Cruelty and outrage became commodities.
When did the Internet come to reflect society? Or has society shaped the internet? Were we always distrusting mean and vindictive before the net? Are we really that bad?
Submitted 1 day ago by Patnou@lemmy.world to [deleted]
Comments
godsammitdam@lemmy.zip 7 hours ago
truthfultemporarily@feddit.org 1 day ago
It’s a small vocal minority of people being mean on the internet.
robocall@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It seems like it’s also a small vocal minority of people being mean IRL.
lordnikon@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
The moment journalists started just reporting social media posts as news was the downfall. The internet has never reflected reality but journalists being lazy or news corps being greedy spent years convincing everyone that it was.
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 1 day ago
The Internet can only be what people make it. It has no goals or motives.
Yes, we are that bad, and we’ve been MUCH worse prior to the creation of the Internet.
OhForPetesSake@piefed.social 1 day ago
Yes, and with the internet we are now much more aware of the awful things that people do.
cerebralhawks@lemmy.dbzer0.com 23 hours ago
I think people were always mean online. But not everyone.
At one point, I was too. It didn’t last long because I had compassion and empathy and it just wasn’t that fun.
Then I easily reacted to vitriol and was easy to manipulate.
These days, I get mean replies or DMs and I just go “huh, okay” and then continue about my day. Stoicism. It may not do anything, but hey, I feel less bad about hate mail.
Rhynoplaz@lemmy.world 22 hours ago
Huh. I wonder if this is a thing.
The phases of Internet use:
- Innocence: I have the world’s knowledge at my fingertips!
- Troll: I’m bored, I’m going to fuck with people.
- Defender: Don’t feed the trolls! This is sealioning!
- Stoic: Whatever.
dragonlover@lemmy.zip 16 hours ago
A phenomenon I’ve seen that’s rather interesting is I moved from the US to Spain, and everyone here is friendly and far more trusting and kind to random strangers than the US ever was. My suspicion and anxiety around strangers has dropped significantly.
The number of random conversations I get into is much higher, people take an active interest in small talk even when standing in line, I’ve had more people randomly approach me to ask for help, and the idea of someone hurting you physically is an alien concept.
If you’re from the US, I think the US is just cooked man. Spanish internet, at least from what I’ve been able to find, is also more civil, even in places talking politics. Now maybe I’m not in the myriad of WhatsApp groups where people are actually getting I to it, but the public facing side of things is far more civil, and I rarely see Spaniards in mainstream socials like reddit and whatnot. The joke I’ve heard is that Spain “hasn’t really gotten on board with the internet yet”.
I think that the modern internet is fed by a social media stream that incentivises devisiveness. Engagement is higher on negative posts, and engagement drives the algorithm. I’ve long been against algorithms feeding you content because those algorithms are slanted to keep you engaged longer, which means showing you content that will upset you, then calming you down with kitten photos until you’re ready to get into another fight.
So to answer your question, I don’t think it’s a chicken and egg problem, I think it’s a problem with amplification. I think the English speaking internet has long been US centric (or at least caters to the US unfairly) and the US has bred a suspicious and anxiety ridden society. Then corporations came along and figured out just how much gas to put on that fire to squeeze money out of people through social media to take control of what was once a free space of creativity and turn it into an engagement farm, where art and conservation has been converted to “content” and distressing news and devisive conversation has become tools to keep you invested in your feed long enough for them to build a consumer profile on you to ship you targetted ads on Amazon. This in turn amplifies the suspicion and fear already inherent in the meatspace sphere, which feeds the online polarization.
When you stop either one - either unplugging or entering a calm and connected IRL space (like I did) you break the amplification, and the anxiety stops. This is why “internet detox” is a thing people try to do.
The internet in its current form is addictive, and like a parasite corporations have learned exactly how much they can take from you and not kill you. It wants to keep you engaged and scared, but it is also exploiting societal issues that were already present to begin with.
Anonymous_Leaker@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
More people can comment now, also there are bots that I always talk about. They are programmed with a certain agenda. Like to comment horrible things so people respond to them.
Kolanaki@pawb.social 23 hours ago
The early days were filled with mostly snarky tech nerds, so it could be mean if you were a noob. A tradition that lives on today.
EffortlessGrace@piefed.social 1 day ago
When did the Internet come to reflect society?
When it became ubiquitous. 1995.
Were we always distrusting mean and vindictive before the net?
Absolutely.
Are we really that bad?
Without a doubt.
“The world is far better and worse than you can possibly imagine.”
“You may have me at ‘better’, Dr. Sattler, but you can’t hold a candle to me on ‘worse’.”
- *Contact*, Carl Sagan
SuiXi3D@fedia.io 21 hours ago
There’s a layer of separation online that doesn’t exist elsewhere. As a result people let their thoughts flow more freely, without as much of a (or any) filter.
schnurrito@discuss.tchncs.de 16 hours ago
Before smartphones, the Internet was a self-selecting space because the only people regularly posting on it were the kinds of people who consciously chose it as a hobby.
Now that anyone can access it anywhere they go and it’s easy enough for people with zero technical capabilities, it reflects society as a whole a lot more.
I find that sad because I was one of the people who self-selected into it before smartphones. I always hoped that if more people were using the Internet, society would become more similar to (my experiences on) the Internet, and not (as actually turned out) the other way round.
DigDoug@lemmy.world 1 day ago
It’s been going on a long time. Penny Arcade coined the Greater Internet Fuckwad Theory in 2004.
SomeAmateur@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
I think it’s a lack of consequences. If you stood in your town center and said something dumb, people would call you out and shame you for it. It would change your reputation too, at least for a while. If it was really that off the rails you could get arrested or beat up, and you may never want to show your face there again.
Having a global communication system is amazing. Some guy I never met can show me how to fix my house or see things from a different point of view.
BUT there are way more people that are willing to say something dumb, not only in their local chats and posts, but everyone else’s. There can be public ridicule, but there is little chance that someone will find you and kick your ass. Not only that there isn’t really a way for victims to walk away either, which makes cyberbullying so unrelenting.
robocall@lemmy.world 1 day ago
People want to go to the town square (or internet forum) to present their case, but they refuse to engage in challenging their own position to improve it or change it.
There seems to be an emotional connection to opinions, that result in people ignoring or deflecting from direct evidence that challenges it.
Patnou@lemmy.world 1 day ago
But why aren’t we like our forefather’s both of them. The founders of a country and the founders of new tech? Would it really be that bad if the net got together and built something in the real world besides doing everything for money or likes or upvotes or karma? I am from the DOS days and dialup so I may be biased, but it’s almost like we forgot stuff the can be tangible, can be held, and loved…now we get enjoyment out of harassing others or putting them down but in the real world they would never do it in the middle of a wal-mart or in school or college…is there even a saving grace for the net besides porn?
kobra@lemmy.zip 1 day ago
I think it’s a lack of consequences. If you stood in your town center and said something dumb, people would call you out and shame you for it. It would change your reputation too, at least for a while.
that used to be true, but I’m not so sure it is anymore.
CallMeAl@piefed.world 1 day ago
I think we turned a corner in 2014-2015.
That’s when Facebook really started embracing making people angry on purpose to keep them engaged. We aren’t just that bad, some of the most used social networks have been actively bringing out the worst in us for over a decade now.