BEYOND A CERTAIN POINT, MORE CONNECTION DOESN’T BRING PEOPLE TOGETHER, IT PUSHES THEM APART
At the beginning of the decade, we were still awash in the idealistic visions of Zuckerbergism — that making the world more connected was an inherently Good Thing. That through technology, we could bring people together, to help them become more tolerant of their differences, that we’d all unite as a species under one great unified banner of funny memes.
On the balance, connecting the world is probably net-positive. But in our heady idealism, we lost track of the potential costs and side effects. The decade started with the excitement of democratic movements arising in the most unlikely places around the world—and it ended with decidedly anti-democratic movements also showing up in some of the most unlikely places around the world… And social media somehow managed to be the lifeblood of both of them.
Sadly, it seems that the more people became aware of all the different points of view in the world, the more they wished those alternative views didn’t exist. This odd rise of intolerance towards opposing views has spread all across the world and across the political spectrum. No one seems to be immune.
We enter the 2020s with an ambivalent relationship with social media and the flood of information. Whereas I think we began the decade with irrational optimism about our new technology, we are closing the decade with an irrational pessimism about it. The data that social media causes anxiety and depression is weak, at best.2 Research shows that fake news is losing its influence and people are smartening up about what they’re reading.3 Despite the apparent dumbing down of the population, we’re actually reading more books than ever before.4
Historically, the introduction of any new form of media causes a lot of disruption in the social order. This has usually led to bloody, protracted wars. But today, for all of the millions of angry tweets, nothing catastrophic has happened.5
I am optimistic for the simple reason that social media allows us to become aware of the effects of its own use in real time. Back in the day, we didn’t realize how badly the Nazis and communists were abusing radio until they had murdered a couple million people. Today, the second anyone does anything remotely wrong, half the planet already knows about it.
And while this constant judgment may be infuriating and create more day-to-day stress and frustration, it is probably more self-corrective than previous forms of media, and therefore good for the world in the long-run. The trick is that each one of us has to learn to manage our relationship with it.