this post was submitted on 09 Dec 2024
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We have never had machine learning algorithms that exploit human psychology to give precisely timed hits of dopamine. Algorithms that know you better than your family members do.
I think in the near future we're gonna be looking at the modern social medias similar to how we see smoking cigarettes today. Addictive and bad for you.
Every single generation fixates on something new ones do because they’re scared of change. I was endlessly derided for many things that are norm now. They were supposed to end the world but somehow we keep on going. I see my generational peers turning into own parents and dooming about Skibidi toilet thing. They forgot they were children once too.
I understand this phenomenon and it goes all the way back to Socrates. There's that famous quote.
And he even used to complain about the new invention of writing. Said it would weaken people's memory because they wouldn't have to remember everything.
So I get it. I understand what you mean.
But I think this is different. Because let me posit this.
Cigarettes existed for a very long time, but it wasn't until the late 1800s that they started being produced en masse. Very quickly, the majority of the country was smoking and smoking a lot. Much more than before.
That eventually caused a dramatic increase in lung diseases because a lot more people were smoking. You could say "Tobacco has been around forever. Every generation has fads"
But in reality, it was different. It was a new thing. Cigarettes were hand-rolled before. Now you could buy a pack and smoke your 20 a day much more easily.
I think this is more similar to what we are seeing with social media today. I consciously make an effort not to judge the youth. And I'm not judging the youth. The social media "epidemic" does not only concern the youth, but all generations. Smartphones in general but modern social media specifically operate in manners we don't fully understand.
Look at the brains of gambling addicts. Your brain literally gets rewired when you play slots all day. Social media operates in a similar manner as slots. We are all rewiring our brains in a way that has never happened in human history.
It could cause permanent damage for all we know. We just haven't had the time or studies to confirm this. And if we look at research that exists right now, social media does increase rate of anxiety, depression, etc. It's not so simple.
All good points, thank you. I don’t disagree but I don’t think those things are as impactful as most.
The way I see it is that we keep trading one bad thing for another all the time. We might have TikTok now but we no longer have led in gasoline that gave anxiety/ADHD/depression to my generation. TT has also been demonised beyond belief due to influence campaigns from Meta but that’s a side note. We have mass manufactured nicotine products but at least it’s not an unfiltered cigarette. I don’t believe we’re regressing, or regressing beyond what’s a normal amount of random change.
Accumulation of knowledge is one of our best bets and seems to be somewhat working out. History will probably not always move towards a brighter future but that’s okay because long term we either bomb ourselves out of this planet or actually work it out.