posted 8 hours ago #
Cal Newport posted this short article on
Saving Civil Society in the wake of the most recent gun violence activity and I gotta tell you, it's the most concise and good insight I've seen in some time. It will take you 2 minutes to read the entire piece but I'm still going to extract my favorite bit here to preserve it:
We know these [social media] platforms are bad for us, so why are they still so widely used? They tell a compelling story: that all of your frantic tapping and swiping makes you a key part of a political revolution, or a fearless investigator, or a righteous protestor – that when you’re online, you’re someone important, doing important things during an important time.
But this, for the most part, is an illusion. In reality, you’re toiling anonymously in an attention factory, while billionaire overseers mock your efforts and celebrate their growing net worths.
After troubling national events, there’s often a public conversation about the appropriate way to respond. Here’s one option to consider: Quit using these social platforms. Find other ways to keep up with the news, or spread ideas, or be entertained. Be a responsible grown-up who does useful things; someone who serves real people in the real world.
To save civil society, we need to end our decade-long experiment with global social platforms. We tried them. They became dark and awful. It’s time to move on.
A simple bit of advice that I think, deep down, we all know we should heed. I don't think I could quit using them completely but I can say, without hesitation, that X and Threads are bad for
me. I quit X some time ago and I think it's time to pull the plug on Threads.
