Reflecting on the contradictions of modern social media, isolation, and America.

Being someone that spent much of my childhood in the early 2000s to 2010s, I really got to see the rise of social media in American society/culture. It's something that a lot of younger people missed-out on, because it's the type of thing that has always existed for them. But back in my childhood, the notion of instant-messaging was still crazy. Keeping in contact with a friend after you moved states? That's incredible! It was truly a grand development.

And I'd like to think that these early iterations of social media had done a great job at connecting people. People in rural areas, who felt isolated due to their real-world surroundings, had a place to see thoughts from others, all in their own home. It's an incredible thing that still wows me, and it's something that I benefit from daily due to my real-world isolation.

As much as that providing of community to isolated-people still exists, modern social media has other externalities and problems that old social media didn't. The algorithms, for one, had some of the worst effects of promoting things based on "engagement." Which was a death spiral for any content that was not immediately stimulating. When Americans seem to be getting "dumber and dumber" this algorithmically-provided content was exponentially worsening that.

Some people's solution to this is either "ban social media" or "withdraw from it entirely," and that's not something that I can agree with. It's provided support to plenty of lonely people, LGBTQIA+ people who live in rural areas, and connected genuine people across the globe. It's had plenty of positive effects. It's the modern, more irresponsible, iterations of social media that have had these consequences. You can't point to MySpace as something that "ruined the youth" or "was a threat to national security."

I propose that there is simply more responsible social media to use. Social media that does not deliver content via algorithms, or at least allows you to ignore the algorithm. Obviously, you're reading this on SpaceHey, so you know this site exists. BlueSky is another social media site that I believe is more responsible in it's existence, but it's definitely more modern and still has an algorithm in the (albeit disable-able) "Discover" page.