social media, the problem?

[cyrano]

Whot?

 

[crazydoc]

If this is what you're asking about:

The 2021 pitch doctoring controversy arose in Major League Baseball (MLB) around pitchers' use of foreign substances, such as the resin-based Spider Tack, to improve their grip on the baseball and the spin rate on their pitches. On June 15, 2021, MLB announced a new policy whereby any player caught using foreign substances on baseballs would receive a 10-game suspension. The policy also included umpire inspections of all pitchers during games starting on June 21, a decision that was met with mixed reactions from players and coaches.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_pitch_doctoring_controversy

 

[soliloqueen]

i'm part of the first generation that grew up entirely with the internet and the sociopsychological damage that causes someone is beyond most of you old timers' capacity to understand. as bad as you think it is, believe me: it's worse. i genuinely think in 50 years we're going to be talking about social media algorithms and microplastics the same way we talk about radioactivity and leaded gas today.

 

[AnalogPackrat]

i'm part of the first generation that grew up entirely with the internet and the sociopsychological damage that causes someone is beyond most of you old timers' capacity to understand. as bad as you think it is, believe me: it's worse. i genuinely think in 50 years we're going to be talking about social media algorithms and microplastics the same way we talk about radioactivity and leaded gas today.

I'm sure it's rough, but we "old-timers" have a frame of reference from before and after. How can you compare your experience to one you never had and claim there's no way we can understand?

I was 27 when the WWW came to be. Before that I'd spent time on Usenet NEWSgroups and dial-up BBS systems. My first computer was a 1983 TI-99/4A with 16k of RAM (4k used by OS and BASIC interpreter) and a cassette interface for persistent storage. I learned FORTAN77 my freshman year in college and we had to use punch cards.

We also played outside a lot back in those days. I rarely see kids or young adults riding bikes or just playing some kid games outside. Parents of my generation have largely failed to raise robust children. The overwhelming focus on safety and equal rewards are part of the problem. The real psychological damage was done with that kind of crap. Then add addictive smartphones and social media...stir until society dissolves.

 

[soliloqueen]

I'm sure it's rough, but we "old-timers" have a frame of reference from before and after. How can you compare your experience to one you never had and claim there's no way we can understand?

I was 27 when the WWW came to be. Before that I'd spent time on Usenet NEWSgroups and dial-up BBS systems. My first computer was a 1983 TI-99/4A with 16k of RAM (4k used by OS and BASIC interpreter) and a cassette interface for persistent storage. I learned FORTAN77 my freshman year in college and we had to use punch cards.

We also played outside a lot back in those days. I rarely see kids or young adults riding bikes or just playing some kid games outside. Parents of my generation have largely failed to raise robust children. The overwhelming focus on safety and equal rewards are part of the problem. The real psychological damage was done with that kind of crap. Then add addictive smartphones and social media...stir until society dissolves.

it's so much worse than that. it's the result of having most or all of your psychological being exist in an inherently virtual and inherently public space. my generation and generations after mine don't even exist in their own bodies, psychologically. older people still view this technology as a method of enhanced communication, just another technological advancement like many others before it, rather than a permanent receptacle for the soul--one that feels more normal, even more natural, than the body. it's so much worse than just the change in behavior and trends you can observe. ime older generations struggle to understand the extent of the damage taking place precisely because they have a frame of reference, which i'm sure sounds backwards. you came into being and developed as a person in a time when it was still possible to actually form a complete self and a cohesive personal narrative, so you will always observe things from that perspective. it's easy to look at kids using technology and make behavioral observations about it from the outside, like that they're addictive, and observe overfocus on safety and rewards and the damage that does, but those are still material observations. material observations like that are fading from relevance along with the rest of truth. the minds of young people form boundaries of the self where their limits are, and on the internet, there are no limits where there used to be, so there is a near total failure of younger generations to form not just outer but inner boundaries. that's the real reason why younger generations aren't robust. i don't think we'll be able to fully unpack the consequences of this for decades. we are facing down the complete dissolution of the concept of personhood as we know it.

 

[Ó Draighnáin]

it's so much worse than that. it's the result of having most or all of your psychological being exist in an inherently virtual and inherently public space. my generation and generations after mine don't even exist in their own bodies, psychologically. older people still view this technology as a method of enhanced communication, just another technological advancement like many others before it, rather than a permanent receptacle for the soul--one that feels more normal, even more natural, than the body. it's so much worse than just the change in behavior and trends you can observe. ime older generations struggle to understand the extent of the damage taking place precisely because they have a frame of reference, which i'm sure sounds backwards. you came into being and developed as a person in a time when it was still possible to actually form a complete self and a cohesive personal narrative, so you will always observe things from that perspective. it's easy to look at kids using technology and make behavioral observations about it from the outside, like that they're addictive, and observe overfocus on safety and rewards and the damage that does, but those are still material observations. material observations like that are fading from relevance along with the rest of truth. the minds of young people form boundaries of the self where their limits are, and on the internet, there are no limits where there used to be, so there is a near total failure of younger generations to form not just outer but inner boundaries. that's the real reason why younger generations aren't robust. i don't think we'll be able to fully unpack the consequences of this for decades. we are facing down the complete dissolution of the concept of personhood as we know it.

A very interesting post and I appreciate you having written it. It might help me with those afflicted (like my children). I wonder how growing up with the net impacts things such as self-awareness, which is critical in interpersonal interactions (what does interpersonal even mean now?)

A lot of the conspiracy theories seem to arise from people thinking what is happening is really bad for humanity, and so who is benefiting from this because the masses are not, so there must be some cabal destroying us. But then, people seem to be getting what they want don't they? I mean, are we fundamentally that pathetic as a species?

Apart from the identity issues you have identified, there are huge non-social cognitive consequences that we don't really understand as of yet. There is this mentality of lets get a computer to do it: chemistry, biology, physics... I think about the advent of combinatorial chemistry (years ago) for drug design compared to traditional rational design, did combinatorial drug discovery revolutionise drug development? Not sure, maybe now I don't know.

My point is that traditional problem solving and cognitive processing (which in part becomes hard wiring in the brain) which uses the brain (pushing brain electrons as opposed to the computer electrons) is being replaced with: computer says no, or computer says yes. The post WWW brain is being wired socially, and more broadly cognitively, in an entirely different manner, to, for example, the pre-WWW brain. What does this mean? I sure as hell don't know. And I'd put money on nobody else knowing.

 

[Brian Roth]

All as I can say is that when I was a 1960's kid ("I walked in the snow to school...uphill each direction" lol) some people were screaming about how television was ruining the youth. Oh, yes Top 40 radio as well.

Bri