This headline is making us dumber, though. The story is actually, "selective editing by Neo-Nazi propagandists, amplified by an army of social media activists, convinced a gullible or, who knows, possibly complicit left-wing journalist, that Pinker is a darling of the alt-right." We have no data on how far this spread, who else was fooled, etc. A vastly overstated and under-examined bit of critique about a vitally important question. Social media is an amplifier of social ills, not the thing that's making us dumber.
Now, that's all part of the same dynamic that happens in social -- the headline is optimized as click bait, because click bait is share bait, and the economics of modern journalism dictate that this is how you get readers and therefore impressions and therefore advertising pennies.
But the article and how it summarizes the story, even in the preview on this platform, makes the case that Social Media is making us dumber. It's Exhibit A. Maybe that was the ironic intent of the headline, but, having been a copy editor, I really, really doubt it.
The pernicious social dynamics of these online spaces hammer home the idea that anyone who disagrees with you on any controversial subject, even a little bit, is incorrigibly dumb or evil or suspect. On a wide and expanding range of issues, there’s no such thing as good-faith disagreement.
It’s getting harder and harder to talk about anything controversial online without every single utterance of an opinion immediately being caricatured by opportunistic outrage-mongers, at which point everyone, afraid to be caught exposed in the skirmish that’s about to break out, rushes for the safety of their ideological battlements, where they can safely scream out their righteousness in unison.
...the world needs reallyread.it.... you can change the course of social media... it's ripe for change.
thanks!
This headline is making us dumber, though. The story is actually, "selective editing by Neo-Nazi propagandists, amplified by an army of social media activists, convinced a gullible or, who knows, possibly complicit left-wing journalist, that Pinker is a darling of the alt-right." We have no data on how far this spread, who else was fooled, etc. A vastly overstated and under-examined bit of critique about a vitally important question. Social media is an amplifier of social ills, not the thing that's making us dumber.
Now, that's all part of the same dynamic that happens in social -- the headline is optimized as click bait, because click bait is share bait, and the economics of modern journalism dictate that this is how you get readers and therefore impressions and therefore advertising pennies.
But the article and how it summarizes the story, even in the preview on this platform, makes the case that Social Media is making us dumber. It's Exhibit A. Maybe that was the ironic intent of the headline, but, having been a copy editor, I really, really doubt it.
Wow. Upvote @morepete! Well said!!
Two great truth bombs:
Yeah i think it's end times. Definitely there's no hope. Unless reallyread.it can be installed on every computer across the world.