The Blindness of Social Wealth

[asherwebb]

There certainly is a crisis that social media and greedy online platforms (greedy for your time and ad dollars) prey upon. And yes the breakdown of social relationships with family, community and neighbors is certainly a big part of this. But consider historical factors in the USA. The breakdown of church - this was the de facto center of many communities for generations up until the post-vietnam era and the culture wars that have ensued. Combine this with the loss of farms - from more than 6 million in 1935 to roughly 2 million in 2012 - farms have gotten bigger. When agriculture dominated the rural economy having closer knit ties with neighbors was not so much a choice but a necessity. Also we are a country that embraced the idea of moving - be it from the city to the suburbs or the American South to the industrial American north. We have not done a very good job replacing those connections and it is breeding an epidemic of loneliness and addiction - not only to digital media but also to opiates. There is not an easy fix of course but folks should certainly consider the intrinsic value of these things before they decide to write off their family or community because of a difference of opinion or worldview. And another factor is that capital is increasingly accumulated at the top percent or 1/10th percent of earners. The folks in the middle and lower class find they have to work more to have a quality life than they did a generation or two ago. We are so busy working and driving to work and running our kids around that we barely have any time for friends and that is truly a shame.

[rdiddly]

You touch on an important factor: land-use and transportation policy. The lack of "walkability" in the typical suburban neighborhood is certainly not helping. I don't mean the ability to go out and take a walk for the exercise, I mean being in a place where walking is the best way to get to useful places and do things... the grocery, the doctor, the hardware store, and ideally, your job. Dense cities have this, to some degree. Rural areas don't, but they usually have a small town nearby with a main street (if Walmart hasn't decimated it). But in the suburbs you're generally inside a car to get anywhere at all, and how much incidental, accidental contact are you going to have with your neighbors from behind a glass pane at 25 MPH?

[FooHentai]

Thank you. Your post is dense with points that have been troubling me for some years.

These issues aren't limited to the USA, either. I've experienced them in several other countries.

[Terr_]

Right -- Fads and technological gadgetry aren't necessarily the root cause, as much as a (maladaptive?) kind of treatment for the symptoms.

[thisisit]

There is a growing culture of reaction videos on YT. People watch other people watching and reacting to stuff. That never sat well with me. And I always wondered - are people so alone or insecure that they need to watch other people's "reaction" to feel better? Given the rise of reaction channels on YT, I guess the answer is resounding - Yes.

[WhompingWindows]

I don't think it's about insecurity. I think it's that YT is usually consumed alone, and having someone with whom to share a reaction enhances the experience. For me, it's about emotional contagion: if others are laughing, you're going to laugh more, too. So, pile on top of this a charismatic personality that attracts people, and its entirely sensible you have commentators/reactors to video game streams or live streams, rather than just the base content which is devoid of social experience.

[jotux]

This isn't really new, right? Laugh tracks and live audiences have been used in radio/tv since the 50s for the same purpose.

[tdb7893]

People are naturally social and people's reactions can be interesting and fun. I don't watch reaction videos but I know at least that my friends are really funny when reacting to things in person so it's unsurprising that an Internet personality can be also.

[psyc]

Yes, a lot of people are insecure. They need people to agree with them, and feel like them. Validate them. They need to see people the same gender, color, size and shape as them do things.

[ghostbrainalpha]

I often wonder if "Kermit The Frog reacts to 2 Girls 1 Cup" was the sole reason reaction videos became a trend. I guess the answer is resounding - Yes.

[hrktb]

I don’t know for most viewers, but I assume the bread and butter of these videos is to see reactions of people you don’t get to see otherwise.

For instance a kid watching a Charlie Chaplin movie for the first time, a US veteran play Doki Doki Litterature Club, or an indian gramma watching Baby Driver. It shouldn’t be predictible nor relate to you in particular.

[majani]

Don't forget the reaction of the reaction video.

[CmdrKrool]

This article makes some decent points but it's a shame that it had to be weakly and opprobriously framed as a kind of 'wealth' struggle. As the article itself says, "the tribes have become weaponized", I guess.

[evanwise]

It's interesting and rather revealing that your first reaction to a critique which draws an analogy to material wealth is to defensively frame it as nasty or distasteful.

[abnry]

"It’s that Facebook and other social media companies are feeding this epidemic of loneliness and social isolation."

This is less about Facebook and more about people on the internet.

[quxbar]

Yeah, I was socially isolating myself online WAY before facebook!

[malvosenior]

"I was really struck by this last week, when Mark Zuckerberg came through Washington. Most of the questions he faced at the congressional hearings and most of the analysis in the press were about Facebook’s failure to protect privacy. That’s the sort of thing that may be uppermost on your mind if you are socially wealthy, if, like most successful politicians and analysts, you live within a thick web of connection and feel as if your social schedule is too full."

Or you know, because they were there to discuss privacy and not try to regulate away loneliness, which obviously isn't the role of the government anyway.

[chongli]

If it's not the role of government to solve problems that are tearing apart the fabric of society, then whose role is it? Who is going to do it? Maybe no one. Maybe we're all screwed.

[rifung]

Why isn't it the role of the government to prevent loneliness if it's a serious issue? How is it any different from preventing disease?

[pwaivers]

"In America today you would say that the clans have polarized, the villages have been decimated and the tribes have become weaponized."

This is an interesting statement, but doesn't really have any facts backing it.

[WhompingWindows]

I agree that the article is oddly bifurcated. It starts with numerous statistics listed out in a laundry-list fashion. Then it proceeds into unfounded speculation with no statistical backing. The traditional and more effective argumentative approach is to make a Claim, then provide Evidence to support it, and Reasoning to tie them together logically. Here, the author starts with heaps of evidence, then moves into unrelated claims/reasoning. Lack luster writing, which I have come to expect from David Brooks, a writer who is so out of touch with the currents of mainstream America that he is forced to be some strawman Republican writing on a left-leaning NYC newspaper who few from either side agree with.

Time to replace him with a more skillful and adept opinion columnist.

[seem_2211]

In modern Western culture we've killed God and I think we're learning what the consequences of that mean.

[remir]

People left the church because it was stuck in a obsolete understanding of the world and did not offer people satisfactory answers to their questions.

Past a certain point, if a religion wants to survive, it must renew itself, otherwise it risks becoming irrelevant.

I bet there would be more people in church if the pastor said: hey, forget about the Bible, forget about the angry, prideful and violent "man in the sky" of the old testament. Forget about the old laws. Forget about the Pope.

Instead, go within. You don't even have to pray or bow down to anybody. Just be silent and still your mind. Jesus told us that the "kingdom of heaven" is within us, so that's what we going to explore today. And if you don't believe in Jesus, then that's cool, too. Let's go beyond beliefs and dogma and simply connect with ourselves and be present in the moment.

[velp]

Source connecting the two? I think most here would argue the the decline in magical thinking (at least as it influences policy and society on the whole) is a good thing

[trgv]

> Weak social connections have health effects similar to smoking 15 cigarettes a day

Uh huh

[ranie93]

So when the youtube comments say that the video gave them cancer, they aren't exaggerating!

[marikio]

Wrote an article about addressing this just days ago... https://medium.com/@marikhazan/should-tech-have-nutrition-fa...

[bsder]

I wonder if there are any lessons to be learned from other times and places.

"Cry, the Beloved Country" seems to spring to mind ...

[dang]

Maybe so, but could you please stop posting unsubstantive comments to HN?

The site guidelines ask you a bunch of things in this department—here's one: "Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something."

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html