Projected Polarization: what we really know about Facebook, Twitter and media
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Algorithms. Machine learning. Best practices. Time-saving criteria. Niche. Audience. Reactions. Bubble, segregation, inequality, learning gaps. Priorities. Age. Mental health. Interests and relationships. When we think about social media, we most certainly avoid the word, unless we’re talking to kids. If they’re teenagers, you’ll want to be more specific. They don’t have to understand. But they make use of platforms that shape their whole idea of what the world thinks, what people feel, what they should expect from society. What they can give. How much. And when it comes to algorithms, it may look like they’re not thinking too hard – but are we? How do you separate these generations of readers, or rather, content consumers, from young people who just don’t know better? Should we separate them after all? Do they actually know better and we’re out here having useless discussions? All of these themes deserve our attention. But I just mentioned one of them: the thing that recommends you more of the same. I could say it’s a progression. They recommend you more of the same, because you indicated that’s what you like. Software makes a register. But that’s already a set of things: likes, comments, shares. There’s policy about that. And there are things we came to understand as a spectrum of the unachievable: nobody can learn everything about anything. The old talk of attention span reduction. Sometimes, one sentence says it all. It’s all you need to hear in order to feel seen. And then you reproduce it. You paraphrase it. People react, but in your inner circle, not outside of it. The content you see is part of your knowledge, but that’s very debatable. And you have to go through some filters you created for yourself. These may include age. Maybe you know how difficult it is to talk about lifestyle with a 60 year old, but we’ve known this all our lives. Except their struggles become our own. And we forget about why we came to the internet in the first place. We put family first, we put socially acceptable first, without realizing the convenient and the standard are problematic, or maybe we’ve been failing to do something about it.
Projected Polarization: what we really know about Facebook, Twitter and media
Projected Polarization: what we really know…
Projected Polarization: what we really know about Facebook, Twitter and media
Algorithms. Machine learning. Best practices. Time-saving criteria. Niche. Audience. Reactions. Bubble, segregation, inequality, learning gaps. Priorities. Age. Mental health. Interests and relationships. When we think about social media, we most certainly avoid the word, unless we’re talking to kids. If they’re teenagers, you’ll want to be more specific. They don’t have to understand. But they make use of platforms that shape their whole idea of what the world thinks, what people feel, what they should expect from society. What they can give. How much. And when it comes to algorithms, it may look like they’re not thinking too hard – but are we? How do you separate these generations of readers, or rather, content consumers, from young people who just don’t know better? Should we separate them after all? Do they actually know better and we’re out here having useless discussions? All of these themes deserve our attention. But I just mentioned one of them: the thing that recommends you more of the same. I could say it’s a progression. They recommend you more of the same, because you indicated that’s what you like. Software makes a register. But that’s already a set of things: likes, comments, shares. There’s policy about that. And there are things we came to understand as a spectrum of the unachievable: nobody can learn everything about anything. The old talk of attention span reduction. Sometimes, one sentence says it all. It’s all you need to hear in order to feel seen. And then you reproduce it. You paraphrase it. People react, but in your inner circle, not outside of it. The content you see is part of your knowledge, but that’s very debatable. And you have to go through some filters you created for yourself. These may include age. Maybe you know how difficult it is to talk about lifestyle with a 60 year old, but we’ve known this all our lives. Except their struggles become our own. And we forget about why we came to the internet in the first place. We put family first, we put socially acceptable first, without realizing the convenient and the standard are problematic, or maybe we’ve been failing to do something about it.