realize your addiction and how it impacts your mental health
It’s like being addicted to a drug, when you realize it, it’s often too late.
That said, the same tools are immensely valuable and educational, but few are capable of sifting through the garbage
Imagine children free in a grocery store, they will eat all the candy, soda, ice cream and conclude “food is terrible for you”
We are worse than children. Playing with matches at times.
Comment by Rvaldrich at 19/01/2025 at 18:55 UTC
7 upvotes, 2 direct replies
It's not a thing we could do by just getting rid of social media. We'd also have to overhaul social elements (third places, public transportation, etc).
Social media isn't a net negative. It's allowed whole swaths of society to interact in ways that they never could. A LOT of good has come from social media.
But as friends hung out online, the hangouts they'd go to (malls, bookstores, parks), have died out. If we deleted Facebook and Twitter from existing, without places for people to interact, the isolation would only intensity.
Comment by mulligan at 19/01/2025 at 19:20 UTC
4 upvotes, 1 direct replies
You should first understand what people actually did before social media, instead of basing it on your imagination
The things you described are only a subset of what people did.
Comment by jamiisaan at 19/01/2025 at 19:21 UTC
8 upvotes, 4 direct replies
No. I don’t get why people don’t want to use the modern day technology to make their lives easier. Rather than wishing that they can revert to stone ages. It’s just so much bs. You can literally use your phone and talk to people normally. I wished people would stop villainizing technology and be grateful that they’re not getting chased by wild animals.
Comment by PD216ohio at 19/01/2025 at 19:19 UTC
3 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Yes, but then we would have to ban video games, streaming on demand, dating apps, food ordering apps, etc, etc
We have certainly become an indoor society, in large part... and it is not doing good things for us.
Funny because when the internet first became a thing, it was the "information superhighway"! As if we would all be better off with instant access to info. Instead, we've become dumber. There is nobody verifying the info, and the people who spend the most time online are learning the least because they are consumed with nonsense instead of knowledge.
I am becoming convinced that technology is furthering the divide between "classes" of people in America, at least. Those with ambition are continuing to do well, and those without it are doing even worse now than before.
Comment by ultracrepidarian_can at 19/01/2025 at 23:47 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
What matters is how we navigate the social rules around these inventions. I grew up through the internet and social media revolution. There are good and bad things about before and after.
The point is that we can't go back. Neo-Luddism is stupid and will never work. We have to embrace our progress and work to ensure that we use it morally. The printing press, cotton gin, nuclear fission and now social media and AI. Everyone said the same things about these emerging technologies in the past.
The important thing is that we use them for good. Because you cannot un-invent technologies. You can only deal with them ethically and responsibly.
So no I would never go back because I can't. If we were forced to all go back. The present would be a very grim place.
Comment by SRIrwinkill at 20/01/2025 at 00:24 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Not necessarily, because people aren't actually doing anything too different, how they are doing it is just way more public. People will still circle their wagons in their little echo chambers, make assumptions about other people without regard to individualism, make up shit too. Now people do that, and it just takes slightly different forms, without the content being actually different in these negative aspects.
What you'd lose however is another method, along with personal talking and texting and phoning, for people to make connections and put out their ideas and take in ideas that aren't problematic and are just taken for granted. Most of my interactions on social media, which includes reddit, is getting info about stuff that interests me and various ideas for doing different activities or hobbies. It's very easy to find out how to switch out a Moen mixer for your shower on social media, or find out about a videogame or some such so much easier.
If we are talking actually trying to benefit society, encouraging people to be open to the process of discovery and not circle the wagons like idiots is much more useful then noodling how good the good ol' days were. I tell you buddy, the good ol' days for fucking rancid in all kinds of ways and how folks did the same shit we don't like social media for, the equivalent activity, was fuck ugly and brutal.
Comment by Yatagurusu at 20/01/2025 at 01:18 UTC
3 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Eh, technology marches on, whether society catches up to it or not.
Now the society that youve idolised in your mind, of 2000s or before culture in the west, might not be compatible anymore with current technology. But could culture evolve to adapt to the new technology, absolutely.
Comment by jackfaire at 20/01/2025 at 03:56 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
No. People do that now. All that would happen is people would realize it wasn't social media.
"I thought banning social media would have my kids talk to me but now they read books to ignore me"
Comment by Significant-Hunt-432 at 20/01/2025 at 15:43 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I mean yeah kind of. Then we'd go back to traditional bullying and traditional social cliques and traditionally forms of competing for attention and traditional ways of forming friend groups based on economic class and political values and stuff. The quiet loners who read and collect things will go back to being loners and habitating places like libraries instead of the internet. 😂 I'm down for it. I. Ever got to experience adulthood without social media and I'm here for it.
Comment by paulrudds at 21/01/2025 at 00:17 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Eh, yes and no. When the world advances there's always draw backs, but there's also alot of good. Social media has given power to the people. It just also riddled with misinformation, lies, and straight up bad advice.
But WE did that.
Social media can be a fun light hearted place, it's when you let the negative stuff get to you, that's when it's bad.
The world wasn't a better place in the past. There was still war, murder, plagues, and genocides. People were still judgemental pricks, it was just easier not to hear about it.
Comment by Mabel_Waddles_BFF at 21/01/2025 at 02:04 UTC*
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Yes and no. I remember the before times and I think there is a tendency to romanticise it. But I am exceptionally glad that the stupid shit we got up to as teenagers was not recorded and uploaded to SM. I think adolescence is hard enough without the potential for people to record and upload your every move. Also, if you were at home you were generally safe from school bullies. Nowadays if teens want to stay in touch with their friends it’s a lot harder to avoid the nasty people.
BUT
A lot of the negatives we associate with social media were still very present in society. We speak about social media perpetuating negative body image but I remember the heroin chic period where ‘nothing tastes so good as skinny’. Body positivity was not a thing in the 90s, I hit puberty hard and early. I wasn’t overweight but the amount of fat shaming I got at 11 because I had boobs and hips instead of the model-thin look was insane.
Misinformation was still a big issue. In some ways it was worse because there wasn’t the easy access to different information sources. So if Uncle Joe told you that Sandra Bullock was in a cult that didn’t believe in showering (this was an actual rumour I heard) then well that was true. It was also harder to be aware of what was going on in the world. If it wasn’t on the news you weren’t aware of it.
Finally, communicating with a large group of people is much easier with social media. The revolution in Egypt was organised on social media. Information on natural disasters and emergencies is much easier to communicate rapidly through social media.
Comment by thesamesizeasyou at 19/01/2025 at 19:03 UTC
2 upvotes, 0 direct replies
No. Social media doesn’t keep people inside, and it doesn’t stop people from talking to one another. There were plenty of things before social media that people did on their own - TV, radio, hobbies, books, newspapers, magazines, records.
Comment by LeapIntoInaction at 19/01/2025 at 21:59 UTC
2 upvotes, 1 direct replies
Of course, yes! That's why social media never caught on and we have no idea what you're talking about.
We should probably ban books and music, next. Oh wait, you thought we should just go back to "calling and texting people". Well, that's hilarious. Kids!
Comment by skydaddy8585 at 19/01/2025 at 18:59 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
There's being forced to do it and choosing to do it. If we had to choose, i doubt we would collectively choose to go back to pre social media. We can already choose to do it now and most don't.
Being forced to do it? As in they just get rid of every social media app, completely gone, or the Internet just goes black for any extended period of time? We would eventually get used to having to go back to pre social media, pre high speed internet days, and we would adapt like we always do to various situations that happen.
It would take time for us to go back to the point where we would be mostly comfortable again having to go out and physically socialize with others. But it would benefit us in the long run. Social media has its ups and pros but I think the overall downside of it is worse.
Comment by seattleseahawks2014 at 19/01/2025 at 20:10 UTC*
1 upvotes, 1 direct replies
I think many of the people who are terminally online and refuse to talk to people would find other things to do that wouldn't involve human interaction as very little as possible besides maybe with people that they know. Some of us are like the Grinch and just now it's considered normal for us to be this way.
Comment by Kentucky_Supreme at 19/01/2025 at 20:17 UTC
1 upvotes, 2 direct replies
It was better when it was on Myspace and just on the computer. Now it's just a pissing contest of who can flash the most money and who has the hottest body.
Comment by SnooSketches8630 at 19/01/2025 at 20:58 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Yes. Social media is destroying us. It was amazing at first but it’s now descended into a mind warping clown world and due to in group and out group psychology it’s making us hate everyone who isn’t exactly like us.
Comment by Dr-Mantis-Tobbogan at 19/01/2025 at 21:20 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Some people would definitely benefit from it.
I think as a society, it wouldn't affect us.
We've been gaslighting each other and ourselves ever since ol' Ea-Nasir said it was good copper.
Comment by LordBelakor at 20/01/2025 at 00:38 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Tbh I'd go one further and say society would benefit from not having Smartphones. No bloody filming anymore on concerts or when someone is doing something embarrassing. People talking with each other instead of looking at their phones. Public places would be revitalized.
Comment by asielen at 20/01/2025 at 01:19 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I think society would benefit if social media was non-profit and local community first.
Early social media filled a gap but then it became less about your community and more about influencers and advertising.
Comment by Pale-Succotash441 at 20/01/2025 at 01:39 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies
I don’t think so based on what I learned about people during the pandemic and MAGA folks. I now look at everyone as a bad person until proven otherwise.
Comment by Important_Wrap9341 at 20/01/2025 at 05:22 UTC
1 upvotes, 0 direct replies