Non-profit organizations running instances of Peertube, Friendica, Mastodon, and other ActivityPub software could provide greater control over successor systems that don't curate for marketing
@@davidp.7620 Commercial social media in its current form, sure. But there is non-commercial, crowdfunded social media, and advertising is not the only feasible mechanism for monetisation of a commercial platform.
It's just new tech in the hands of capitalist motivated by a profit incentive. SM isn't inherently bad just misused. The goal is provide the people with a valuable service not to use them as a means to an end. It's private companies that sell you data to third parties. So just make a public FB and twitter. How are we letting 1 multibillionaire buy up the modern day public square. Bezos owns the WSJ. They control your information and you.
@@koala6016 yeah. my life was fine before it, and it would be fine if it disappeared tomorrow. people act like social media is some necessity which is insane to me. social media wasn’t used by the masses until like 10 years ago, which is absolutely nothing compared to the dozens centuries where people survived and thrived without it. i’m only in my 20s and i didn’t have it for over half of my life, it was fine.
@@coolchameleon21 how do you know if everything would be fine? public forums are extremely important for democracy. Just because something doesn't affect you personally doesn't mean it doesn't have after effects. social media plays an important function of community, entertainment, education etc. It would effect a lot of people. Necessity is the mother of invention. People didn't have a lot of things back then like basic healthcare & telephones. Social media is basically that but instantaneous. Public social media is absolutely necessary for modern technological world with democracy. There is a reason why authoritarian countries like banning them.
@@ambatuBUHSURK why wouldn’t it? social media has never been a necessity and humans have done fine without it for millennia. democracy still existed without it. you’re being very overdramatic. you act like people didn’t organize and overthrow authoritarian regimes before phones and internet existed…crack open a history book. if anything, it’s even harder to do such things with social media because no one can agree on anything and there’s just a load of pointless discourse and bickering, kind of like what’s happening right now. entertainment has always existed in many forms, and it will continue to exist. social media doesn’t usually lead to healthy community or connection anyway. it fosters parasocial relationships and extremely shallow “communities” that typically leave people feeling even more lonely than before they joined. if you have basic social skills, you can find much better community with people offline. i’m sorry but social media is absolutely not necessary and i don’t think it was a good invention for the most part. i feel like it’s had a net negative impact on society overall. has some good come from it? i suppose. but that doesn’t mean i think its vital in any way shape or form. the internet isn’t necessary either. it simply makes life more convenient, if it suddenly went out, people would adapt and go back to living the way they did for thousands and thousands of years. comparing social media to medication is also pretty asinine ngl.
That's the actual issue. If Social Media was designed, and run without a profit incentive, it would be the ideal. But honestly, yeah, that's ever going to happen. Anyone with the money to do it have better things to do with their time and effort. Even that WhatsApp guy isn't trying to nudge into FaceBook's territory despite his attempts at disrupting all these tools we use that are constantly tracking us. Yes, Google, I know you are listening, I know you have a profile on me. And I know that the following paragraph I deleted gets added to that profile regardless if I post it or not.
@@J0vile Hey just thought I would let you guys know about Mastodon it isn't perfect but to me it is the best replacement we have it is open source and decentralised a great people first platform so would recommend to you guys if you can
The Internet and the World Wide Web came with a simple promise: decentralization and empowerment. At some point we all let concentration happen. We thought it was fine to centralize as we were empowering people. We centralized around companies instead of pushing for open standards (like email). I watched many journalists and “opinion makers” to push for this narrative as it favours them (talking about standards is boring, no heroes and no vilans). The problem is not social media, it’s the concentration of power. It's important to diversify and participate in decentralized media.
We as the people easily have the power to decentralise. All we have to do is stop using instagram, Facebook, X, but we won't, why? Because they make it so it embedds into your life. All the friend connections, pictures and memories are on there. Fomo, business and brands are on there, so people don't wanna miss announcements. People have made whole careers on TH-cam, instagram, tik tok. So it's not in anyone's best interests to leave these companies even though they are the product. It's mental, they grabbed people so easily. The only apps which are panicking now are dating apps, because they can't really evolve, and their algorithm and strategy is failing now and the customer base is leaving.
Centralized media is incentivized to promote its own popularity in a way decentralized media isn't. Centralized media a didn't 'happen', it proved superior at attracting users and I don't know how you escape that. Most people will never care if something is decentralized or not.
@@CarrotConsumer We have to care. The internet is 'democracy' in a way. It is where we have a voice and give others a voice and organize. The Indian government is trying to crack down on content creators online to quell criticism from. It is only because they can't control it because it is still 'decentralised' in terms of who is creating the content. Already we see TH-cam forcing people to censor certain things, words and topics on some pretext
You did a very good job of summarizing Berlusconi's way of using TV. I would also like to add that after he became prime minister his television channel basically started to spread propaganda for his benefit (a famous journalist called Enrico Mentana left the company Mediaset for this reason). During the several trials, he went through (some of them for sexual harassment of minors, not convicted or process not finished before his death) his television always depicted him as a victim. I think it is interesting to use also this precedent to talk about how a guy like Musk bought Twitter and used it to boost the engagement of his posts and the posts that followed his political views, while at the same time banning journalists. Berlusconi was able to hold a grip on Italian electors for years and years, even after disastrous governments (like in 2013) using his platform. Imagine how much damage can be done with an even more powerful communication tool like a social network if it is at the service of a person's ego...
@@leepatterson9910 I wouldn't call social media free ignorance at this point. More than half my feed on Instagram or TH-cam is just clickbait shite. Rather just read a book or speak to someone interesting.
@@BlondieTH-cam IDK where you live but in the USA 99% of people don't know or care about shit and trying to bring up anything other than sports or the weather in a professional environment runs the risk of getting you in serious trouble. I read all the time but no one in my day to day life is interested in or equipped to discuss any of it.
@@leepatterson9910 I live in Antwerp. On average the Flemish are far better educated than other countries and once in a conversation they are very careful to express their perspectives on things. It's easier to get a conversation with an American though.
@@mauroezequielporras same I use tiktok & yt. With a proper framework, media literacy & moderation it can be very good tool. Twitter was also pretty good until Elon destroyed it.
We just don't need it we don't really care what most people have to say or are selling us even celebrities are having problems and finding it a waste of time because they say 1 thing and people just don't get the point at all lol their replies aren't at all what the comment said totally wrong and the majority of replies are like that.
Social media can be extreeeemely helpful to humankind, in general. However, there’s a lot of unfortunate financial incentive to turn people “chronically online.” The type of people addicted to their phones are not gonna be the healthiest people. This could be people with body image problems, isolated people, gullible people desperate for solutions to problems, angry people who develop extremist beliefs. Sometimes, it’s a combination of all of them, as is often the case with the “manosphere.” What’s worse is that, the worse these problems are exacerbated, the more engagement platforms get. And it seems like just about everybody knows it’s a problem now, but we’re not sure what to do, or how to make that happen.
Also it's so accustomed to people's lives now for the last 15 years, it's hard to imagine life without it for most people. Like think about it, everything is now done online, from banking, to shopping, paying bills, chatting, dating, porn, education, gambling, entertainment, tv, music. Like the only things you can't do online is sleep and physically eat. That's tragic. Being chronically online is an epidemic not just social media use. The human experience is actually over.
The fact that the first thing authoritarian governments do when there is unrest, is ban social media, tells you how important it is as the main forum of conversation in society, even with all of its corporate influences and manipulation, and even with how unhappy it can make people.
Watch the UK where there is growing unrest at the moment. Kier Starmer's government is begining to circle the wagons of increased social control and he's made specific reference to the impact of social media on the current situation. And let's not forget the staggeringly draconian measures introduced by Trudeau in response to the truckers' protest. I think we in the West have an arrogant tendency to interpret the term *"authoritarian"* as a charcteristic of "other less sophisticated'' societies. There've already been very stringent social media restrictions in the UK. We're not immune to potential bans.
without watching the video, my stance depends. social media can be so so so SO toxic, but also is at the same time, an important vector of democracy. without social media, i don't think we'd have realized how crucial the 🍉 cause was. it's the only way 🍉 people can survive, with the engagement and money of other people from all around the world. traditional media (tv, radio, paper), at least in france, is extremely biased and owned by billionaires. (using emoji cuz i don't know if youtube might shadowban/delete this comment if i named the country)
thank you. the correct take. traditional media is also not nearly as accessible, quick or two way. Just watching people stream & discuss politics live with a chat relaying latest info is just superior to any media.
Exactly. Removing the corporatization of social media and limiting its daily usage goes a long way in eradicating the main cons that it brings forth into society. It isn't the media that is the problem, but how it is utilized, influenced, etc.
I think social media is a necessity for a cooperative world. We only know about the real story of gaza, Bangladesh, sudan, congo, etc. because of social media. What would be good is to cooperatively pay for upkeep instead of using ads because currently you can amplify your voice with money, and that isn’t fair.
Everything comes back to advertising & money and that’s exhausting. Even our truck has ads displayed on the console if the radio is on. Ads are everywhere and increasingly in our personal spaces (like our vehicles) too. I appreciate you placing yours discreetly at the end so we have the choice whether to engage or not. Especially when our choice whether to engage with ads or not seems no choice at all in our capitalist culture. An increasingly problematic thing for someone with shopping addiction. Love your insights and videos by the way 😊. Keep them coming!
What I have noticed personally is that most of the social media and apps are wonderful and run perfectly. Then a pig comes over and sits there and the app goes ruined, and sucks your energy instead, like a virus.
It's the algorithms. They feed on whatever you first input and breaking loose is difficult. It's not just social media, you will have experienced it on Spotify, Netflix, Amazon, Google and every other online site. Some people are excited by AI but it doesn't work if it is based on any algorithm because they are not intelligent.
im going through a rough patch rn, lost my job, my dad, etc... its so nice to watch your videos at this time, as always... but today... most of all... thank you
In my personal opinion, social media should not be banned, but it should be reformed and heavily regulated to mitigate and reduce the effects of addiction and misinformation. Social media should also not be for making a profit, as this is how current social media runs nowadays (drama+sensationalism+clicks = more profit), and should be used to help improve and supplement communication within the real world instead. Banning social media outright would be just like dismantling all the world’s rail, air, and road lines at this point. Also, I think that an overlooked reason why social media is so pervasive, especially in the United States where I live, is because of car-centric suburbia and a lack of third spaces and adequate access to them. When the local environment can’t provide enough to keep the people satisfied and happy, people will naturally gravitate towards the use of social media as a digital third space, as opposed to physical third spaces in the real world.
_"In my personal opinion, social media should not be banned, but it should be reformed and heavily regulated to mitigate and reduce the effects of addiction and misinformation. "_ Well you are in luck, since China and North Korea have already implemented this, totalitarian paradise.
Whenever social media is shut down in Turkey, there is either an action or a government official's feelings being hurt. Currently, as I write these sentences, there is an access block on Instagram in Turkey. The reason is that the condolence message shared by presidential communications director Fahrettin Altun for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was deleted by Instagram. Then he probably got mad and put a block on Instagram. The funniest detail is that the constitutional court opposed this decision and subsequently the website of the constitutional court could not be accessed.
0:20 this happened to me and contributed to my chronic depression and isolation, along with having ASD, where I struggle to keep up with social media regularly, you might not be surprised I am an advocate for a ban of social media.
Social media should be more regulated forsure, I don't think it should be neccesarily banned, because it keeps people informed, connect with others etc. Too much of anything is bad tbh. Too much social media can be bad. Spending time away from it is good. Hope you are doing good!
@@katfujioka212 most regulations come from a greedy corporation wanting to put its competition down. For instance do you honestly think GMOs are unsafe for human consumption? Or is it that pesticide producers don't want to go out of business?
meh i don’t think it’s actually good at those things. there’s so much unregulated misinformation on social media, plus i feel like people are lonelier than ever. nothing beats irl friendships
"Too much of anything is bad tbh" Not conceptually true, because then the opposite would have to apply, insinuating all things have a happy medium. For example, there is no happy medium for murder, fascism, etc. Therefore, this reason alone cannot be utilized.
@@coolchameleon21mEh is not an argument nor evidence of anything. People are made to feel lonely & isolated because of capitalist alienation and social media can be a part of this but largely there are many factors. Nothing beats instantaneous communication with like minded people around the world. Real life friendships are great obviously but finding interesting & like minded people irl is not as easy at all. Social media can be amazing vehicle for greater irl friendships infact. It happens all the time. And I do think it keeps people informed & connected, i literally just watched this great video on this great channel. It's definitely not functioning effectively cos people get misinformed & bullied as well. But those are symptoms of capitalist profit seeking. Those things can be fixed, the idea of social media is still great & has a lot of potential for humanity.
One of my favourite videos of yours Alice. Helps me breakdown why I'm still on social media. I work freelance so it's very much a platform for work) so the idea that I'm on social media because everyone else is is somehow a calming thought...or at least a soft reminder to make sure that's why I'm on it
Been your fan for long time Alice, from Bangladesh. Thanks that you touched our struggle. The situation is getting worse. The peaceful student protest now turns to be one of the major movement in our history. The oppression led by state Machineries and government supported groups has been unimaginably brutal. 250+ killed and 10,000 has been detained in conservative estimate since the government has been heavy handley controlling the medias. Believe me the numbers are much more higher. The videos circulating police shooted and killed injured protesters, childrens & journalists were murdered and hospitals also been attacked. Now our demands are step down of the government and breaking the fascist system. We have had last actual peaceful election in 2008. Whoever watching pray for us. The fear of death is melting and the spirit for freedom, equality and justice is rising.
The video didn't talk very much about social media in this context. But, the way snapchat completely overtook my entire school kind of broke me. Maybe it's because I'm neurodivergent, but being available 24/7 and having the anxiety of needing to understand how to interact with someone that's not IRL gave me intense anxiety. Till this day I still feel anxiety just texting people on normal apps like WhatsApp. Does anyone enjoy using snapchat btw?
I don't know what you count as social media. Twitter and Instagram and Facebook sure, but what about videos? Forums? Chatrooms? Blogs? What is social media and what is just digital media?
Good question, Alice didn't give the used definition of it. Personally I like to think that interaction with other individuals is the social aspect, in whatever form that is. This comment is certainly aimed at you, @theflyingspaget. So things like TH-cam or imgur are social media too. Netflix is not, The Guadian is not. Does that make sense? What do you think?
@@ambatuBUHSURK do chats counts as "comment"? Because your definition makes Snapchat not be a social media. And on TH-cam when the comments are turned off?
Plenty people call youtube social media, but I think it's just a video hosting website. The only "social" aspect of youtube is the comment sections, but that's mostly considered an additional feature on the side.
@@SimnVersloot chats are social media as well, i just didn't include it there and youtube videos with comments turned on are also social media cos it still exists within larger youtube and views, likes can also be seen.
Another thought-provoking video! The theory of praxis is still in process, for sure! How do we act on an anti-capitalist message while having to carve out a life locked in a capitalist system? In the cyberpunk genre, anti-capitalist protagonists pit one megacorp against another and take the spoils. The strange optimism in cyberpunk is based on the idea that any coordination between megacorps is tainted with suspicion of inevitable betrayal and is thus a wellspring of anticapitalist action, like a hydra unable to stop her heads from consuming each other. Much love!
There are alternatives of corporate social media, running on a common standard protocol, ActivityPub. I, for example, am on Mastodon. Each server can communicate with each other and each server has its own rules and moderators. Plus...no algorithm and no ads.
Exactly. I dropped corporate socmed some years ago, moving fully to the fediverse (that is based on ActivityPub), Mastodon (similar to the deadbird site), Lemmy (reddit) and Pixelfed (Flickr). Built from bottom up, no algorithms, no ads, indeed. On Mastodon I have a list of News accounts (MSM, like DW, BoingBoing, etc as well as independent publications and networks), a hobby list (populated with others into the same hobby) and a social list with acquaintances and people I have chatted with.
What was wrong with forums? Those were typically ad free and non centralized. The reason most forum communities disappeared is because social media was the next best thing and people hopped onto the bandwagon back in the 00s.
I love Mastodon ! The only thing is, none of the people who matters to me are ready to switch or even at least try. Habits are difficult to change. And more so when they are not your own.
Nearly all social media are curiosity killers right now, it teaches artist to make content, not art. I've noticed TH-cam shadowbans my comments for the slightest reason once I dare to comment anything real, even though I don't call for violence or hatred. I seriously have doubts about social media and am far happier once I don't use it.
The main issue is that social media can also do incredible good, not just harm. It’s been used to organize and structure grassroots, militant or even revolutionary movements. Which as you point out, has been the main reason it gets banned in the world, not for the destruction the algorithms and never ending feeds bring. The fact there is some level of user control prevents it from being fully a corporate mouthpiece, which perhaps is a bug, not a feature. Having a platform to communicate with others is very important. Perhaps the true problem is the algorithms are designed for addiction. But then again, this might very very well be an oversimplified and thus inadequate solution.
They're much better off for it yup turkey is beautiful and they're very active people but also because it's a poor country they can't be glued to their phones.
@@gurito4374 We have one of the highest rate of tax in consumer electronics and automotive(and other "lux" items everyone actually needs). Two examples: 1-I just built a custom PC for around 35k Turkish Liras (roughly 1k USD). When I pick the same parts from PCPartPicker, it costs 800 USD. 2-Back in June, my friend bought a car for 1.5m Turkish Liras (roughly 38-40k USD). The same car costs 20-25k in the UK market. Yeah. We even have a saying that goes; when you are buying a car for yourself, you are also buying one for the government. On top of all that, we have a significantly lower minimum AND median salary than all European and North American countries. As of right now, our minimum wage is around 500 USD, which is low. Even worse, more than half of all workers in Turkey make around the minimum wage.
@umidenic I meant because things are hard enough there not to mention it's not exactly safe especially for women there. So being glued to technology isn't going to help when we've seen how much it's destroyed cultures and the interaction of people in other countries especially major countries like mine, think what does economically?.
It seems to me that the main problem is not social networks as an idea and format but the companies that control them, the use of algorithms to increase screen time is the result of a corporate strategy, I think that in the future we could think about public social networks , I love your work, congratulations, hugs here from Brazil.
My personal experience: in the past year I’ve been on and off social media bc it’s absolutely catastrophic for my mental health and my ability to do things but it’s also the only place in which I can receive proper information on the war in 🍉 and offer actual help by boosting the content of people who are trying to raise money to get out of there so I’m always kind of at war with myself over what to do. Social media is designed in such a way that I can’t just boost 🍉 content and not get sucked into algorithms but I also have come to see it as a kind of duty to be there and to interact with that content as much as possible which then also really increases the time I spend on those platforms and my chances of becoming super addicted.
Yeah that sucks, but we're in this together as a planet know, I guess this is the new scale of individual moral conscience. Hope my brain adapts one day. Yours too.
I don't think banning it is the answer, though it's tempting. Banning it would probably backfire and make it ever more popular. I do think there needs to be emphasis on critical thinking dealing with social media particularly because it's slightly different now. Personally I've received more support from people in virtual communities bound by interests than people living near me in real life, so I do see the good side of things as well. Great video, Alice, hope you are well!
@@MarshalMarrs-eu9yh social media let's people communicate all around the world. It is a tool. Banning it is basically ignoring all the root problems that make it toxic. I've talked to so many people around the earth, without it I can't imagine not learning about all these stories & experiences & knowledge that people have. It's a horrible & honestly very selfish idea to ban social media.
@@MarshalMarrs-eu9yh I don't think you understand convenience. I'd love to have a casual conversation or deep discussions with someone from the other side of the ocean without having to travel their while also being busy with my life. More travelling also creates more pollution.
There are certain mistakes that non-native English speakers are much less likely to make than native English speakers. If you are a native English speaker, there is a certain mistake you'd most likely never make in German. Unless you picked it up from a native speaker. Also, while I was writing the above, Alice Cappelle said "Schtroumpfs" instead of "Smurfs", which was just cute.
I would be quite comfortable banning all social media at this point, given all the problems that it is fuelling. Depression, anxiety, misinformation, extremism, radicalisation and real-world violence are all being turbocharged by social media, as we are now seeing in the UK and this is far being from the first instance. The developers who worked on these platforms don't let their own children use them and the companies responsible don't care what consequences occur as long as people are still engaged and they're making money. The only solution there is to get rid of them. Scrub them all.
I'm so glad I came across your channel 3 years ago thanks to social media as well as so many information, papers, etc. But it was all thanks to the people here (like you Alice!). I'm optimistic cause, as a society, we were able to organize through history without socials, so I hope that it's a powerful tool, but not the engine of comunication per se. Great video!
There is a big problem with online communities, because likeminded people gather and go down their rabbit hole, which often leads to extreme views and no common ground between people. On the contrary, if you have to spend yor time with peers from school, neighbours, etc. you dont live in you opinionated bubble and this gives some humbling experience about the other people, who hold different opinions, culture, religion, but are still human.
so what happens when all the people around you only intention is to cause harm and get you to off yourself? i dont think you understand society enough to make that judgement. from my experience, the bubbles are faaar more isolated irl because people with money can simply go and do things that people without cant. and thats exactly what they do, avoid everyone who is remotely unlike themselves and fall further and further into extremism. thats why all well off eurocentrics are able to do things like think of their "right" to entertainment as having priority over others right to not get murdered with labor induced starvation... on the internet tho, i can spam comments at lots of well off people who would never have to acknowledge my existence any other time. the internet gives humans their humanity back when well off eurocentrics had deemed everyone but themselves as perpetually subhuman and undeserving of the slightest bit of agency over their own well being and fate...
I feel like you might be missing the fact it is more profitable to separate people into like-minded communities as people enjoy not being challenged like Alice was saying with the good vibes only spaces, division it is driven by profit too
Lol, I've been wondering why people say good for you when I tell them I'm off social media. There's nothing moral about it. I'm just addicted to TH-cam now. But I don't tell them that. I just say thank you, haha.
whenever i get worked up about the internet, i think about humanity's history, and what a drop in the bucket 20-30 years are. As fast as this came, it may go.
As per usual your analysis is excellent, thank you! After wanting to get rid of instagram for quite some time, your video and especially the Patrick Le Lay quote have given me the much needed motivation to finally delete it.
one part is missing from this essai IMO : the problem of social medias being owned by big companies. It is the root of the problem IMO : it is *their* quest for profit that lead them to make the application or website, the portal by which we access a social media, this is why they make it addictive, litteraly. And it is also proven that they do promote bad content on their platform through their secret algorithm while other algorithm would be able to promote better content and discard fake news and propaganda. On the other hand, social media are a wonderful portal for people to talk without the need to be at the same time at the same place. This is a wonderful gift to mankind. It takes capitalism to ruin it.
Power does an amazing job at diverting criticism. Instead of criticism being directed at the content promoted and use of platforms to sell and control perceptions, It becomes: social media make sad 🙁 The same is done with "AI" where we're worried about the emerging techno menace that... doesn't exist, instead of algorithms stealing art en masse and producing derivative slop at cut-rate, instead of anything meaningful that might require paying workers
Sometimes the problem of social media is what are you watching there, not the platform itself. Because now social media has something for every topic(even if the topic is not allowed people still find a way to talk and share about it) and you can really learn a lot of things with it
If social media were banned, it would be a huge blow to me. I know my experience does not reflect the experiences discussed in the video, but mine is just as valid as those experiences. When I was at my lowest and most overwhelmed, when I was in the depths of autistic burnout, I abandoned social media and cut myself off from the world. I was barely connected to any of my friends and no longer expressing my self through my posts. Coming back to social media has been part of my healing journey. I use Instagram to maintain connections to my friends, and express myself artistically with my photography. Although I do look at some wholesome and adorable posts, art, and memes, I never linger on them for very long. I can feel when I’ve been scrolling for a bit longer than I am comfortable with, and I’m almost always able to cut it off there. I don’t know why my experience with Instagram is different from many peoples experiences with social media. It’s certainly not because I’m amazing at creating healthy habits. (I’m autistic and ADHD and generally bad at creating habits, and there’s definitely some aspects of my life that I consider unhealthy and unsatisfying.) It is absolutely not because I am trying harder than other people. (I generally think of myself as someone with relatively low willpower or motivation.) I wish everybody could have that experience with social media, and hopefully there is some way to get to point where everybody can have that relationship with social media.
You really made me appreciate the communal aspects of social media. Its role as a source of exchanging information, entertainment, education and the news is a two edged sword, but it is important. If we push regulators to ban most predatory features of social media and support and share tricks to hack the algorithm and open source alternatives such as Peertube or Mastodon, then banning social media or deleting all accounts won't be necessary.
Well no one has tried coming together and connecting too people. That was done by their hand of will. Its gone crap after people started distrusting each other.
I met some really out-of-touch weirdos through social media (most of the others were nice though) so I wouldn't even miss it too much if it disappeared.
The irony is that the social media algorithm is how I got introduced to your channel; in effect making your content as much an instrument of exploitation and alienation and as fueled by fear and anxiety as what you highlight.
As much as social media sucks away at my life, it's also introduced me to lots of different ideas, and eventually led me down a socialist pathway. Chances are I'd be a spiteful conservative without the influence of leftist educators, so thank you!
i feel so bad trying to cancel my social media as an artist cause i don’t reply to people or clients for weeks or months but i honestly don’t give a fuck anymore, social media isn’t even worth getting paid to be on. Like congratulations, you live on your phone now, see you outside never. Unless ur making content lmao
I like ur video. Especially that u mentioned Berlusconi. Just for me it feels like social media is not only for „consumption“ but also content like this. Informative and critical content. To ban it would be a big loss for me.
Love that your introduction on corporate TV looks like it comes directly from the last episode of Rhinocéros we ARE all watching the same things on french youtube uh
I don’t think social media can be banned in any feasible way, it’s too embedded in technology and society at this point. You find jobs on social media, plan get togethers, order food, exchange general information… it’s impossible to go back without overall hauling the entire internet.
The movie THX 1138 touched my soul when I was a kid, I felt as though I was growing up in that world, and that somehow I must get away. I am still struggling. To find a way out. The world of unreality surrounds us. I find it deeply troubling. Social media only seems to help it along toward Bladerunner. A world where replicants have a better sense of humanity than humans. I feel like that when I die, and move on to the afterlife, the first thing I will want to do is take a shower, to get the ick of this life off of me. Sad, there will be no afterlife to do it. How does one find one's soul in this cacophane of voices? What does one do?
I feel like we need to get rid of everything except yt but only on computers with yt I miss old times plus people need to not hear rumors online again and start believing things in general for themselves not for others affirmation I feel like that’s also the biggest change that has happened the past 20 years
Social Media just replaced TV. Kids have been glued to the TV screens since the 1950s. In the last 10 years, young kids have become dependent on mobile phones and apps. Some of the communication is good and some is bad. Commercials have shifted to phone screens, that's where the eyeballs are now. This will be hard to reverse unless parents start from a young age to limit social media. I watch TH-cam more than any other social media site to get different political views. Enjoy your content Alice
You would make a manificent teacher! And im glad the negatives of social media are being talked about more and more. Its like we've had to get to this point in order to measure and monitor its effects on peoples minds, health, lifestyles, addictions etc. Its just sad people have lost their lives through the dark side of it. It's like cars came about, but then a lot of people had to suffer before seatbelts were mandatory. Every invention is always a pilot and we are the test subjects while it evolves for better or worse. An age restriction on use is first hurdle, mandatory time outs next based on your average usage next? You can do this voluntarily on most smartphones but mandatory would be better because it should be treated as an addiction at this point. Theres 0 incentive for these measures to come into force by corporates, but if government do it, it will seem totalitarian and extreme because its an information platform and thats like disrupting freedom of information sharing and access. The issue is we as humans shouldn't really need or have to have access to everything going on in the world at finger tips 24-7, thats where the internet and social media went wrong.
I don't use social media a lot. But I mainly watch there photographers and people that I want to listen to. I don't use algorithm, only subscription page.
I think one of the problems with social media is also that it makes it easier to not engage with the world around us. Our social media feeds are a reflection of ourselves and social media and smartphones allow us to always have our little oxygen tank with us when we move through public spaces. We can just opt out of the public nowadays and that makes those public spaces more likely to get privatized.
Hi! I am an Italian woman born in the 80s and I can say for sure that Berlusconi's TV raised me. Our brains are so fried because of ads, that you can find here on yt entire channels dedicated to collect ads from 80s and 90s tv, just to create a sense of nostalgia. I better remember ads jingles than more important and useful stuff. This is to say how pervasive this type of TV was for my generation.
Shout out to "Socialization and the Power of Advertising" by Jean Kilbourne, "The Power Elite" by C. Wright Mills, and "The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, & Healing in a Toxic Culture" by Gabor & Daniel Maté.
Romanticization and relatability...when people say they'd rather think about nicer things than politics, and I do hear it in my private life, my blood runs cold as I think of this quote: “Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than “politics.” They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away. You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.” ― Naomi Shulman The way people shrug and sigh at real problems but get angry at manufactured issues is chilling. I truly wish I knew how to get to them onside, we need to confront issues that are real and pressing, I just watched a galling vid about private equity, climate action is running out of time, Southport is wrecked because people believed a thing that simply wasn't true and over reacted because people famous for lying said something incredibly racist and factually incorrect. Funny how generally the racists and the climate change deniers and the pro-unregulated business people are a Venn diagram that is just about an unambiguous circle who act like new info is a joke from idiots that 'just don't get it'. Oh, we get it. What doe sit say about me that I kinda like when you chastise us to like the vid and subscribe 'If it's not already done'? lol The internet is a tool, it can be used to connect a housebound person to a community but likewise it can push a vulnerable or anxious person down a conspiracy rabbit hole. It's like economics, crony capitalism is horrendous, regulated capitalism (capitalism isn't great in any incarnation but it's matters of degrees) could be less bad.
Social media shouldn’t be banned but 100% needs to change, it should be a place to share and communicate with friends and family, go back to basics, no ads, no likes, actual privacy and no algorithms. This is a much bigger discussion on the state of the internet as a whole and how its being consolidated, it’s sad how the internet = social media nowadays to so many people now. Also banning social media isn’t the same as banning the internet and internet access which you used interchangeably in this video.
The profits tends to push people into the extreme sides - hate is highly profitable on social media and that is a problem bigger than we think I believe. Hate will continue to grow as a consequence.
*Great video.❤I work so hard to engage myself in someway of earning more income and stop depending on anyone. my family are happy once again and I can now afford anything for my family even with my Retirement. With a step of $50k and getting $9k weekly returns has been life changing, after so much struggles.*
My outlook on money changed when I realized someone making $200K can retire broke & someone making $80K can retire a millionaire. With the current market movement.
"Im seeing more videos of people sharing how they quite social media and how good it makes them feel". And where, might I ask, are they posting these videos exactly??
i feel like social media, like emergent ideologies of old, are a call and response quandary. y'know, ye want to put something big out there into the world but you want to know it's been received, and you want to feel like it's witnessed. part of the online mental health crisis is that platforms like Twitter that are as much about the statement you're forcing into the world, but the response the world gives back having made said statement. having no interaction on Twitter myself personally is actually quite liberating, bc i can speak out loud, as it were, and it doesn't have to involve others - it's important to be able to self express without having to bare the brunt of the cold digital sphere. my key point i want to make here is that part of the appeal of it all is rebounding feedback and the ever shifting world narrative. we tune into social media now to interact with the wider world, not nec to interact with ones we love. but, a part of me feels that the reasons, since the advent of social media in general, for rising tensions but rarely any movement on the political side towards anything positive is that that we're all obsessed with the next story, the next drop, and liberals/journalists very much are too. i think there's an anti-goldie locks zone we've found ourselves in, something Mark Fisher has spoken about - the malaise we feel, and have felt for many decades now, is a result of a stagnant reality, partly because of anchoring ourselves to the advancement of technology. colloquially, we advanced technology to the point where all we have to show for it really is misc personal devices that we simply waste our attention on, namely social media. it's stark & striking how optimistic for future technologies people had been in the 00s, and by the iPhone 5 that was over, now people just fixate on fantasy fash technologists such as Elon Musk, and his procrastinatory preoccupations. if you look at Twitch, we've manifactured a technological world where people are obsessed with watching other people game rather than doing it themselves, it's kinda mad.
10:41 Short answer: No Long answer: I used to be addicted to social media because of the world I was getting into, something extraordinary, something you didn't see on your real life. Until you feel like the life of others is more interesting than yours, people you used to know became something different (same to myself), the hatred was funny until everything started to feel horrible. Now I can't tolerate using social medias for a long time, unless it is a messaging app, or just throwing a comment (like now) or just a meme channel where you don't need to interact with anyone online. But it rarely becomes a source of happiness now.
One thing you said I wanted to put some nuance on: You say at 5:06 " the American dream of endless consumption and amusement." I believe while the glorification of endless consumption and amusement certainly factor a lot and are corrupting influences, I think it's worth pointing out that saying that's the American dream only exists as a modern propagandized idea that began to be pushed in a huge way (and allowed to manifest through industrialization, through which more affordable/attainable consumption, and freeing up time for amusement/luxuries) on the American people in order to stimulate our economy 1950s post WWII, of which you rightly point out media like TV played a huge role. Despite America's modern undeniable corruption of allowing corporations too much power through these means, our fundamental and original American dream, I've always believed in my heart, would more rightly to be said "based on" more egalitarian and open-armed ideals symbolized through France's gift of the Statue of Liberty I'm proud to be an American for. I always appreciate your nuanced commentary and just wanted to add it .
Seeing the tribe mostly passively consuming - I feel there’d be value in clearly telling between it/TV/TH-cam, enterprises bringing people together like messengers (Signal), and platforms for self-promotion and dating (Instagram). Maybe there’s more? For example, I can shrug off how idols present their life on TV as artificial, but that of “peers” on Insta? Are my emotions misplaced on Twitter, rather than better shared over a coffee (would Timothy Snyder approve of this view, on Twitter?) my friends wouldn’t join anyway because their time vanished on Reddit?
On side note of privatised entertainment, we need more third places where we can also entertain ourselves, and that would also mean different forms of accessible safe party places.
As a Gen-X'er I had many years without any technology except for basic game consoles, so I had those early years to experience real life without a screen in front of my face telling me what to do and / or how to do it every second of every day, so when the internet started then smartphones came along I had that common sense & the ability to think critically so I'm pretty much immune to all the algorithms. Sadly that isn't the case for later generations who have been raised on it. I'm normally anti censorship anti big brother etc, but I think it has now gotten to the point where all social media should be age 16+ (Legally able to have kids and get married at 16+ here in UK), with harsh punishments for both the children and their parents if they try to access them before that age. Parents and companies can't be trusted to enforce the ban so on this one occasion and I really hate to say it, but government needs to step in on it, give the kids time to live life as kids so they can develop those critical thinking skills and enjoy life before getting sucked in. Now, don't get me wrong, I do realise that the internet itself is a huge library of knowledge and I wouldn't want the kids missing out or being able to learn from it, but social media has never been about being social, it's always been about how many likes, numbers of people you have, from day one Facebook was designed to be harmful, TikTok is evil, I remember when I first joined it, it even pulled me in for a while when my depression was bad, found myself being drawn into conspiracy theories, horror and gore stuff, fascist rhetoric, extreme religious stuff, all 100% negative media to make my depression far worse. Luckily I have triggers and safety systems in place to detect when my depression is kicking in so I can catch it before it gets too bad, but TikTok really pushed them to their breaking point super quickly, so I dread to think how much worse it is for those younger than me who have been raised from a younger age and thus far more easily controlled and manipulated by it. My gut is telling me though, it may already be too late unless the bans are put into place in the next 3 to 6 months max.
Alongside the things you mentioned, one of the problems is that big media platforms have their agenda of which political content they want to promote or hide (usually dictated by USA or China), which was made evident with the genocide in Gaza for Meta platforms, or the genocide of Uyghurs for TicToc. I would say that these conflicts also showed how important it is to have free social media and that banning them is not the real solution. Maybe the solution to all of this problems would be the widespread adoption of decentralized social media platforms like Mastadon, or other platforms in the Fediverse. Investigating these platforms might be an interesting topic for a video.
Ban predatory and invasive algorithms, ads and automated feeds from social media.
Banning ads from social media is basically the same thing as banning social media altogether.
Non-profit organizations running instances of Peertube, Friendica, Mastodon, and other ActivityPub software could provide greater control over successor systems that don't curate for marketing
And "persuasion engineering" that doesn't serve the common good.
@@davidp.7620 Commercial social media in its current form, sure. But there is non-commercial, crowdfunded social media, and advertising is not the only feasible mechanism for monetisation of a commercial platform.
It's just new tech in the hands of capitalist motivated by a profit incentive. SM isn't inherently bad just misused. The goal is provide the people with a valuable service not to use them as a means to an end.
It's private companies that sell you data to third parties. So just make a public FB and twitter. How are we letting 1 multibillionaire buy up the modern day public square. Bezos owns the WSJ. They control your information and you.
i wouldn’t care if all social media suddenly disappeared tbh. the only one i would miss is youtube
Totally agree.
Yes, we got along fine before the coming of social media. The problem, as ever, is big corporations.
@@koala6016 yeah. my life was fine before it, and it would be fine if it disappeared tomorrow. people act like social media is some necessity which is insane to me. social media wasn’t used by the masses until like 10 years ago, which is absolutely nothing compared to the dozens centuries where people survived and thrived without it. i’m only in my 20s and i didn’t have it for over half of my life, it was fine.
@@coolchameleon21 how do you know if everything would be fine? public forums are extremely important for democracy. Just because something doesn't affect you personally doesn't mean it doesn't have after effects. social media plays an important function of community, entertainment, education etc. It would effect a lot of people.
Necessity is the mother of invention. People didn't have a lot of things back then like basic healthcare & telephones. Social media is basically that but instantaneous. Public social media is absolutely necessary for modern technological world with democracy. There is a reason why authoritarian countries like banning them.
@@ambatuBUHSURK why wouldn’t it? social media has never been a necessity and humans have done fine without it for millennia. democracy still existed without it. you’re being very overdramatic. you act like people didn’t organize and overthrow authoritarian regimes before phones and internet existed…crack open a history book. if anything, it’s even harder to do such things with social media because no one can agree on anything and there’s just a load of pointless discourse and bickering, kind of like what’s happening right now. entertainment has always existed in many forms, and it will continue to exist. social media doesn’t usually lead to healthy community or connection anyway. it fosters parasocial relationships and extremely shallow “communities” that typically leave people feeling even more lonely than before they joined. if you have basic social skills, you can find much better community with people offline. i’m sorry but social media is absolutely not necessary and i don’t think it was a good invention for the most part. i feel like it’s had a net negative impact on society overall. has some good come from it? i suppose. but that doesn’t mean i think its vital in any way shape or form. the internet isn’t necessary either. it simply makes life more convenient, if it suddenly went out, people would adapt and go back to living the way they did for thousands and thousands of years. comparing social media to medication is also pretty asinine ngl.
Social media is a double-edged sword. It has its flaws for sure, but it also has Alice Cappelle!
Would your life be any worse without Alice? Not likely. Social media has become an unnecessary evil for the most part.
If you think this woman is representing the majority of French People, you are in error.
The medium isn't the problem, it's always the business model!
That's the actual issue. If Social Media was designed, and run without a profit incentive, it would be the ideal. But honestly, yeah, that's ever going to happen. Anyone with the money to do it have better things to do with their time and effort. Even that WhatsApp guy isn't trying to nudge into FaceBook's territory despite his attempts at disrupting all these tools we use that are constantly tracking us.
Yes, Google, I know you are listening, I know you have a profile on me. And I know that the following paragraph I deleted gets added to that profile regardless if I post it or not.
Is a non profit subscription based social media a possibility ?
to eliminate profit motivea it'd need to be state media which has a lot if stigma attached
@@J0vile Hey just thought I would let you guys know about Mastodon it isn't perfect but to me it is the best replacement we have it is open source and decentralised a great people first platform so would recommend to you guys if you can
i think the problem is the people using it
People, not technology, is the problem, especially if abused by ego,excess,envy and exploitation.
Perfectly said!👍🏼
@@raristy1 👍
The Internet and the World Wide Web came with a simple promise: decentralization and empowerment. At some point we all let concentration happen. We thought it was fine to centralize as we were empowering people.
We centralized around companies instead of pushing for open standards (like email). I watched many journalists and “opinion makers” to push for this narrative as it favours them (talking about standards is boring, no heroes and no vilans).
The problem is not social media, it’s the concentration of power. It's important to diversify and participate in decentralized media.
perfect response
This
We as the people easily have the power to decentralise. All we have to do is stop using instagram, Facebook, X, but we won't, why? Because they make it so it embedds into your life. All the friend connections, pictures and memories are on there. Fomo, business and brands are on there, so people don't wanna miss announcements. People have made whole careers on TH-cam, instagram, tik tok. So it's not in anyone's best interests to leave these companies even though they are the product. It's mental, they grabbed people so easily. The only apps which are panicking now are dating apps, because they can't really evolve, and their algorithm and strategy is failing now and the customer base is leaving.
Centralized media is incentivized to promote its own popularity in a way decentralized media isn't. Centralized media a didn't 'happen', it proved superior at attracting users and I don't know how you escape that. Most people will never care if something is decentralized or not.
@@CarrotConsumer We have to care. The internet is 'democracy' in a way. It is where we have a voice and give others a voice and organize.
The Indian government is trying to crack down on content creators online to quell criticism from. It is only because they can't control it because it is still 'decentralised' in terms of who is creating the content.
Already we see TH-cam forcing people to censor certain things, words and topics on some pretext
You did a very good job of summarizing Berlusconi's way of using TV. I would also like to add that after he became prime minister his television channel basically started to spread propaganda for his benefit (a famous journalist called Enrico Mentana left the company Mediaset for this reason). During the several trials, he went through (some of them for sexual harassment of minors, not convicted or process not finished before his death) his television always depicted him as a victim. I think it is interesting to use also this precedent to talk about how a guy like Musk bought Twitter and used it to boost the engagement of his posts and the posts that followed his political views, while at the same time banning journalists. Berlusconi was able to hold a grip on Italian electors for years and years, even after disastrous governments (like in 2013) using his platform. Imagine how much damage can be done with an even more powerful communication tool like a social network if it is at the service of a person's ego...
One month social media free. Never felt better, highly recommended.
ignorance is bliss i guess
Does TH-cam not count?
@@leepatterson9910 I wouldn't call social media free ignorance at this point. More than half my feed on Instagram or TH-cam is just clickbait shite. Rather just read a book or speak to someone interesting.
@@BlondieTH-cam IDK where you live but in the USA 99% of people don't know or care about shit and trying to bring up anything other than sports or the weather in a professional environment runs the risk of getting you in serious trouble. I read all the time but no one in my day to day life is interested in or equipped to discuss any of it.
@@leepatterson9910 I live in Antwerp. On average the Flemish are far better educated than other countries and once in a conversation they are very careful to express their perspectives on things. It's easier to get a conversation with an American though.
Don't use Instagram, Facebook, TikTok or Twitter and I'm more than happy. Lot's of time to focus on other things.
@@mauroezequielporras same I use tiktok & yt. With a proper framework, media literacy & moderation it can be very good tool. Twitter was also pretty good until Elon destroyed it.
such leaving inane comments on youtube?
@@diablioscortes862 It's just their experience they shared, so how is it inane?
Yes, lots of time to spend on gaming!
Git gud! 💪
We just don't need it we don't really care what most people have to say or are selling us even celebrities are having problems and finding it a waste of time because they say 1 thing and people just don't get the point at all lol their replies aren't at all what the comment said totally wrong and the majority of replies are like that.
Social media can be extreeeemely
helpful to humankind, in general. However, there’s a lot of unfortunate financial incentive to turn people “chronically online.”
The type of people addicted to their phones are not gonna be the healthiest people. This could be people with body image problems, isolated people, gullible people desperate for solutions to problems, angry people who develop extremist beliefs. Sometimes, it’s a combination of all of them, as is often the case with the “manosphere.”
What’s worse is that, the worse these problems are exacerbated, the more engagement platforms get. And it seems like just about everybody knows it’s a problem now, but we’re not sure what to do, or how to make that happen.
Also it's so accustomed to people's lives now for the last 15 years, it's hard to imagine life without it for most people. Like think about it, everything is now done online, from banking, to shopping, paying bills, chatting, dating, porn, education, gambling, entertainment, tv, music. Like the only things you can't do online is sleep and physically eat. That's tragic. Being chronically online is an epidemic not just social media use. The human experience is actually over.
Just stop. Disengage. Easy
Haha I love the equality you’ve maintained with citing your parents as references. Neither should feel left out.
The fact that the first thing authoritarian governments do when there is unrest, is ban social media, tells you how important it is as the main forum of conversation in society, even with all of its corporate influences and manipulation, and even with how unhappy it can make people.
Watch the UK where there is growing unrest at the moment. Kier Starmer's government is begining to circle the wagons of increased social control and he's made specific reference to the impact of social media on the current situation. And let's not forget the staggeringly draconian measures introduced by Trudeau in response to the truckers' protest. I think we in the West have an arrogant tendency to interpret the term *"authoritarian"* as a charcteristic of "other less sophisticated'' societies. There've already been very stringent social media restrictions in the UK. We're not immune to potential bans.
the US calls any government that crosses their interests authoritarian
Maybe they are allowing it to be so shitty that eventually we think it was our own idea to ban social media…
Exactly! It's literally the first thing they do.
Vibes based liberal analysis
without watching the video, my stance depends. social media can be so so so SO toxic, but also is at the same time, an important vector of democracy.
without social media, i don't think we'd have realized how crucial the 🍉 cause was. it's the only way 🍉 people can survive, with the engagement and money of other people from all around the world. traditional media (tv, radio, paper), at least in france, is extremely biased and owned by billionaires.
(using emoji cuz i don't know if youtube might shadowban/delete this comment if i named the country)
thank you. the correct take. traditional media is also not nearly as accessible, quick or two way. Just watching people stream & discuss politics live with a chat relaying latest info is just superior to any media.
Exactly. Removing the corporatization of social media and limiting its daily usage goes a long way in eradicating the main cons that it brings forth into society. It isn't the media that is the problem, but how it is utilized, influenced, etc.
I think social media is a necessity for a cooperative world. We only know about the real story of gaza, Bangladesh, sudan, congo, etc. because of social media. What would be good is to cooperatively pay for upkeep instead of using ads because currently you can amplify your voice with money, and that isn’t fair.
Everything comes back to advertising & money and that’s exhausting. Even our truck has ads displayed on the console if the radio is on. Ads are everywhere and increasingly in our personal spaces (like our vehicles) too. I appreciate you placing yours discreetly at the end so we have the choice whether to engage or not. Especially when our choice whether to engage with ads or not seems no choice at all in our capitalist culture. An increasingly problematic thing for someone with shopping addiction.
Love your insights and videos by the way 😊. Keep them coming!
that so sad about the car thing, really feels like an intrusion, like you cannot even go to your car and put on some music to escape the world anymore
What I have noticed personally is that most of the social media and apps are wonderful and run perfectly. Then a pig comes over and sits there and the app goes ruined, and sucks your energy instead, like a virus.
It's the algorithms. They feed on whatever you first input and breaking loose is difficult. It's not just social media, you will have experienced it on Spotify, Netflix, Amazon, Google and every other online site. Some people are excited by AI but it doesn't work if it is based on any algorithm because they are not intelligent.
im going through a rough patch rn, lost my job, my dad, etc... its so nice to watch your videos at this time, as always... but today... most of all...
thank you
I’m so sorry
I quit social media 4 years ago - except for TH-cam- and it has been wonderful.
wishing the social platforms were actually more interested in bringing like minded people together in real life
In theory, that sounds great but it can also lead to silos and schisms as we are seeing in the US.
In my personal opinion, social media should not be banned, but it should be reformed and heavily regulated to mitigate and reduce the effects of addiction and misinformation. Social media should also not be for making a profit, as this is how current social media runs nowadays (drama+sensationalism+clicks = more profit), and should be used to help improve and supplement communication within the real world instead. Banning social media outright would be just like dismantling all the world’s rail, air, and road lines at this point. Also, I think that an overlooked reason why social media is so pervasive, especially in the United States where I live, is because of car-centric suburbia and a lack of third spaces and adequate access to them. When the local environment can’t provide enough to keep the people satisfied and happy, people will naturally gravitate towards the use of social media as a digital third space, as opposed to physical third spaces in the real world.
_"In my personal opinion, social media should not be banned, but it should be reformed and heavily regulated to mitigate and reduce the effects of addiction and misinformation. "_
Well you are in luck, since China and North Korea have already implemented this, totalitarian paradise.
Just ban the ads and most of the problems that come with it will be gone as well!
Whenever social media is shut down in Turkey, there is either an action or a government official's feelings being hurt.
Currently, as I write these sentences, there is an access block on Instagram in Turkey. The reason is that the condolence message shared by presidential communications director Fahrettin Altun for Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh was deleted by Instagram. Then he probably got mad and put a block on Instagram.
The funniest detail is that the constitutional court opposed this decision and subsequently the website of the constitutional court could not be accessed.
Loved the final message. Thank you
0:20 this happened to me and contributed to my chronic depression and isolation, along with having ASD, where I struggle to keep up with social media regularly, you might not be surprised I am an advocate for a ban of social media.
babe wake up alice capelle posted
Social media should be more regulated forsure, I don't think it should be neccesarily banned, because it keeps people informed, connect with others etc. Too much of anything is bad tbh. Too much social media can be bad. Spending time away from it is good. Hope you are doing good!
I think so too, although it’s so difficult to regulate when corporations are as greedy as they are!
@@katfujioka212 most regulations come from a greedy corporation wanting to put its competition down. For instance do you honestly think GMOs are unsafe for human consumption? Or is it that pesticide producers don't want to go out of business?
meh i don’t think it’s actually good at those things. there’s so much unregulated misinformation on social media, plus i feel like people are lonelier than ever. nothing beats irl friendships
"Too much of anything is bad tbh" Not conceptually true, because then the opposite would have to apply, insinuating all things have a happy medium. For example, there is no happy medium for murder, fascism, etc. Therefore, this reason alone cannot be utilized.
@@coolchameleon21mEh is not an argument nor evidence of anything. People are made to feel lonely & isolated because of capitalist alienation and social media can be a part of this but largely there are many factors. Nothing beats instantaneous communication with like minded people around the world. Real life friendships are great obviously but finding interesting & like minded people irl is not as easy at all. Social media can be amazing vehicle for greater irl friendships infact. It happens all the time.
And I do think it keeps people informed & connected, i literally just watched this great video on this great channel. It's definitely not functioning effectively cos people get misinformed & bullied as well. But those are symptoms of capitalist profit seeking. Those things can be fixed, the idea of social media is still great & has a lot of potential for humanity.
One of my favourite videos of yours Alice. Helps me breakdown why I'm still on social media. I work freelance so it's very much a platform for work) so the idea that I'm on social media because everyone else is is somehow a calming thought...or at least a soft reminder to make sure that's why I'm on it
I freaking love listening to you talk
Been your fan for long time Alice, from Bangladesh. Thanks that you touched our struggle. The situation is getting worse. The peaceful student protest now turns to be one of the major movement in our history. The oppression led by state Machineries and government supported groups has been unimaginably brutal. 250+ killed and 10,000 has been detained in conservative estimate since the government has been heavy handley controlling the medias. Believe me the numbers are much more higher. The videos circulating police shooted and killed injured protesters, childrens & journalists were murdered and hospitals also been attacked. Now our demands are step down of the government and breaking the fascist system. We have had last actual peaceful election in 2008. Whoever watching pray for us. The fear of death is melting and the spirit for freedom, equality and justice is rising.
The video didn't talk very much about social media in this context. But, the way snapchat completely overtook my entire school kind of broke me. Maybe it's because I'm neurodivergent, but being available 24/7 and having the anxiety of needing to understand how to interact with someone that's not IRL gave me intense anxiety. Till this day I still feel anxiety just texting people on normal apps like WhatsApp. Does anyone enjoy using snapchat btw?
THIS
I don't know what you count as social media. Twitter and Instagram and Facebook sure, but what about videos? Forums? Chatrooms? Blogs? What is social media and what is just digital media?
Good question, Alice didn't give the used definition of it. Personally I like to think that interaction with other individuals is the social aspect, in whatever form that is. This comment is certainly aimed at you, @theflyingspaget. So things like TH-cam or imgur are social media too. Netflix is not, The Guadian is not. Does that make sense? What do you think?
@@SimnVersloot anything with a comment section is social media. Anything without it is not.
@@ambatuBUHSURK do chats counts as "comment"? Because your definition makes Snapchat not be a social media. And on TH-cam when the comments are turned off?
Plenty people call youtube social media, but I think it's just a video hosting website.
The only "social" aspect of youtube is the comment sections, but that's mostly considered an additional feature on the side.
@@SimnVersloot chats are social media as well, i just didn't include it there and youtube videos with comments turned on are also social media cos it still exists within larger youtube and views, likes can also be seen.
Another thought-provoking video! The theory of praxis is still in process, for sure! How do we act on an anti-capitalist message while having to carve out a life locked in a capitalist system? In the cyberpunk genre, anti-capitalist protagonists pit one megacorp against another and take the spoils. The strange optimism in cyberpunk is based on the idea that any coordination between megacorps is tainted with suspicion of inevitable betrayal and is thus a wellspring of anticapitalist action, like a hydra unable to stop her heads from consuming each other. Much love!
There are alternatives of corporate social media, running on a common standard protocol, ActivityPub. I, for example, am on Mastodon. Each server can communicate with each other and each server has its own rules and moderators. Plus...no algorithm and no ads.
Exactly. I dropped corporate socmed some years ago, moving fully to the fediverse (that is based on ActivityPub), Mastodon (similar to the deadbird site), Lemmy (reddit) and Pixelfed (Flickr). Built from bottom up, no algorithms, no ads, indeed.
On Mastodon I have a list of News accounts (MSM, like DW, BoingBoing, etc as well as independent publications and networks), a hobby list (populated with others into the same hobby) and a social list with acquaintances and people I have chatted with.
absolutely agree Mastodon is the best shot we have right now
Need to destroy or at least strongly regulate the "corporate" social media if such alternatives are to ever become the norm in society.
What was wrong with forums?
Those were typically ad free and non centralized.
The reason most forum communities disappeared is because social media was the next best thing and people hopped onto the bandwagon back in the 00s.
I love Mastodon ! The only thing is, none of the people who matters to me are ready to switch or even at least try. Habits are difficult to change. And more so when they are not your own.
Nearly all social media are curiosity killers right now, it teaches artist to make content, not art.
I've noticed TH-cam shadowbans my comments for the slightest reason once I dare to comment anything real, even though I don't call for violence or hatred.
I seriously have doubts about social media and am far happier once I don't use it.
It is weird because just yesterday I asked myself this same question for the first time in my life in a serious way
The main issue is that social media can also do incredible good, not just harm. It’s been used to organize and structure grassroots, militant or even revolutionary movements. Which as you point out, has been the main reason it gets banned in the world, not for the destruction the algorithms and never ending feeds bring. The fact there is some level of user control prevents it from being fully a corporate mouthpiece, which perhaps is a bug, not a feature.
Having a platform to communicate with others is very important.
Perhaps the true problem is the algorithms are designed for addiction. But then again, this might very very well be an oversimplified and thus inadequate solution.
I watched this yesterday night, went to sleep, woke up and Instagram is banned in Turkey 😦😪
They're much better off for it yup turkey is beautiful and they're very active people but also because it's a poor country they can't be glued to their phones.
@@Harteo3917 Worst take ever, as if our poorness comes from being glued to our phones and not from poor foreign policies and insane taxes.
@@umidenicim not familiar with the turkish tax system, what makes it so insane?
@@gurito4374 We have one of the highest rate of tax in consumer electronics and automotive(and other "lux" items everyone actually needs). Two examples:
1-I just built a custom PC for around 35k Turkish Liras (roughly 1k USD). When I pick the same parts from PCPartPicker, it costs 800 USD.
2-Back in June, my friend bought a car for 1.5m Turkish Liras (roughly 38-40k USD). The same car costs 20-25k in the UK market. Yeah. We even have a saying that goes; when you are buying a car for yourself, you are also buying one for the government.
On top of all that, we have a significantly lower minimum AND median salary than all European and North American countries. As of right now, our minimum wage is around 500 USD, which is low. Even worse, more than half of all workers in Turkey make around the minimum wage.
@umidenic I meant because things are hard enough there not to mention it's not exactly safe especially for women there. So being glued to technology isn't going to help when we've seen how much it's destroyed cultures and the interaction of people in other countries especially major countries like mine, think what does economically?.
It seems to me that the main problem is not social networks as an idea and format but the companies that control them, the use of algorithms to increase screen time is the result of a corporate strategy, I think that in the future we could think about public social networks , I love your work, congratulations, hugs here from Brazil.
My personal experience: in the past year I’ve been on and off social media bc it’s absolutely catastrophic for my mental health and my ability to do things but it’s also the only place in which I can receive proper information on the war in 🍉 and offer actual help by boosting the content of people who are trying to raise money to get out of there so I’m always kind of at war with myself over what to do. Social media is designed in such a way that I can’t just boost 🍉 content and not get sucked into algorithms but I also have come to see it as a kind of duty to be there and to interact with that content as much as possible which then also really increases the time I spend on those platforms and my chances of becoming super addicted.
Yeah that sucks, but we're in this together as a planet know, I guess this is the new scale of individual moral conscience. Hope my brain adapts one day. Yours too.
I don't think banning it is the answer, though it's tempting. Banning it would probably backfire and make it ever more popular. I do think there needs to be emphasis on critical thinking dealing with social media particularly because it's slightly different now. Personally I've received more support from people in virtual communities bound by interests than people living near me in real life, so I do see the good side of things as well. Great video, Alice, hope you are well!
I’m all for banning social media! All forms of consequences be damned! Everyone should be forced to learn how to be joyful of missing out!
@@MarshalMarrs-eu9yh social media let's people communicate all around the world. It is a tool. Banning it is basically ignoring all the root problems that make it toxic. I've talked to so many people around the earth, without it I can't imagine not learning about all these stories & experiences & knowledge that people have. It's a horrible & honestly very selfish idea to ban social media.
@@ambatuBUHSURK I have a solution to that problem and it’s making international travel more easier and free for everyone.
@@MarshalMarrs-eu9yh I don't think you understand convenience. I'd love to have a casual conversation or deep discussions with someone from the other side of the ocean without having to travel their while also being busy with my life. More travelling also creates more pollution.
@@ambatuBUHSURK fair point unless there are flying creatures big and sturdy enough for humans to ride on like horses.
Your English is impeccable. "Media" is PLURAL! Social media ARE crap.
There are certain mistakes that non-native English speakers are much less likely to make than native English speakers.
If you are a native English speaker, there is a certain mistake you'd most likely never make in German. Unless you picked it up from a native speaker.
Also, while I was writing the above, Alice Cappelle said "Schtroumpfs" instead of "Smurfs", which was just cute.
Merci for this thought provoking video you have left me with something to think and reflect upon.
After the riots in the UK (which were caused by misinfo on social media), we NEED to do something about these apps!!
I would be quite comfortable banning all social media at this point, given all the problems that it is fuelling. Depression, anxiety, misinformation, extremism, radicalisation and real-world violence are all being turbocharged by social media, as we are now seeing in the UK and this is far being from the first instance. The developers who worked on these platforms don't let their own children use them and the companies responsible don't care what consequences occur as long as people are still engaged and they're making money. The only solution there is to get rid of them. Scrub them all.
@@robbieshand6139 lmao people will imagine an infinite number of gibberish solutions except the death of capitalism
I'm so glad I came across your channel 3 years ago thanks to social media as well as so many information, papers, etc. But it was all thanks to the people here (like you Alice!). I'm optimistic cause, as a society, we were able to organize through history without socials, so I hope that it's a powerful tool, but not the engine of comunication per se. Great video!
There is a big problem with online communities, because likeminded people gather and go down their rabbit hole, which often leads to extreme views and no common ground between people. On the contrary, if you have to spend yor time with peers from school, neighbours, etc. you dont live in you opinionated bubble and this gives some humbling experience about the other people, who hold different opinions, culture, religion, but are still human.
so what happens when all the people around you only intention is to cause harm and get you to off yourself? i dont think you understand society enough to make that judgement. from my experience, the bubbles are faaar more isolated irl because people with money can simply go and do things that people without cant. and thats exactly what they do, avoid everyone who is remotely unlike themselves and fall further and further into extremism. thats why all well off eurocentrics are able to do things like think of their "right" to entertainment as having priority over others right to not get murdered with labor induced starvation... on the internet tho, i can spam comments at lots of well off people who would never have to acknowledge my existence any other time. the internet gives humans their humanity back when well off eurocentrics had deemed everyone but themselves as perpetually subhuman and undeserving of the slightest bit of agency over their own well being and fate...
I feel like you might be missing the fact it is more profitable to separate people into like-minded communities as people enjoy not being challenged like Alice was saying with the good vibes only spaces, division it is driven by profit too
real
what is the problem with extreme views? why do we have to have "common ground"? is this a channel for liberals?
@@jeanivanjohnsonare you being dumb on purpose?
Lol, I've been wondering why people say good for you when I tell them I'm off social media. There's nothing moral about it. I'm just addicted to TH-cam now. But I don't tell them that. I just say thank you, haha.
Nice vid was hoping Venezuela was mentioned but still nice work as always Alice 😊❤❤❤
18:30 I quit music to do engineering. I wish I didn't have to but in this economy I felt like I had no other option. It's a depressing reality.
whenever i get worked up about the internet, i think about humanity's history, and what a drop in the bucket 20-30 years are. As fast as this came, it may go.
As per usual your analysis is excellent, thank you! After wanting to get rid of instagram for quite some time, your video and especially the Patrick Le Lay quote have given me the much needed motivation to finally delete it.
one part is missing from this essai IMO : the problem of social medias being owned by big companies. It is the root of the problem IMO : it is *their* quest for profit that lead them to make the application or website, the portal by which we access a social media, this is why they make it addictive, litteraly. And it is also proven that they do promote bad content on their platform through their secret algorithm while other algorithm would be able to promote better content and discard fake news and propaganda.
On the other hand, social media are a wonderful portal for people to talk without the need to be at the same time at the same place. This is a wonderful gift to mankind. It takes capitalism to ruin it.
Power does an amazing job at diverting criticism. Instead of criticism being directed at the content promoted and use of platforms to sell and control perceptions, It becomes: social media make sad 🙁
The same is done with "AI" where we're worried about the emerging techno menace that... doesn't exist, instead of algorithms stealing art en masse and producing derivative slop at cut-rate, instead of anything meaningful that might require paying workers
Excellent points, very educational!!
Sometimes the problem of social media is what are you watching there, not the platform itself. Because now social media has something for every topic(even if the topic is not allowed people still find a way to talk and share about it) and you can really learn a lot of things with it
If social media were banned, it would be a huge blow to me. I know my experience does not reflect the experiences discussed in the video, but mine is just as valid as those experiences. When I was at my lowest and most overwhelmed, when I was in the depths of autistic burnout, I abandoned social media and cut myself off from the world. I was barely connected to any of my friends and no longer expressing my self through my posts. Coming back to social media has been part of my healing journey. I use Instagram to maintain connections to my friends, and express myself artistically with my photography. Although I do look at some wholesome and adorable posts, art, and memes, I never linger on them for very long. I can feel when I’ve been scrolling for a bit longer than I am comfortable with, and I’m almost always able to cut it off there. I don’t know why my experience with Instagram is different from many peoples experiences with social media. It’s certainly not because I’m amazing at creating healthy habits. (I’m autistic and ADHD and generally bad at creating habits, and there’s definitely some aspects of my life that I consider unhealthy and unsatisfying.) It is absolutely not because I am trying harder than other people. (I generally think of myself as someone with relatively low willpower or motivation.) I wish everybody could have that experience with social media, and hopefully there is some way to get to point where everybody can have that relationship with social media.
You really made me appreciate the communal aspects of social media. Its role as a source of exchanging information, entertainment, education and the news is a two edged sword, but it is important. If we push regulators to ban most predatory features of social media and support and share tricks to hack the algorithm and open source alternatives such as Peertube or Mastodon, then banning social media or deleting all accounts won't be necessary.
Damage is done we can’t go back.
Well no one has tried coming together and connecting too people. That was done by their hand of will. Its gone crap after people started distrusting each other.
I met some really out-of-touch weirdos through social media (most of the others were nice though) so I wouldn't even miss it too much if it disappeared.
Great work Alice, I think it is time to see next generation of social media, as all platforms seems to be unethical and waste of time,
The irony is that the social media algorithm is how I got introduced to your channel; in effect making your content as much an instrument of exploitation and alienation and as fueled by fear and anxiety as what you highlight.
As much as social media sucks away at my life, it's also introduced me to lots of different ideas, and eventually led me down a socialist pathway. Chances are I'd be a spiteful conservative without the influence of leftist educators, so thank you!
I'm honestly terrified of what kind of shit this may do to me and i don't want it corporaitons to have access to my most intimate data.
Haha, I love your tone of voice about subscribing, "if it's not already done"
i feel so bad trying to cancel my social media as an artist cause i don’t reply to people or clients for weeks or months but i honestly don’t give a fuck anymore, social media isn’t even worth getting paid to be on. Like congratulations, you live on your phone now, see you outside never. Unless ur making content lmao
Hah, says a TH-camr. No, we shouldn't "ban" social media. People can learn to handle their life.
There's your answer.
I like ur video. Especially that u mentioned Berlusconi.
Just for me it feels like social media is not only for „consumption“ but also content like this. Informative and critical content. To ban it would be a big loss for me.
The first part reminded me of Adam Curits documentation 'Century of the self' which I highly recommend. It's even free on TH-cam!
your view to the world is always sooo interesting, thank you for produce this content!! it's like fresh air on Internet
Love that your introduction on corporate TV looks like it comes directly from the last episode of Rhinocéros we ARE all watching the same things on french youtube uh
I don’t think social media can be banned in any feasible way, it’s too embedded in technology and society at this point. You find jobs on social media, plan get togethers, order food, exchange general information… it’s impossible to go back without overall hauling the entire internet.
The movie THX 1138 touched my soul when I was a kid, I felt as though I was growing up in that world, and that somehow I must get away. I am still struggling. To find a way out. The world of unreality surrounds us. I find it deeply troubling.
Social media only seems to help it along toward Bladerunner. A world where replicants have a better sense of humanity than humans. I feel like that when I die, and move on to the afterlife, the first thing I will want to do is take a shower, to get the ick of this life off of me. Sad, there will be no afterlife to do it.
How does one find one's soul in this cacophane of voices? What does one do?
I feel like we need to get rid of everything except yt but only on computers with yt I miss old times plus people need to not hear rumors online again and start believing things in general for themselves not for others affirmation I feel like that’s also the biggest change that has happened the past 20 years
Alice is exceptional as always
Social Media just replaced TV. Kids have been glued to the TV screens since the 1950s. In the last 10 years, young kids have become dependent on mobile phones and apps. Some of the communication is good and some is bad. Commercials have shifted to phone screens, that's where the eyeballs are now. This will be hard to reverse unless parents start from a young age to limit social media. I watch TH-cam more than any other social media site to get different political views. Enjoy your content Alice
The worst effect of social media on children is social contagion.
Here in Alberta Canada we are banning phones in the classrooms as well. Very interested to see how it goes
You would make a manificent teacher! And im glad the negatives of social media are being talked about more and more. Its like we've had to get to this point in order to measure and monitor its effects on peoples minds, health, lifestyles, addictions etc. Its just sad people have lost their lives through the dark side of it. It's like cars came about, but then a lot of people had to suffer before seatbelts were mandatory. Every invention is always a pilot and we are the test subjects while it evolves for better or worse. An age restriction on use is first hurdle, mandatory time outs next based on your average usage next? You can do this voluntarily on most smartphones but mandatory would be better because it should be treated as an addiction at this point. Theres 0 incentive for these measures to come into force by corporates, but if government do it, it will seem totalitarian and extreme because its an information platform and thats like disrupting freedom of information sharing and access. The issue is we as humans shouldn't really need or have to have access to everything going on in the world at finger tips 24-7, thats where the internet and social media went wrong.
Alice is so wonderful. I'm so hopeful and informed by her videos.
I don't use social media a lot. But I mainly watch there photographers and people that I want to listen to. I don't use algorithm, only subscription page.
I think one of the problems with social media is also that it makes it easier to not engage with the world around us. Our social media feeds are a reflection of ourselves and social media and smartphones allow us to always have our little oxygen tank with us when we move through public spaces. We can just opt out of the public nowadays and that makes those public spaces more likely to get privatized.
Hi! I am an Italian woman born in the 80s and I can say for sure that Berlusconi's TV raised me. Our brains are so fried because of ads, that you can find here on yt entire channels dedicated to collect ads from 80s and 90s tv, just to create a sense of nostalgia. I better remember ads jingles than more important and useful stuff. This is to say how pervasive this type of TV was for my generation.
Shout out to "Socialization and the Power of Advertising" by Jean Kilbourne, "The Power Elite" by C. Wright Mills, and "The Myth of Normal: Trauma, Illness, & Healing in a Toxic Culture" by Gabor & Daniel Maté.
thank you for speaking about bangladesh, the situation is horrible and your words are valuable
Romanticization and relatability...when people say they'd rather think about nicer things than politics, and I do hear it in my private life, my blood runs cold as I think of this quote:
“Nice people made the best Nazis. My mom grew up next to them. They got along, refused to make waves, looked the other way when things got ugly and focused on happier things than “politics.” They were lovely people who turned their heads as their neighbors were dragged away. You know who weren’t nice people? Resisters.”
― Naomi Shulman
The way people shrug and sigh at real problems but get angry at manufactured issues is chilling. I truly wish I knew how to get to them onside, we need to confront issues that are real and pressing, I just watched a galling vid about private equity, climate action is running out of time, Southport is wrecked because people believed a thing that simply wasn't true and over reacted because people famous for lying said something incredibly racist and factually incorrect. Funny how generally the racists and the climate change deniers and the pro-unregulated business people are a Venn diagram that is just about an unambiguous circle who act like new info is a joke from idiots that 'just don't get it'. Oh, we get it.
What doe sit say about me that I kinda like when you chastise us to like the vid and subscribe 'If it's not already done'? lol
The internet is a tool, it can be used to connect a housebound person to a community but likewise it can push a vulnerable or anxious person down a conspiracy rabbit hole. It's like economics, crony capitalism is horrendous, regulated capitalism (capitalism isn't great in any incarnation but it's matters of degrees) could be less bad.
When i saw that you are in the radial left, i subscribed. Hugs from Brazil.
Social media shouldn’t be banned but 100% needs to change, it should be a place to share and communicate with friends and family, go back to basics, no ads, no likes, actual privacy and no algorithms. This is a much bigger discussion on the state of the internet as a whole and how its being consolidated, it’s sad how the internet = social media nowadays to so many people now.
Also banning social media isn’t the same as banning the internet and internet access which you used interchangeably in this video.
The profits tends to push people into the extreme sides - hate is highly profitable on social media and that is a problem bigger than we think I believe. Hate will continue to grow as a consequence.
Great timing on this video well done
omg thanks for remind us the Gezi Park. It was a turning point for us.
It definitely needs regulation, or society will suffer.
it doesn't need just regulation, it needs to be owned by us the people instead of billionaires
*Great video.❤I work so hard to engage myself in someway of earning more income and stop depending on anyone. my family are happy once again and I can now afford anything for my family even with my Retirement. With a step of $50k and getting $9k weekly returns has been life changing, after so much struggles.*
Hello how do you make such weekly??
I'm a born Christian and sometimes I feel so down of myself because of low finance but I still believe in God.
@@babytruca02Maria Angelina Alexander I really appreciate her efforts and transparency.
I gave her my first savings and she opened a brokerage account for me it turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.
My outlook on money changed when I realized someone making $200K can retire broke & someone making $80K can retire a millionaire. With the current market movement.
You're correct!! I make a lot of money without relying on the government.
Investing in stocks and digital currencies is beneficial at this moment.
"Im seeing more videos of people sharing how they quite social media and how good it makes them feel".
And where, might I ask, are they posting these videos exactly??
It's like an alcoholic quitting alcohol while drinking vodka
It's like a pathological liar lying about not wanting to lie anymore.
It's like......
i feel like social media, like emergent ideologies of old, are a call and response quandary. y'know, ye want to put something big out there into the world but you want to know it's been received, and you want to feel like it's witnessed. part of the online mental health crisis is that platforms like Twitter that are as much about the statement you're forcing into the world, but the response the world gives back having made said statement. having no interaction on Twitter myself personally is actually quite liberating, bc i can speak out loud, as it were, and it doesn't have to involve others - it's important to be able to self express without having to bare the brunt of the cold digital sphere.
my key point i want to make here is that part of the appeal of it all is rebounding feedback and the ever shifting world narrative. we tune into social media now to interact with the wider world, not nec to interact with ones we love. but, a part of me feels that the reasons, since the advent of social media in general, for rising tensions but rarely any movement on the political side towards anything positive is that that we're all obsessed with the next story, the next drop, and liberals/journalists very much are too. i think there's an anti-goldie locks zone we've found ourselves in, something Mark Fisher has spoken about - the malaise we feel, and have felt for many decades now, is a result of a stagnant reality, partly because of anchoring ourselves to the advancement of technology. colloquially, we advanced technology to the point where all we have to show for it really is misc personal devices that we simply waste our attention on, namely social media. it's stark & striking how optimistic for future technologies people had been in the 00s, and by the iPhone 5 that was over, now people just fixate on fantasy fash technologists such as Elon Musk, and his procrastinatory preoccupations. if you look at Twitch, we've manifactured a technological world where people are obsessed with watching other people game rather than doing it themselves, it's kinda mad.
10:41 Short answer: No
Long answer: I used to be addicted to social media because of the world I was getting into, something extraordinary, something you didn't see on your real life. Until you feel like the life of others is more interesting than yours, people you used to know became something different (same to myself), the hatred was funny until everything started to feel horrible. Now I can't tolerate using social medias for a long time, unless it is a messaging app, or just throwing a comment (like now) or just a meme channel where you don't need to interact with anyone online. But it rarely becomes a source of happiness now.
One thing you said I wanted to put some nuance on: You say at 5:06 " the American dream of endless consumption and amusement." I believe while the glorification of endless consumption and amusement certainly factor a lot and are corrupting influences, I think it's worth pointing out that saying that's the American dream only exists as a modern propagandized idea that began to be pushed in a huge way (and allowed to manifest through industrialization, through which more affordable/attainable consumption, and freeing up time for amusement/luxuries) on the American people in order to stimulate our economy 1950s post WWII, of which you rightly point out media like TV played a huge role. Despite America's modern undeniable corruption of allowing corporations too much power through these means, our fundamental and original American dream, I've always believed in my heart, would more rightly to be said "based on" more egalitarian and open-armed ideals symbolized through France's gift of the Statue of Liberty I'm proud to be an American for. I always appreciate your nuanced commentary and just wanted to add it .
Seeing the tribe mostly passively consuming - I feel there’d be value in clearly telling between it/TV/TH-cam, enterprises bringing people together like messengers (Signal), and platforms for self-promotion and dating (Instagram). Maybe there’s more? For example, I can shrug off how idols present their life on TV as artificial, but that of “peers” on Insta? Are my emotions misplaced on Twitter, rather than better shared over a coffee (would Timothy Snyder approve of this view, on Twitter?) my friends wouldn’t join anyway because their time vanished on Reddit?
On side note of privatised entertainment, we need more third places where we can also entertain ourselves, and that would also mean different forms of accessible safe party places.
social media is a fourth place, though
Third places are racist don’t you know??
As a Gen-X'er I had many years without any technology except for basic game consoles, so I had those early years to experience real life without a screen in front of my face telling me what to do and / or how to do it every second of every day, so when the internet started then smartphones came along I had that common sense & the ability to think critically so I'm pretty much immune to all the algorithms.
Sadly that isn't the case for later generations who have been raised on it.
I'm normally anti censorship anti big brother etc, but I think it has now gotten to the point where all social media should be age 16+ (Legally able to have kids and get married at 16+ here in UK), with harsh punishments for both the children and their parents if they try to access them before that age.
Parents and companies can't be trusted to enforce the ban so on this one occasion and I really hate to say it, but government needs to step in on it, give the kids time to live life as kids so they can develop those critical thinking skills and enjoy life before getting sucked in.
Now, don't get me wrong, I do realise that the internet itself is a huge library of knowledge and I wouldn't want the kids missing out or being able to learn from it, but social media has never been about being social, it's always been about how many likes, numbers of people you have, from day one Facebook was designed to be harmful, TikTok is evil, I remember when I first joined it, it even pulled me in for a while when my depression was bad, found myself being drawn into conspiracy theories, horror and gore stuff, fascist rhetoric, extreme religious stuff, all 100% negative media to make my depression far worse.
Luckily I have triggers and safety systems in place to detect when my depression is kicking in so I can catch it before it gets too bad, but TikTok really pushed them to their breaking point super quickly, so I dread to think how much worse it is for those younger than me who have been raised from a younger age and thus far more easily controlled and manipulated by it.
My gut is telling me though, it may already be too late unless the bans are put into place in the next 3 to 6 months max.
Alice, honestly this makes more sense than anything else destroying the world right now.
Alongside the things you mentioned, one of the problems is that big media platforms have their agenda of which political content they want to promote or hide (usually dictated by USA or China), which was made evident with the genocide in Gaza for Meta platforms, or the genocide of Uyghurs for TicToc. I would say that these conflicts also showed how important it is to have free social media and that banning them is not the real solution.
Maybe the solution to all of this problems would be the widespread adoption of decentralized social media platforms like Mastadon, or other platforms in the Fediverse. Investigating these platforms might be an interesting topic for a video.