It's helpful for me to compare social media addiction to past crises of addiction or media consumption. Anxiety over television consumption raged in the late 20th century. That technology, I would argue, was the "gateway drug" to social media addiction. Constant consumption, of both educational and frivolous media. But we couldn't stop it, and any attempts, like new "cultural movements" were futile. We just gave in. In fact, we sanitized it, approving things like Sesame Street while condemning things like trashy soap operas, while the medium behind the two was the exact same. I don't think any of us would say television was the cause of our current degraded public/social/political culture, but I don't think we should discount it. All of this is to say, we never came up with a significant opposition to television, and I'm confused by these calls for a vague "cultural movement" to counter social media addiction. What specific actions do we take? New leadership across society? What does that even mean? I appreciate the critique, but I am dubious about these amorphous calls to action. It's like recycling to battle climate change: individual action has almost zero impact on the global catastrophe, so we had to take major policy steps and invent new technology (carbon capture, etc.) to combat the crisis. The only way we stop social media is not through some return to an earlier form of communication - that cat is out of the bag. We'll have to innovate our way out. How? No idea.
I'm sorry, but for all its sophistry, I fail to see much difference between the authors' argument essentially against too much free speech and that put forth by the witless Margaret Brennan on CBS, who incredulously finds free speech the culprit for Germany's Nazi nightmare.
Isn't it more likely that true free speech, the cherished marketplace of ideas, has always recognized the right to wrong and even stupid speech? In which case, don't the Internet and social media platforms simply magnify free speech and, thus, stupid and wrong speech, much as television has done since the 1950s? Can we be careful and trusted enough not to throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water? I'm not so sure.
Thanks for your comment, Dale. We agree with you that free speech is absolutely critical and indispensable.
This post is not an argument against too much free speech. It's an argument against today's algorithmic addiction apparatus and the way it has butchered free speech and the marketplace of ideas. The point is that we *do not* currently have a true marketplace of ideas on many of today's most popular social media platforms — instead we have a corporate-controlled addiction machine that distorts and manipulates the marketplace of ideas for a small group of elites' profit and power. In the Simulation, opaque algorithms that we do not control undermine the marketplace of ideas by deciding what speech to amplify or censor.
As @Vicky and Dan point out below, there's a huge difference between free speech (which is a non-negotiable prerequisite to human agency) and Americans' addiction to modern social media (which is an unprecedented threat to human agency). The more control people have over their attention and how they spend it, the more freedom they have. That's why part of our call to action here is for Americans to spend more of their time online consuming free speech in non-addictive spaces like Substack newsletters, podcasts, group chats, etc.
The future must be more freedom of speech and more autonomy over our attention, not less.
Thanks Hugh. It was, very likely, unfairly judgmental of me without knowing any background on Vicky and Dan. At the same time, as one who spent a long career in journalism before retiring 11 years ago, i have witnessed a lot of back door attacks on free speech in the name of something presumably more noble. Even good intentions can result inadvertently in negative consequences. We live in a time of stepped attacks on our Bill of Rights in general and free speech in particular, so vigilance is critical.
I sought to explain my concern further in response to Hugh's note above. I would merely ask if "addictions to social media" -- which have widened participation in and the definition of free speech rights, is any worse than past perceived addictions to, say, television and its relative perceived social effects? And can we learn to live with and adjust to those for the sake of preserving free speech?
Thank you for jump starting a needed, critical conversation.
I agree. Neither of us want to curtail free speech. We have had it done to us in various ways, for one thing. But don't like seeing that for anybody. It's a real threat to our way of living in a free country.....which we LIKE!
We also don't like curtailments on "free living" that doesn't affect anyone else's "free living." (sometimes it does, so that requires laws, etc.). We limit addictions to "free living" with drug laws, for example, because they relate specifically to human weaknesses with addictions.
Where is the line? I don't have a clear line. I'm open to ideas about what the line should be. Much social media, as described, is designed to inhibit free speech by using the human nervous systems' weaknesses. It doesn't engage higher order mental processes, as does ideas presented by free speech. It is a quick fix, instead.
I'm not so sure about trying to curtail social media, for example. But I do value curtailing it with our grandchildren. We have seen how they can become lost in it, addicts to it, and after engaging in it have no useful gains in terms of ideas.
I agree with you, especially your point about different standards for social media use by adults v. children. Adults don't need supervision on social media because, well, presumably they are adults, both in age and accepting responsibility for their actions. One of those responsibilities must be to play an active role in their child's growth, development and outside influences that can be either constructive or damaging.
To second what Mr. Jones is saying, what you're discounting is the way you are being exploited, and manipulated, when you use these platforms, and how this is key to the economic fortunes of the middle class in the future. This differentiates them from the speech platforms of the past, or media like television.
More specifically, when you use these platforms A.) the economic value you are creating by generating useful data is being taken from you, and you are not being compensated for it, and B.) you are being psychologically manipulated, very subtly, to become more paranoid and angry, in the interest of generating higher profits by Big Data. This is inherent in the business model of Big Data--I.e., users get access to the platforms for 'free', but then the owners of the platforms make money by selling those users' personal data to advertising consultancies and by agreeing to tweak their algorithms to modify user behavior to buy said ad companies' products. But most users are not informed of the fact, as they should be, that they are not the customers of these platforms--they are the product. Pushing Big Data to reform this business model, which is innately destructive, can help fix the issues with social media, and do so in a way that doesn't try to combat them purely by bans and punitive regulations, that *would* indeed infringe on free speech.
Maybe you can brush this off as 'no big deal' now, but you won't in the future, as AI becomes an integral part of the economy. This is a key point few people grasp. They don't understand that AI--that is, neural nets--is not 'real intelligence', but instead a whole bunch of data being funneled through algorithms running on big networks. That data doesn't come from nowhere--it comes from people. From *you*. As it becomes essentially the key resource that allows AI-driven economies to function, the fact that you are not being paid for it is going to become *the* labor issue of the future, and if the system remains as is, we are going to see massive inequalities--the kinds of inequalities that democracies simply cannot handle. Big Data will try to justify these inequalities, of course, by saying "I can get a machine to do X, so I don't need to pay you to do it." Except that's a lie--because they need the data *you* generate about 'task X' to get AI to do 'task X'.
Social media is the highway to a horrific future of massive inequality and the dead-end of UBI--reforming it is the highway to the preservation of a middle class, without which democracies cannot be sustained.
The $2 trillion row at the inauguration was striking. Brin was there somewhere too but it would have been tacky to put him next to Musk. However, I will submit that the motivator was fear, not allegiance (Musk aside, maybe). Fear not only of what the Republicans might do but also fear of what the Democrats had become as has been amply documented by Ruy. And especially fear of populist fusion with them as the target.
As you note, what makes social media so much more powerful and dangerous than the old mass media is the algorithm which individualizes everything. What funds the algorithm is advertising. You can't just ban it without violating the First Amendment. However, there is another way. Simply declare that an individual's personal data belongs to them and no one else and that anyone else using it needs permission and payment. You would need to outlaw abusive Terms of Service and barter deals like free email. All this would impose lots of cost on social media corporations which would be passed along to advertisers and make the advertising less effective if permission was refused. It would also be possible to make the administration onerous further raising costs. And since the EU seems determined to import their anti-1A rules to us, let's export this to them. I am sure we could find local allies.
I think this was a very well written article correctly describing this already scary and potentially very scary issue. What works for me, and many I know, and what we are attempting to pass on to our young, is opening the Bible more, and social media less.
And who isn't encouraged by our country's second biggest school district attempting to ban smart phones in public schools! Yes there will be exceptions, etc, but I think this is a very positive move.
I believe that I am not harmed or damaged in any way by social media use. I don't spend that much time on it... too busy working, reading, listening to podcasts, cooking, gardening and enjoying family and friends... but I am on Twitter, Facebook and of course Substack Notes.
Frankly, I think anybody watching or reading stuff from our mainstream media is more likely gaslit.
However, there does seem to be a problem with bubble reinforcement for those people that take their politics too seriously... or that have their identity wrapped up in their politics or their social media follower, likes and clicks. The algorithms filter their content to be only reaffirming of that their crazy is rational. It seems that there is a screw loose for these people... probably missing core self-worth and thus seek too much external validation. Me... I tend to distrust things that tell me I am right. I would prefer an argument with equals to either prove to myself that what I currently believe to be accurate, or otherwise get a needed lesson for a course correction.
It's helpful for me to compare social media addiction to past crises of addiction or media consumption. Anxiety over television consumption raged in the late 20th century. That technology, I would argue, was the "gateway drug" to social media addiction. Constant consumption, of both educational and frivolous media. But we couldn't stop it, and any attempts, like new "cultural movements" were futile. We just gave in. In fact, we sanitized it, approving things like Sesame Street while condemning things like trashy soap operas, while the medium behind the two was the exact same. I don't think any of us would say television was the cause of our current degraded public/social/political culture, but I don't think we should discount it. All of this is to say, we never came up with a significant opposition to television, and I'm confused by these calls for a vague "cultural movement" to counter social media addiction. What specific actions do we take? New leadership across society? What does that even mean? I appreciate the critique, but I am dubious about these amorphous calls to action. It's like recycling to battle climate change: individual action has almost zero impact on the global catastrophe, so we had to take major policy steps and invent new technology (carbon capture, etc.) to combat the crisis. The only way we stop social media is not through some return to an earlier form of communication - that cat is out of the bag. We'll have to innovate our way out. How? No idea.
I'm sorry, but for all its sophistry, I fail to see much difference between the authors' argument essentially against too much free speech and that put forth by the witless Margaret Brennan on CBS, who incredulously finds free speech the culprit for Germany's Nazi nightmare.
Isn't it more likely that true free speech, the cherished marketplace of ideas, has always recognized the right to wrong and even stupid speech? In which case, don't the Internet and social media platforms simply magnify free speech and, thus, stupid and wrong speech, much as television has done since the 1950s? Can we be careful and trusted enough not to throw the proverbial baby out with the bath water? I'm not so sure.
Thanks for your comment, Dale. We agree with you that free speech is absolutely critical and indispensable.
This post is not an argument against too much free speech. It's an argument against today's algorithmic addiction apparatus and the way it has butchered free speech and the marketplace of ideas. The point is that we *do not* currently have a true marketplace of ideas on many of today's most popular social media platforms — instead we have a corporate-controlled addiction machine that distorts and manipulates the marketplace of ideas for a small group of elites' profit and power. In the Simulation, opaque algorithms that we do not control undermine the marketplace of ideas by deciding what speech to amplify or censor.
As @Vicky and Dan point out below, there's a huge difference between free speech (which is a non-negotiable prerequisite to human agency) and Americans' addiction to modern social media (which is an unprecedented threat to human agency). The more control people have over their attention and how they spend it, the more freedom they have. That's why part of our call to action here is for Americans to spend more of their time online consuming free speech in non-addictive spaces like Substack newsletters, podcasts, group chats, etc.
The future must be more freedom of speech and more autonomy over our attention, not less.
Thanks Hugh. It was, very likely, unfairly judgmental of me without knowing any background on Vicky and Dan. At the same time, as one who spent a long career in journalism before retiring 11 years ago, i have witnessed a lot of back door attacks on free speech in the name of something presumably more noble. Even good intentions can result inadvertently in negative consequences. We live in a time of stepped attacks on our Bill of Rights in general and free speech in particular, so vigilance is critical.
We see no connection whatsoever between issues of free speech and Americans' addictions to social media.
I sought to explain my concern further in response to Hugh's note above. I would merely ask if "addictions to social media" -- which have widened participation in and the definition of free speech rights, is any worse than past perceived addictions to, say, television and its relative perceived social effects? And can we learn to live with and adjust to those for the sake of preserving free speech?
Thank you for jump starting a needed, critical conversation.
I agree. Neither of us want to curtail free speech. We have had it done to us in various ways, for one thing. But don't like seeing that for anybody. It's a real threat to our way of living in a free country.....which we LIKE!
We also don't like curtailments on "free living" that doesn't affect anyone else's "free living." (sometimes it does, so that requires laws, etc.). We limit addictions to "free living" with drug laws, for example, because they relate specifically to human weaknesses with addictions.
Where is the line? I don't have a clear line. I'm open to ideas about what the line should be. Much social media, as described, is designed to inhibit free speech by using the human nervous systems' weaknesses. It doesn't engage higher order mental processes, as does ideas presented by free speech. It is a quick fix, instead.
I'm not so sure about trying to curtail social media, for example. But I do value curtailing it with our grandchildren. We have seen how they can become lost in it, addicts to it, and after engaging in it have no useful gains in terms of ideas.
Help!
I agree with you, especially your point about different standards for social media use by adults v. children. Adults don't need supervision on social media because, well, presumably they are adults, both in age and accepting responsibility for their actions. One of those responsibilities must be to play an active role in their child's growth, development and outside influences that can be either constructive or damaging.
To second what Mr. Jones is saying, what you're discounting is the way you are being exploited, and manipulated, when you use these platforms, and how this is key to the economic fortunes of the middle class in the future. This differentiates them from the speech platforms of the past, or media like television.
More specifically, when you use these platforms A.) the economic value you are creating by generating useful data is being taken from you, and you are not being compensated for it, and B.) you are being psychologically manipulated, very subtly, to become more paranoid and angry, in the interest of generating higher profits by Big Data. This is inherent in the business model of Big Data--I.e., users get access to the platforms for 'free', but then the owners of the platforms make money by selling those users' personal data to advertising consultancies and by agreeing to tweak their algorithms to modify user behavior to buy said ad companies' products. But most users are not informed of the fact, as they should be, that they are not the customers of these platforms--they are the product. Pushing Big Data to reform this business model, which is innately destructive, can help fix the issues with social media, and do so in a way that doesn't try to combat them purely by bans and punitive regulations, that *would* indeed infringe on free speech.
Maybe you can brush this off as 'no big deal' now, but you won't in the future, as AI becomes an integral part of the economy. This is a key point few people grasp. They don't understand that AI--that is, neural nets--is not 'real intelligence', but instead a whole bunch of data being funneled through algorithms running on big networks. That data doesn't come from nowhere--it comes from people. From *you*. As it becomes essentially the key resource that allows AI-driven economies to function, the fact that you are not being paid for it is going to become *the* labor issue of the future, and if the system remains as is, we are going to see massive inequalities--the kinds of inequalities that democracies simply cannot handle. Big Data will try to justify these inequalities, of course, by saying "I can get a machine to do X, so I don't need to pay you to do it." Except that's a lie--because they need the data *you* generate about 'task X' to get AI to do 'task X'.
Social media is the highway to a horrific future of massive inequality and the dead-end of UBI--reforming it is the highway to the preservation of a middle class, without which democracies cannot be sustained.
The $2 trillion row at the inauguration was striking. Brin was there somewhere too but it would have been tacky to put him next to Musk. However, I will submit that the motivator was fear, not allegiance (Musk aside, maybe). Fear not only of what the Republicans might do but also fear of what the Democrats had become as has been amply documented by Ruy. And especially fear of populist fusion with them as the target.
As you note, what makes social media so much more powerful and dangerous than the old mass media is the algorithm which individualizes everything. What funds the algorithm is advertising. You can't just ban it without violating the First Amendment. However, there is another way. Simply declare that an individual's personal data belongs to them and no one else and that anyone else using it needs permission and payment. You would need to outlaw abusive Terms of Service and barter deals like free email. All this would impose lots of cost on social media corporations which would be passed along to advertisers and make the advertising less effective if permission was refused. It would also be possible to make the administration onerous further raising costs. And since the EU seems determined to import their anti-1A rules to us, let's export this to them. I am sure we could find local allies.
It all started with cat pictures. Bad kitty!
I think this was a very well written article correctly describing this already scary and potentially very scary issue. What works for me, and many I know, and what we are attempting to pass on to our young, is opening the Bible more, and social media less.
And who isn't encouraged by our country's second biggest school district attempting to ban smart phones in public schools! Yes there will be exceptions, etc, but I think this is a very positive move.
I believe that I am not harmed or damaged in any way by social media use. I don't spend that much time on it... too busy working, reading, listening to podcasts, cooking, gardening and enjoying family and friends... but I am on Twitter, Facebook and of course Substack Notes.
Frankly, I think anybody watching or reading stuff from our mainstream media is more likely gaslit.
However, there does seem to be a problem with bubble reinforcement for those people that take their politics too seriously... or that have their identity wrapped up in their politics or their social media follower, likes and clicks. The algorithms filter their content to be only reaffirming of that their crazy is rational. It seems that there is a screw loose for these people... probably missing core self-worth and thus seek too much external validation. Me... I tend to distrust things that tell me I am right. I would prefer an argument with equals to either prove to myself that what I currently believe to be accurate, or otherwise get a needed lesson for a course correction.