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This isn't really news to any of us but is an identifier and poignant expression of current events and their effects.
What we need is social media distancing | Spectator USA
Nearly three months into lockdown, 40 million Americans were unemployed. Kids lost out on three months of schooling. Businesses shuttered, many never to open again. Mental health suffered. People lost their homes. Tens of thousands died alone in hospitals.
And the pent-up population took to the streets, enraged. Protest is the appropriate reaction to what we witnessed. People are rightfully furious about police brutality. But being smack dab in the middle of a pandemic, the protests turned out to be gasoline on the smoldering embers of the culture wars.
The subsequent mainstream-media gaslighting campaign was mind-bending. 'The true virus is white supremacy' we were told. Protesting is okay if the cause is righteous. Meanwhile, COVID-19 cases have continued. States now wrestle with how best to reopen. We have an election in four months.
Social media escalates the tensions. It's a hotbed of anonymous trolls, agents of chaos and bad-faith arguments. It brings out the worst in us because the algorithm rewards us for being tribal, divisive and emotional. It preys on our worst instincts. The algorithm doesn't want to be fed compassion, nuance, and reason. Peace isn't profitable. Social media demands the scalps of the canceled. It wants nothing less than our souls and war.
So if you feel insane, I promise you - you are not alone. We live in mad times and in an effort to keep up with the chaos, we end up on social media trying to make sense of it all. But there we find an even crazier virtual battleground, and that only feeds the madness in real life. If we want to save ourselves from the toxic virus of hate, we need to start practicing social media distancing. Before it's too late.
What we need is social media distancing | Spectator USA
Nearly three months into lockdown, 40 million Americans were unemployed. Kids lost out on three months of schooling. Businesses shuttered, many never to open again. Mental health suffered. People lost their homes. Tens of thousands died alone in hospitals.
And the pent-up population took to the streets, enraged. Protest is the appropriate reaction to what we witnessed. People are rightfully furious about police brutality. But being smack dab in the middle of a pandemic, the protests turned out to be gasoline on the smoldering embers of the culture wars.
The subsequent mainstream-media gaslighting campaign was mind-bending. 'The true virus is white supremacy' we were told. Protesting is okay if the cause is righteous. Meanwhile, COVID-19 cases have continued. States now wrestle with how best to reopen. We have an election in four months.
Social media escalates the tensions. It's a hotbed of anonymous trolls, agents of chaos and bad-faith arguments. It brings out the worst in us because the algorithm rewards us for being tribal, divisive and emotional. It preys on our worst instincts. The algorithm doesn't want to be fed compassion, nuance, and reason. Peace isn't profitable. Social media demands the scalps of the canceled. It wants nothing less than our souls and war.
So if you feel insane, I promise you - you are not alone. We live in mad times and in an effort to keep up with the chaos, we end up on social media trying to make sense of it all. But there we find an even crazier virtual battleground, and that only feeds the madness in real life. If we want to save ourselves from the toxic virus of hate, we need to start practicing social media distancing. Before it's too late.
