I like Substack, and I used to like Facebook when I could actually use it to keep abreast of family and friends. But you make me happy I never got into Twitter.
Instagram and several other sites are just as bad; I pick on Twitter mostly because it serves as the de facto editor of the New York Times and other legacy media outlets, as well as being the place where people with real power (like Musk, Vance, and to a lesser extent Trump) engage, making it matter more.
Bad form, replying to myself. I do get tired of people, some of whom actually have the raw cognitive ability to think sensibly about the world, who get embroiled in the “JQ.” It’s hateful, but it’s also a brain-eating worm.
If you look at crazy/nasty posts, the algorithm will feed you more of the same. I block ads and nasty/crazy ones and rarely “open” a tweet - I think that teaches the algorithm too. My Twitter feed is pretty calm and positive - you can train the algorithm. What crazy I let into my life is via free Substacks; I will read a crazy one if it’s interesting but don’t pay for mean/nasty ones; I do pay for quite a few “other side of the religious/political spectrum but have interesting/civil things to say” Substacks. I’m at the point where I have started unsubscribing - there are too many interesting writers out there. You can have a positive stream passing by your eyes but it’s a constant battle on Twitter to avoid the bad and teach it to fetch the good. I envision the algorithm as a big, basically good-natured but not too bright ogre - your hand needs to be on the reins all the time.
I understand why you think this, but you’re wrong if you think you’re not being manipulated. The algorithm isn’t like the humans who deposit the checks. You’re just in an algorithmic bucket on Twitter that keeps you reading via giving you things you perceive as “calm”. It’s like a woman who manipulates her husband by speaking in a baby voice. The algorithm wants you reading; that you read enough to assert you have a working strategy means that you’ve been successfully manipulated.
Well that is true! But I guess maybe in a way any interaction could be manipulative in a way. I agree the algorithm is training me, that is for sure - but the benefit is it’s not whiplashing or stressing me. I am old enough I’m not very interested in being deeply informed about current events; I can see how trying to stay up to speed would inevitably expose you to a lot of grief and tragedy. That’s not helpful no matter how informed you are.
And when the legacy media is as fucked-up and biased as it is, if you want to be actually informed, you have little choice but to go the social media route.
My attempt to solve that conundrum is a big part of the final (probably) essay in the series, which I’m working on now.
I've been truly enjoying the careful and articulate manner you've taken in all of your writing, but particularly in this series. Really well done.
Have you considered that the “legacy media” might only seem messed up because you're trying to view it as something distinct? It’s like they’re using the same brand name, but the actual product has completely changed. Legacy media is now mainly the same click bait attention economy we see in social media.
I find it challenging to differentiate social media and legacy media – for me they have merged into the same label. The craziness for me comes not from what the legacy media has become per se, but in people’s unwillingness to see they’re being “pravda'ed” (this should be a verb!).
The result of legacy media morphing into social media has not been helpful for peaceful democracy in my opinion. People need shared goals to live together peacefully, so we need to figure this out.
My reaction to those tweets is pretty much the same as yours with one exception that is not worth going into.
Some of this is not actually all that new. When I was a preteen, we lived in a small city where the main radio station had a call-in show called, "Air Your Opinion." The idea was that people would call in and express their opinions on whatever they wanted. My Mom called the show, "Kill Your Neighbor," since a majority of the things callers wanted to talk about was faults in other people. My best friend called it, "Air Your Stupidity" because of the clear lack of intelligent content. Social media today strikes me as not very different, except that it now includes the names of the people expressing their not-very-well-considered ideas. And note that most of them seem to be hatred directed at people who disagree with them.
Of course, another big difference is that now you can respond to such inanity, and all too many people. I'm sure you've seen the cartoon of the man at a computer, telling his wife that he can't get off because "someone is wrong on the Internet." Sadly, too many people are like this.
The real question then, to my mind is, what can be done? Changing other people isn't happening, and social media just amplifies what people already are, so I'd say that the key is how to protect yourself. One thing that has taken me some time to learn is to type out a response to somebody's completely wrong comment - and then hit delete. Most people are not going to learn from you telling that how wrong they are, and all you'll do is aggravate yourself. Rational Ignorance is a reality. I sometimes forget to hit delete, but I'm getting better at it. Not everything I think is going to help.
Another problem, though, is probably the impact of the social isolation that many people feel, and which drives them to use social media as a substitute. I may be ridiculously optimistic, here, but I have seen communities where most people are and feel supported, and I think that such people are better able to handle such idiocies as not important to their lives, and easily ignored. I think that I live in one, but I'm not sure how easily such a things is replicated. I think that we used to have more of this half a century ago, but we've tossed out much good with the bad. I don't know of a magic formula to fix this.
The classic writers of Positive Thinking, such as Norman Vincent Peale, have all emphasized that you must be careful what thoughts and images are allowed into your psyche. Your brain can only process so much input, and, for the sake of your mental health, the majority of that input should be positive, inspiring, and life-affirming.
You can fixate on the endless suffering and injustice in the world, thinking about all the individual people who right NOW are dying, being tortured, being blown to bits. OR, you can think about all the joy going on in the world right NOW: happy couples celebrating the birth of their child, kittens playing sweetly together, upbeat kids graduating from high school, and people arriving home to tell their spouse that yes, I got the raise! BOTH of these fixations are “true” - there are billions of sad events happening today, and there are billions of happy ones. No one is forcing you to fixate on the devastating stuff. It’s truly not healthy for you to do that!
I’ve never been on social media - except Substack - and have no need for it. I don’t watch horror movies either, and for the same reasons. I don’t want to be tormented by disturbing images, and I don’t want to have my emotions manipulated into a depressing state. Really, you can just NOT inflict this stuff on you! Walk away. Read an inspiring book, watch a classic comedy, listen to music that makes you feel like grooving to the beat and happily dancing. There are so many BETTER things to do with your precious time on Earth than Twitter!
This series confirms my initial reluctance to get involved with so-called social media. Just reading through your list of tweets was depressing, disgusting and triggered the feeling of just scanning quickly to get it over with. I can't imagine having to deal with that every day, and I am glad I don't. A couple of news web sites is enough.
Anyone who thinks they’re not being manipulated by social media is either kidding themselves or a psychopath. I spent a lot of time on Twitter/X and it made me unbearable. (Well, more unbearable than I am normally.) The idea that a person could expose themselves to that type of abuse - and it’s definitely abuse - without either becoming low-key insane or dead inside is risible.
Michael Easter wrote at length in “Scarcity Brain” about how social media was engineered on the same principles as slot machines. It’s literally built to hijack your dopamine system. Brilliant and diabolical.
It’s excellent. My takeaway was that I have a little less free will than I thought.
Off topic: I re-subscribed because your stuff is brilliant. If I’d had a daughter, I’d have wanted her to be as resilient and clear-thinking as you. (Or a son, but you know what I mean.)
Reading through your Twitter/X experience, I couldn't help but notice that trolling through the Notes here on Substack is exactly the same. Animal videos - check. So and so should be (insert punishment here). Agree or disagree? And memes unending. This series should be required reading for parents. I would also recommend it for young adults, but it would probably be judged as tl;dr. Recognizing what is happening is impressive, but your analysis is amazing. You are one of a kind, and I mean that in the best possible way.
I’ve never used Twitter or Facebook, but just scrolling through your Mother’s Day ‘feed’ got me into shut down mode (my default through most of my life when overwhelmed). I know I’m ’supposed to’ feel some strong emotions for many of these tweets, but I resent having to experience problems that aren’t my own and that I can’t fix! I don’t think there’s much social about social media. Do we have to get this numbed to be able to acquiesce to AI relationships?
Holly, I really appreciate your very profound thoughts on what's happening under the surface of our social media illusions.
A community of actual humans to interact with in person is hard to find these days. I never had time to do any social media when my wife was alive both because she was enough to keep me occupied with all her manifold interests and because we were each other's best company. Work was the other place where I interacted with people in person, but then that has mostly gone away even before I retired. I have multiple good friends but most of them I met at work, and they all live dozens of miles away in all different directions. Young parents have been too frightened to let their children just play and make up their own games and are constantly busy shuttling between soccer, baseball, band practice or other organized age-stratified events, so there's no time for socialization with their adult friends.
I've been fortunate enough to find a church that is both tight-knit and not dysfunctional. It helps to deal with a group of real people who are dedicated to being the best that they can.
Yes. More in person time is something we all need. I was much happier and less stressed during a recent 30 hour visit to stay with @Josh Slocum than I have literally ever been during a 30 hour stint of being mostly online, and it wasn’t even a special occasion. Just normal everyday passing time with a high quality human.
Thank you for explaining exactly why XTwitter is not for me! I tried it for almost two years, hated it but couldn't stop. The best thing that ever happened was when I got suspended for being too far right in my opinions.
I cautiously came to Substack because I needed human interaction with someone other than my wife. (Just kidding, but only a little.) What I've sought out has been people who interest me. I found you because of you moniker, which reminded me of my wife. I began reading your work and damned if you didn't sound like her a little bit! I subscribed because you made me think and upgraded to founding because I read that the revenue here helps pay down your student loans. So you're stuck with me until you decide to run me off!
I subscribe to others because you recommend them (Josh Slocum, J. Daniel Sawyer) but mostly I stumble across a Note that I like and check out their feed. Perhaps I'm curating my own feed and creating my own algorithm. What I'm trying to say is that if one tries, he can trick the algorithm into feeding him what he wants on Substack.
I look forward to your next installment on this subject.
Thanks for everything you've written here. We aren't built to live like this, and we can't *continue* to live like this without continuing to damage and destroy the core of what makes us normal, emotionally/mentally healthy human beings. Because of that, I don't do much social media or Discord.
I avoid Twitter as much as possible, but when I run into paywalls and ads on every single news site I sort-of trust, I get frustrated and turn to Twitter to see what's going on in the world. I'm usually sorry afterwards. There's a traumatizing bloody sheet - whether literal or figurative - everywhere I look after about two minutes of exposure, and I use the word "exposure" intentionally. It's like radiation poisoning - whether fast or slow, it does its inexorable work.
I can write well, and I do have things to say, but I haven't created a Substack - because I'd get vicious responses just like everyone else here does. This would be painful, scary and disturbing long after I logged out for the day. Ugly interactions with anonymous strangers are nightmare territory for me.
So I just comment here and there, and if someone is weird, I can mute/block and continue engaging with the creator I support. This is probably cowardly, but I try to make up for it with courage offline.
This has to be one of my favourite analyses on the impact of social media on reasoning and emotional numbing. Love how you break down the progression toward numbing that makes me see myself so clearly and cringingly.
An excellent and necessary series for all of us to read and take seriously.
This is why I got off social media in general. I still have a Facebook profile, to keep in touch with relatives; but I try to go on as little as possible and interact as little as possible as I don't like to feed the algorithm. I particularly dislike our local community's group - it's useful for finding out things like what hours the dump is open or why there's a helicopter hovering over the high school; but I had to unfollow it years ago as it was making me hate my fellow residents. Like all social media groups, it is dominated by a small number of angry crackpots.
I was on twitter for about five minutes and immediately deleted my profile. It was like standing on a street corner listening to every crazy person in the world yelling their opinions.
Instagram was fun back when it was mostly photographers sharing beautiful photos; but at some point all the accounts I follow got drowned out by "sponsored posts" and "suggested for you" content that was either upsetting, annoying or enraging.
Yes. Instagram is just as bad as Twitter. I focus on Twitter because Twitter is where our government officials participate and it serves as the de facto editor of the NYT and other legacy media, but other platforms are just as bad.
I like Substack, and I used to like Facebook when I could actually use it to keep abreast of family and friends. But you make me happy I never got into Twitter.
Instagram and several other sites are just as bad; I pick on Twitter mostly because it serves as the de facto editor of the New York Times and other legacy media outlets, as well as being the place where people with real power (like Musk, Vance, and to a lesser extent Trump) engage, making it matter more.
Bad form, replying to myself. I do get tired of people, some of whom actually have the raw cognitive ability to think sensibly about the world, who get embroiled in the “JQ.” It’s hateful, but it’s also a brain-eating worm.
It’s far worse than I ever imagined it could have become, to the point that it makes any dark imagining about the future plausible.
If you look at crazy/nasty posts, the algorithm will feed you more of the same. I block ads and nasty/crazy ones and rarely “open” a tweet - I think that teaches the algorithm too. My Twitter feed is pretty calm and positive - you can train the algorithm. What crazy I let into my life is via free Substacks; I will read a crazy one if it’s interesting but don’t pay for mean/nasty ones; I do pay for quite a few “other side of the religious/political spectrum but have interesting/civil things to say” Substacks. I’m at the point where I have started unsubscribing - there are too many interesting writers out there. You can have a positive stream passing by your eyes but it’s a constant battle on Twitter to avoid the bad and teach it to fetch the good. I envision the algorithm as a big, basically good-natured but not too bright ogre - your hand needs to be on the reins all the time.
I understand why you think this, but you’re wrong if you think you’re not being manipulated. The algorithm isn’t like the humans who deposit the checks. You’re just in an algorithmic bucket on Twitter that keeps you reading via giving you things you perceive as “calm”. It’s like a woman who manipulates her husband by speaking in a baby voice. The algorithm wants you reading; that you read enough to assert you have a working strategy means that you’ve been successfully manipulated.
Well that is true! But I guess maybe in a way any interaction could be manipulative in a way. I agree the algorithm is training me, that is for sure - but the benefit is it’s not whiplashing or stressing me. I am old enough I’m not very interested in being deeply informed about current events; I can see how trying to stay up to speed would inevitably expose you to a lot of grief and tragedy. That’s not helpful no matter how informed you are.
And when the legacy media is as fucked-up and biased as it is, if you want to be actually informed, you have little choice but to go the social media route.
My attempt to solve that conundrum is a big part of the final (probably) essay in the series, which I’m working on now.
I've been truly enjoying the careful and articulate manner you've taken in all of your writing, but particularly in this series. Really well done.
Have you considered that the “legacy media” might only seem messed up because you're trying to view it as something distinct? It’s like they’re using the same brand name, but the actual product has completely changed. Legacy media is now mainly the same click bait attention economy we see in social media.
I find it challenging to differentiate social media and legacy media – for me they have merged into the same label. The craziness for me comes not from what the legacy media has become per se, but in people’s unwillingness to see they’re being “pravda'ed” (this should be a verb!).
The result of legacy media morphing into social media has not been helpful for peaceful democracy in my opinion. People need shared goals to live together peacefully, so we need to figure this out.
My reaction to those tweets is pretty much the same as yours with one exception that is not worth going into.
Some of this is not actually all that new. When I was a preteen, we lived in a small city where the main radio station had a call-in show called, "Air Your Opinion." The idea was that people would call in and express their opinions on whatever they wanted. My Mom called the show, "Kill Your Neighbor," since a majority of the things callers wanted to talk about was faults in other people. My best friend called it, "Air Your Stupidity" because of the clear lack of intelligent content. Social media today strikes me as not very different, except that it now includes the names of the people expressing their not-very-well-considered ideas. And note that most of them seem to be hatred directed at people who disagree with them.
Of course, another big difference is that now you can respond to such inanity, and all too many people. I'm sure you've seen the cartoon of the man at a computer, telling his wife that he can't get off because "someone is wrong on the Internet." Sadly, too many people are like this.
The real question then, to my mind is, what can be done? Changing other people isn't happening, and social media just amplifies what people already are, so I'd say that the key is how to protect yourself. One thing that has taken me some time to learn is to type out a response to somebody's completely wrong comment - and then hit delete. Most people are not going to learn from you telling that how wrong they are, and all you'll do is aggravate yourself. Rational Ignorance is a reality. I sometimes forget to hit delete, but I'm getting better at it. Not everything I think is going to help.
Another problem, though, is probably the impact of the social isolation that many people feel, and which drives them to use social media as a substitute. I may be ridiculously optimistic, here, but I have seen communities where most people are and feel supported, and I think that such people are better able to handle such idiocies as not important to their lives, and easily ignored. I think that I live in one, but I'm not sure how easily such a things is replicated. I think that we used to have more of this half a century ago, but we've tossed out much good with the bad. I don't know of a magic formula to fix this.
The classic writers of Positive Thinking, such as Norman Vincent Peale, have all emphasized that you must be careful what thoughts and images are allowed into your psyche. Your brain can only process so much input, and, for the sake of your mental health, the majority of that input should be positive, inspiring, and life-affirming.
You can fixate on the endless suffering and injustice in the world, thinking about all the individual people who right NOW are dying, being tortured, being blown to bits. OR, you can think about all the joy going on in the world right NOW: happy couples celebrating the birth of their child, kittens playing sweetly together, upbeat kids graduating from high school, and people arriving home to tell their spouse that yes, I got the raise! BOTH of these fixations are “true” - there are billions of sad events happening today, and there are billions of happy ones. No one is forcing you to fixate on the devastating stuff. It’s truly not healthy for you to do that!
I’ve never been on social media - except Substack - and have no need for it. I don’t watch horror movies either, and for the same reasons. I don’t want to be tormented by disturbing images, and I don’t want to have my emotions manipulated into a depressing state. Really, you can just NOT inflict this stuff on you! Walk away. Read an inspiring book, watch a classic comedy, listen to music that makes you feel like grooving to the beat and happily dancing. There are so many BETTER things to do with your precious time on Earth than Twitter!
This series confirms my initial reluctance to get involved with so-called social media. Just reading through your list of tweets was depressing, disgusting and triggered the feeling of just scanning quickly to get it over with. I can't imagine having to deal with that every day, and I am glad I don't. A couple of news web sites is enough.
Anyone who thinks they’re not being manipulated by social media is either kidding themselves or a psychopath. I spent a lot of time on Twitter/X and it made me unbearable. (Well, more unbearable than I am normally.) The idea that a person could expose themselves to that type of abuse - and it’s definitely abuse - without either becoming low-key insane or dead inside is risible.
Michael Easter wrote at length in “Scarcity Brain” about how social media was engineered on the same principles as slot machines. It’s literally built to hijack your dopamine system. Brilliant and diabolical.
YES!!! I loved his "The Comfort Crisis" and have ordered this one.
It’s excellent. My takeaway was that I have a little less free will than I thought.
Off topic: I re-subscribed because your stuff is brilliant. If I’d had a daughter, I’d have wanted her to be as resilient and clear-thinking as you. (Or a son, but you know what I mean.)
Reading through your Twitter/X experience, I couldn't help but notice that trolling through the Notes here on Substack is exactly the same. Animal videos - check. So and so should be (insert punishment here). Agree or disagree? And memes unending. This series should be required reading for parents. I would also recommend it for young adults, but it would probably be judged as tl;dr. Recognizing what is happening is impressive, but your analysis is amazing. You are one of a kind, and I mean that in the best possible way.
Yes. Notes is Twitter in slow motion. That’s all.
I’ve never used Twitter or Facebook, but just scrolling through your Mother’s Day ‘feed’ got me into shut down mode (my default through most of my life when overwhelmed). I know I’m ’supposed to’ feel some strong emotions for many of these tweets, but I resent having to experience problems that aren’t my own and that I can’t fix! I don’t think there’s much social about social media. Do we have to get this numbed to be able to acquiesce to AI relationships?
Thank you for enduring those harrowing tweets.
Holly, I really appreciate your very profound thoughts on what's happening under the surface of our social media illusions.
A community of actual humans to interact with in person is hard to find these days. I never had time to do any social media when my wife was alive both because she was enough to keep me occupied with all her manifold interests and because we were each other's best company. Work was the other place where I interacted with people in person, but then that has mostly gone away even before I retired. I have multiple good friends but most of them I met at work, and they all live dozens of miles away in all different directions. Young parents have been too frightened to let their children just play and make up their own games and are constantly busy shuttling between soccer, baseball, band practice or other organized age-stratified events, so there's no time for socialization with their adult friends.
I've been fortunate enough to find a church that is both tight-knit and not dysfunctional. It helps to deal with a group of real people who are dedicated to being the best that they can.
Yes. More in person time is something we all need. I was much happier and less stressed during a recent 30 hour visit to stay with @Josh Slocum than I have literally ever been during a 30 hour stint of being mostly online, and it wasn’t even a special occasion. Just normal everyday passing time with a high quality human.
I quit Twitter ~6 months ago, thinking I would miss it (because there are occasionally useful news updates). I haven’t missed it.
Good for you. And I'm not surprised.
Thank you for explaining exactly why XTwitter is not for me! I tried it for almost two years, hated it but couldn't stop. The best thing that ever happened was when I got suspended for being too far right in my opinions.
I cautiously came to Substack because I needed human interaction with someone other than my wife. (Just kidding, but only a little.) What I've sought out has been people who interest me. I found you because of you moniker, which reminded me of my wife. I began reading your work and damned if you didn't sound like her a little bit! I subscribed because you made me think and upgraded to founding because I read that the revenue here helps pay down your student loans. So you're stuck with me until you decide to run me off!
I subscribe to others because you recommend them (Josh Slocum, J. Daniel Sawyer) but mostly I stumble across a Note that I like and check out their feed. Perhaps I'm curating my own feed and creating my own algorithm. What I'm trying to say is that if one tries, he can trick the algorithm into feeding him what he wants on Substack.
I look forward to your next installment on this subject.
Thanks for everything you've written here. We aren't built to live like this, and we can't *continue* to live like this without continuing to damage and destroy the core of what makes us normal, emotionally/mentally healthy human beings. Because of that, I don't do much social media or Discord.
I avoid Twitter as much as possible, but when I run into paywalls and ads on every single news site I sort-of trust, I get frustrated and turn to Twitter to see what's going on in the world. I'm usually sorry afterwards. There's a traumatizing bloody sheet - whether literal or figurative - everywhere I look after about two minutes of exposure, and I use the word "exposure" intentionally. It's like radiation poisoning - whether fast or slow, it does its inexorable work.
I can write well, and I do have things to say, but I haven't created a Substack - because I'd get vicious responses just like everyone else here does. This would be painful, scary and disturbing long after I logged out for the day. Ugly interactions with anonymous strangers are nightmare territory for me.
So I just comment here and there, and if someone is weird, I can mute/block and continue engaging with the creator I support. This is probably cowardly, but I try to make up for it with courage offline.
Quit Facebook years ago.
On Twitter less than a year, mainly to follow link embedded in SubStacks I follow.
Still gets overwhelming at times, have to disconnect.
I appreciate this -- it's encouraging when people aren't like "NUH UH NOT ME!!!" Makes me think there's hope, LOL.
Very good.
For the person with autism, life is emotional whiplash.
I’m convinced this is why my subconscious mind developed Alexithymia.
This has to be one of my favourite analyses on the impact of social media on reasoning and emotional numbing. Love how you break down the progression toward numbing that makes me see myself so clearly and cringingly.
An excellent and necessary series for all of us to read and take seriously.
Thank you!!!
This is why I got off social media in general. I still have a Facebook profile, to keep in touch with relatives; but I try to go on as little as possible and interact as little as possible as I don't like to feed the algorithm. I particularly dislike our local community's group - it's useful for finding out things like what hours the dump is open or why there's a helicopter hovering over the high school; but I had to unfollow it years ago as it was making me hate my fellow residents. Like all social media groups, it is dominated by a small number of angry crackpots.
I was on twitter for about five minutes and immediately deleted my profile. It was like standing on a street corner listening to every crazy person in the world yelling their opinions.
Instagram was fun back when it was mostly photographers sharing beautiful photos; but at some point all the accounts I follow got drowned out by "sponsored posts" and "suggested for you" content that was either upsetting, annoying or enraging.
Yes. Instagram is just as bad as Twitter. I focus on Twitter because Twitter is where our government officials participate and it serves as the de facto editor of the NYT and other legacy media, but other platforms are just as bad.