
Social media is rotting democracy from within - jobbagy
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/1/22/18177076/social-media-facebook-far-right-authoritarian-populism
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dTal
I would class social media as a symptom of a broader class of social
estrangement that makes democracy less viable. Why, today alone on Hacker News
we have articles like "Alarming Decline of Quality Youth Playtime" and "Rural
America's “brain drain”: How student debt is emptying small towns". There is a
general trend of less engagement in community, and increased segregation by
social class. People engage with social media because _that 's all they have
left_.

Without the daily "forced" interactions with people of diverse backgrounds and
intelligence levels that come naturally through proximity, and with all
communication centralized and mediated by something that allows you to easily
(even transparently) avoid challenging viewpoints, small wonder that society
becomes segregated and unstable.

Really, I think the solution is small, walkable, community-oriented towns,
preferably alongside the abolition of cars. Solve that, and nobody will care
about "social media".

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cjmoran
I don't think you're wrong, but I'd just add that social media platforms like
Facebook are doing everything they can to keep a user's attention at the cost
of closer IRL relationships or anything else in their lives. To them, the more
time you spend on their platform, the more money they make.

So increased social media use is definitely a symptom of broader disconnection
in our societies, but it's also helping that disconnection along quite
happily.

