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  1. Alexa RohnAlexa Rohn5/19/209 min
    33 reads9 comments
    9.6
    Alexa Rohn
    33 reads
    9.6
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    • Florian3 years ago

      Excellent insights, Alexa!

      This is the key challenge in my eyes:

      Just looking for information online to learn a new skill or answer a burning question is messed up. How many pieces of sponsored content should I have to sift through to get to something that will actually help answer my question?

      • Alexa3 years agoWriter

        omg right, was it always this bad? I've been wondering if our desire to monetize has hurt some of the quality of online content. A ton of people in early blogging wrote and shared knowledge because of the novelty and it was fun, and now it's often linked to some marketing funnel or click-baity stuff. I rely on books at this point, maybe Encyclopedia Britannica will make a comeback haha (doubtful).

    • Catherineli3 years ago

      It's astonishing that so many people just see everything as a conspiracy and that so many believe the earth is flat...Maybe some result from the lack of basic scientific knowledge and other are a matter of political standpoint. Either way, people are getting more comfortable in their cacoons and more hostile to different views. Maybe we as human beings are just not so evolved or educated for this information overload age. It will surely leads to a bleak future.

      • Alexa3 years agoWriter

        Maybe some result from the lack of basic scientific knowledge and other are a matter of political standpoint.

        It's definitely mind-blowing. I had an interesting talk about the other half of that equation (the ones that aren't just falling prey to bad info online). Some of the allure of conspiracy theories is the story those theorists tell themselves about their identity and their "outsider" status. It's not just about believing, it's about being the kind of person who's such an iconoclast that they go against the herd mentality in their beliefs.

        It's why people who believe in one theory are more likely to believe in another, even if they contradict each other. Misinformation, conspiracies...all sorts of stuff going on there. So probably a bit of both.

    • gmclean3 years ago

      The truth is out there, solve a way to surface it and... likely drowned out by all the noise anyway? Ugh. Disconcerting and disheartening, no wonder I spend less and less time on social media.

    • MonkeyMatt3 years ago

      It sure feels like we are entering (or already in) a digital dark age.

      With curation based on engagement rather than quality we are always going to get too much crap content. When liking a meme and liking a long researched article carry the same weight of course the memes will take over, it's so much quicker to engage with them which means they get more engagement. And when a like from conspiracy theorist Bob carries the same weight as a like from research professor Joe it's easy to see how false news get's spread so quickly (also the reason I'm wary or democracies but that's a rant for another day). I like to think ReadUp is heading in the right direction for the too much crap problem (although it's still a long way off from my limited experience with it so far), but I don't know what we do about the general too much content problem.

      Of course there is also the problem of monetisation which has lead to so many digital dark age features such as click bait and bot accounts. Unfortunately it's monetisation that seems to be the main barrier to solving a lot of digital dark age problems

      • Catherineli3 years ago

        Yeah because if you cater to human nature you make money more easily. By human nature I mean the preference of "personalization and familiarity". Thus fewer business would volunteerly go against the trend. We need more consumers who are aware of this dark age crisis to allow space for platforms like Readup.

    • pandemia3 years ago

      The next innovation we need online isn’t another social platform that will put us in lonely boxes with self-centered newsfeeds that reinforce our insecurities & desires

    • deephdave
      Top reader this weekTop reader of all timeScoutScribe
      3 years ago

      Someone not putting their creative energy out in the world because they’re too busy brainlessly scrolling is textbook digital dark ages behavior.