Boring Criticisms of Social Media

I haven't been on Facebook or Twitter since the end of 2024. Well, whoop-de-doo for me. I mostly left for petty reasons. I only mention it in case it gives my case here a little bit more "cred".

Basically, I get tired of hearing boring criticisms of social media and I'm very sceptical of them.

I'm not banging the drum for social media. I'm just jaded from hearing the same criticisms over and over, and always with an air of something profound and insightful being said.

So here we go...

1) People use social media to present a false image of their lives.

True. But how is this different from any other aspect of human life? As Dr. Gregory House says, "Everybody lies". There was a time when Irish people would stay away from Mass because they didn't have good enough clothes, and we all know about the "good room" that was only used for visitors. Putting on a show seems to be a perennial human behaviour. 

It took me a long, long time-- well into my forties-- to realize just how extensively people play up their achievements and experiences. I was very naive.

Someone who didn't put on a show (to some extent at least) would probably be treated as a weirdo and avoided.

You could say all these false images are coming at you thicker and faster on social media than they ever did before. Maybe. Is it so different from channel-hoping or flicking through glossy magazines?

2) Social media is polarising.

I notice the mainstream media only object to polarisation when there are two poles (or more, so to speak). They are perfectly happy to whip up intense emotions when it's on the right side. (For instance, fostering animosity to the Catholic Church.)

What's wrong with polarisation, anyway? I think a healthy society should have clashing ideologies and intense debate. Conformism is much more dangerous. (And that's what we have in Ireland.)

If you ask me, the internet's biggest virtue is that it makes it very difficult to suppress dissent.

3) Social media dumbs down public discourse and shortens attention spans.

Please. I can't remember a time when people weren't complaining about "soundbites". It was a constant refrain when political spin-doctors like Peter Mandelson and Alistair Campbell first came on the scene, in the late nineties. It only takes a glance at history to realize there were always soundbites in politics. "Homes fit for heroes", "Up Dev", "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right", etc. etc. You might argue these were slogans, but really, what's the difference?

Before that the "shortening attention span" claim was made about video games and channel-hopping.

I don't buy for a second that attention spans are shortening. Netflix bingeing has become a very familiar phenomenon, and the public appettite for massive multi-volume literary works such as A Song of Ice and Fire seeems instiable. Also, movies are actually getting longer.

On the other hand, just look at some television from the early days of the medium. It was mostly pretty vapid stuff. I think it was even more vapid than it is today. (But more wholesome, too. I watched an episode of Mr. Ed the other day and keenly felt the loss of wholesomeness in entertainment since those days.)

4) People crave dopamine hits from "likes", views, etc.

Again, what's different? When have people not been approval junkies? You could argue that social media accelarates this tendency. Perhaps it does, but I think this can be overstated.

What frustrated me about social media, personally, was that (in my view) a thoughtful and substantial post would get so little engagement compared to something more trivial or polemical. But again...is that anything new?

There are legitimate criticisms of social media and I don't think society would be any worse off if social media just disappeared tomorrow morning.

What really bothers me is the way people produce these cliches as if they were wonderful insights that haven't been said a million times already.

Or people who say with affected bewilderment: "I don't understand social media", like they want some kind of a prize for it. Grrr!

I guess this is all the comedy of humanity and I should regard it with affectionate indulgence. But then, can my undue irritation be a part of the comedy of humanity, too?