By the author of Be Ready for Anything and the online course Bloom Where You’re Planted
You may not be on social media yourself, but chances are your friends and family are. Some of us are on there for work purposes and some so we can keep in touch with loved ones who live far away. There are valid reasons we have accounts on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. But things are getting ugly out there in Internetland and it begs the question of whether social media is destroying humanity.
And even worse, is social media destroying humanity on purpose, because it was engineered to do so?
You’d have to live under a rock big enough to block all internet communications to not have heard about the privacy scandals that have plagued Facebook recently. From Cambridge Analytica mining user’s data to Facebook’s massive profits from your data, it’s been all over the news. Zuckerberg even had to testify to Congress about it for 10 hours recently, in the end apologizing for his part in the scandal.
But your lack of privacy may be just a drop in the bucket.
A while back, Facebook admitted that they were performing psychological experiments on users by adjusting their news feeds to see if they could alter the moods of users. They have a long and disturbing history of experimenting on users.
But it may be far more serious than merely toying with us. It’s entirely possible that they’re actually programming us. All it takes is a glimpse at the headlines to realize the world has become more insane than ever – and maybe this has been done deliberately. Maybe social media is destroying humanity on purpose.
One former Facebook executive said, “We have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works.”
And everyone knows this is true.
The only law in social media is mob rule. People band together to blast those they consider politically incorrect. They “dox” people with whom they disagree. (To “dox” someone is to “ to publicly identify or publish private information about (someone) especially as a form of punishment or revenge.) Social media is busy censoring viewpoints with whom the owner disagrees while allowing flagrantly abusive points of view from people on “their side.”
People will say horrible, hateful things on the internet that they’d never say to a person’s face. Or at least, that used to be the case – now, it seems like people are more likely to be hateful than ever before, regardless of the medium.
In other examples that should be no less terrifying, we miss the experiences when we go on vacation because we’re so busy grabbing the perfect Instagram shot to show our “audiences.” We don’t talk to the people who are right across the table from us because we’re busy instant-messaging someone online. For many, their worlds are on their phones and not in the physical realm. We’re happier to get likes on social media than we are to have a real, no-electronics conversation.
We’re being programmed by social media.
In this video, Melissa Melton Dykes explores how some of the early executives are horrified at what Facebook and other social media outlets have become.
It’ll be much easier to silence – or even depopulate – people who have been utterly dehumanized by social media. Social media has fanned the flames of race war and hatred. During the previous election, it caused so much political animosity that some families and friendships never recovered. People have live-streamed murders and suicides, abuse and rapes for the “entertainment” of their “friends.”
This, of course, doesn’t mean that you can’t use social media at all.
But if you do, use it wisely.
I have it for business and spend very little time on there aside from helping people in my group. Some people have very small “friends” lists with just a few family members or close friends. These days, it’s a lot easier to get local information from social media groups than it is from a local newspaper or radio station. There are ways you can use it that aren’t harmful.
But, beware. Anything you put on there is there forever, even if you delete it later. Anything you click “like” on it recorded as well. Marketers have a snapshot of who you are based on what you like, and they have even developed software to help them predict what you’ll do next.
Social media may be destroying humanity in the macro perspective, but we don’t have to let it destroy us.
Are they doing it on purpose?
You better believe it, mister. (As Radar used to say)
I don’t, won’t, never have, used “Social Media”.
I permanently left all social media platforms about six months ago, finally accepting that the negatives far out-weighed the positives. Some folks can make it work, but it’s not for me, and I’m thrilled to be free of it.
The power is ALL yours. It’s called the “off” button, the “cancel” toggle, the “disable” option, the “kill” switch. So there is NO excuse. I have never joined Fakebook after reading what it does to everyone. I was almost going to but stopped when I found out you can NEVER quit Fakebook.
You stay logged on forever. That was the “killer” switch for me and I knew right away what they were doing.
I had Facebook as it came out while I was a senior in college. I continued to have it for a few years, and then deactivated my account seven years ago. The drawbacks significantly outweighed the benefits for me personally. I understand its place for small businesses, communities, and real relationships that span many miles. However, social media has decayed genuine interaction and “replaced” interpersonal relationships. A classic line from one of my colleagues at a meeting was “I feel like I would know you so much better if you had Facebook.” My response was “Well, you could come upstairs and we could talk.” There were crickets chirping in the background. That spoke volumes and reaffirmed my stance.
Never did FB but I did allow a neighbor to talk me into a deal called “Next Door” that was supposed to be for friendly goings on among Just the local neighbors. At first it was ok, but later on it turned into the wild west with threats being made about shooting each other and burning peoples houses down and dragging them out of their cars if they didn’t drive slower past somebodies house. It turned a nice neighborhood into almost a war zone. That’s when I quit and swore I’d never touch another social media ever again.
The answer is yes…Social Media is designed to not only invade privacy and collect data on users but primarily to tell people what to think and when to think it and eliminate dissenting voices from “progressive” Marxism.. During Zukerberg;s testimony before a joke of a hearing, he said he had some where like 15 to 20 thousand people monitoring content to limit hate speech. However, when asked, he wasn’t able to define “hate speech”. That is all you need to know. Social media appears to many to be innocuous entertainment. It is not. It is a direct threat to a Constitutional Republic.
I don’t mess with Social Media hardly at all. Most people use Social Media like a personal diary, posting their daily activities, morning to night. That’s NOT for me. What I do and where I go is MY business !! Besides, I don’t even own Smart Phone. My flip phone serves me just fine.
I don’t use facebook or any of the others but I did sign up years ago and cannot find a way to completely unsubscribe; it isn’t an option it seems. However I would love to send your videos to friends but can’t seem to find a way that doesn’t use these mediums. When and if you find a way for us to send your wonderful videos , etc., privately by our email, then I will share. Thank you for sharing your insights. God bless you and yours.
Another way that Facebook etc. facilitates bad behavior is that it helps “old flames” get back in touch with each other. I’ve personally seen a few families destroyed because one spouse found an old girlfriend or boyfriend and then hooked up with them. This, of course, leaves a devastated spouse and sometimes children behind when the extremely selfish and immoral party leaves them behind.
Last sentence comes from the Department of Redundancy Department. Oops.
Another “the Amish were right all along” article.
Oy! I’m so sick of hearing “I need to use Facebook to keep in touch with friends and fambly”.
Seriously, with all of the means of convenient communication available to us today, if one does not care enough for you (or you for them) to send a personal communication, who needs them?
THAT is the main problem with social media- people just “publish” crap about themselves, and “friends and family” are just others on a list who view your rantings. The personal communication/relationship that would exist via snail-mail, individual email, a phone call, etc. is gone.
I only want to communicate with those who care enough to at least take a few minutes to communicate with me one-on-one. Social media is tantamount to standing up on a stage and giving a monologue befiore a group of assembled friends, relatives and people from your past who you considered an asset to fill a seat, but whom you never cared enough about to take 5 minutes to phone in the last 25 years.
And what does one get for this degraded means of communicating? A loss of all privacy; a role as a guinea pig in psychological experiments; censorship; etc.
People thought I was crazy for pointing out the evils of social media when it first appeared, and for not wanting anything to do with it. Who’s laughing now?
Was at a birthday party recently.
There were 6 of us, sitting around a table, playing a trivia game.
One girl could not get her face out of her phone for 5 seconds to participate in the game.
It took 2 rounds before she realized we had just skipped over her.
Is social media actively setting out to destroy society?
I do not know. I do not really use it, like Facebook, Twitter, or a host of other “apps.”
So I can not really say.
But from what I have observed, it has isolated people. It has made people into smartphone addicts or app addicts. It has made it soically acceptable to ignore people, even friends and family.
After modern civilization has collapsed, and the future historians are writing of the fall, I think social media will play a large part in it.
Wow this is one sophisticated and honest review of a very serious issue. Certainly mental health is affected so your question is a very important one. Shame most people do not want to see the danger, let alone discuss it openly.