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Comment by LargoLasskhyfv | Hacker News Reader

Nobody needs social media. It's a fad. There were times without it. While we didn't live in caves. Now the smombies don't even see the shadows on the wall, because they are in another thrall. Both aren't needed. Maybe a solar-storm will reset that shit. Maybe something else. One way or another, I don't bother.

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That people will spend more time online is a pretty safe bet in my eyes. From there it follows people will want to communicate. There's no future without some form of social networks. You're commenting in one right now.

It's not a fad, it's the commercialization of gossip, one of humanity's oldest communication networks. It is here to stay, and it has been weaponized.

Isn’t it a democratisation of communication? I mean before social media the friction between you and your soapbox was much bigger.

You could say one follows the other on a large enough scale.

Actually, no, not at all, and the creation of the phrase claiming social media to be a democratization of communication is wonderfully crafted manipulation. It is the opposite, it is gossip, as in the first false negative is free and any counter truth is expensive to the point of being impossible. It is the perfect communications medium for a powerful subculture to render the rest of culture babbling idiots. Which is what we have today. The "news" reports on emotional fronts, and the factual information of civilization's operations are opaque beyond a stock value. The "news" is truly talking heads, not actually giving actionable information, unless that action is a paralysis of fear. We have a plethora of tyrannical fiefdoms - the corporations the majority of humans are employed and maintained on stagnant wages rendering them 1-2 paychecks away from total loss of their accumulated wealth. The civilization is a farce, cruel, and immature to the point of insanity.

As fads go it sure is long term and widely adopted. Thus I don’t think it is fad in the normal sense of the word.

I don’t think the widespread adoption - or lack thereof - is a good indicator for being a fad or not being one. That being said, I don’t think social media is one.

However, the original commenter is right by saying that social media is far from being a necessity.

Generally I also understand the increasingly negative sentiment towards social media and the assumption that it does far more harm than it does good doesn’t seem far fetched anymore

> However, the original commenter is right by saying that social media is far from being a necessity.

We need something to allow people to organize around friends/topics/places and discover ideas, share, make sense of the world, act, etc. Reddit, Facebook, and twitter served those needs. I prefer social media over traditional newspapers that are very top down.

Smaller forums and chat servers did that just fine prior to Google shoving them to page 500+ them in favor of the government created platforms and unified narratives. [1]

[1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3Xxi0b9trY [video][documentary][44 mins]

In a sense, nothing beyond food, water and basic shelter is a necessity. Humans of the same species certainly lived somehow without whatever tech we can think of, including fire and clothing.

That said, I deleted my FB and TW/X account and while I don't miss their toxicity, I am more isolated than ever. I noticed that even for older people, their willingness to meet in person has gone down and their ability to reply to e-mails, including purely coordinational ones, is seriously shot.

You may be right, but in that case Europe sorely needs legislation to wind down the use of social media by governments for communicating towards citizens.

Usenet and Dove/FidoNet still work and you can access them over NNTP.

Slow paced, much less drama, intelligent discussions. And you can get all your threaded chats offline.

> Usenet and Dove/FidoNet still work and you can access them over NNTP

Great for nerds but not going to solve society’s larger scale needs.

Put a simplified and unified UI in front of Usenet with RGB LED's and put it on everyone's refrigerator, car infotainment accident distraction panel, smart watch, smart toilet. Have Carls Jr. fund it. Implement text-to-speech and speech-to-text. Talk to all your family and friends over Usenet via the smart watch, toilet, etc... What devices did I miss?

WhatsApp is social media. That’s one of my main channels of coordination.

They commented, on a social media platform...

I mean, honestly, if we're ever going to figure out what parts of these platforms are beneficial and which are harmful, we really need to start being more specific about what we're talking about.

And I hardly think you can call something as long-lived as social media of any form a 'fad'

I think the worst part about social media is the model for monetization and the incentives it creates

Certainly, but this can be said of quite literally any business endeavor - but I don't see people getting up in arms about other types of business in such an abstract sense - there aren't large groups of people calling for us to ban video games entirely [0], but we do advocate for, at the least, mitigating harmful practices such as loot boxes.

0 - Yes, some people do, but I think we can agree it's not nearly as popular a view as those pushing against 'social media'

Web forums are not social media, but I can see how they might be confused.

HN is more link aggregator / web forum than what the term social media has come to represent. I will grant you that the term 'social media' literally could cover any media that is social, but that's not historically how it has been applied.

Here there is no algorithmic bubble curated by engagement algorithm. Any attention is managed by the human brain, which is way healthier for the individual as they aren't being manuipulated into addictive engagement and groups as it tends less to form highly refined group think bubbles.

He's right, social media is the a big cause of the current unrest, not something that must be saved.

I would agree that communication platforms should probably not be open to spying or manipulation, but end-to-end encryption goes a long way there. The remaining problem is access being turned off, which can be solved by not relying on government controlled infrastructure (like electricity grid, networks, etc.).

So the person is right. The answer isn't a new site, it is more in person comms as redundancy.

How do you define social media? The use of algorithms to drive engagement? HN does use algorithms, though, such as upvotes/downvotes/flags influencing which stories/comments are seen more, and then there's the second chance pool. These algorithms may be more basic than those of, say, Facebook, but they are there. So what's the difference?

The ability to 'follow', having 'followers', thereby creating feeds and incentives.

Incentives for what, exactly? Have more followers, which by itself only makes one feel good through validation of others? Validation other platforms that don't have followers still manage to achieve?

Well firstly, the term 'social media' is so broad and fluid that I don't blame people for having differing ideas about it.

That said, my definition of social media is based on what is has become in recent history: 'internet-based surveillance-driven attention market'. It is a platform that divvies up users by demographics (determined by multiple forms of surveillance) and sells access to their eyes/brains. Because payment is tied to those eyes, there is an implied incentive to maximize 'engagement' (the number of times those eyes look at something).

That is not at all how I'd describe Hackernews, a link aggregation site (like Reddit), or a web forum (where people can talk to each other), despite social media platforms having all of those sort of abilities.

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