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This was written in response to a gripe someone had on Station about annoying and hostile people in certain online 'communities'. I could identify with the gripe, and the sentiment generally.
Take pubs as an example of a good conversational setting. An ideal social situation, full of good-will and eager anticipation of fun. Regardless of the number of people present, small groups form naturally. We intuitively recognise that there's an upper limit on what constitutes meaningful interactions. People move between groups, but groups remain similarly sized.
On 'social' media, a group may have hundreds, thousands, of members. Only a relatively small percentage contribute. It's really a broadcast medium; it's not actually conversational at all. It's just an illusion that you're an equal member of the group, though it might appear true often enough to convince your brain that the illusion is in some way real.
That's up to algorithms to decide.
When viewed from the 'broadcasting' perspective, some hostility could simply be contributors themselves shooting down anyone trying to steal their show. I once heard it said that competition to get into childrens' TV was by far the most ruthless. Broadcasters fight hard for their audience, and many online 'contributors' are small-scale attention-seeking broadcasters.
In any case, what we think of as 'social media' is just a well cultivated lie. They're just a relatively small handful of web sites that happen to have a lot of people use them. If you're one of them, then you're just adding to their credibility. If you gain nothing positive from that, then it's your net loss.
This is just one small facet of a giant 'social media' elephant that we're all trying to identify, with our blindfolds on.
I appreciate that there are areas where large groups are genuinely an asset. For example, joke and meme groups rely on large numbers of contributions. Also, groups that are fimly based in verifiable facts and rational discussion, such as science and maths, may also benefit, as long as the signal-to-noise ratio is managed well.
Consistently, any time I've thought 'social media' might be of some use, I've been wrong.