What Do We Do About the Social Network? (early access)
Added 2023-02-25 22:07:54 +0000 UTCHello everyone!
Please enjoy the early access cut for my February vid - which is all about whether or not The Social Network stands the test of time (since Mark Zuckerberg is now a evil Silicon Valley overlord!)
Hope you like! And would love to hear suggestions for a better vid title :)
Comments
really great video! this has long been one of my favorite films because of this incredible depth and it's so nice to see such a detailed analysis of it. i really appreciate seeing how the writing and directorial POVs come together to create this very humanistic view of zuck and it's interesting how the perception of him has changed so much over the years as the realization that he could not affect real good change has become more salient and how instead he has actually become an agent of totalitarianism and has continously betrayed everyone everywhere. i wanted to make a comment about the point regarding facebook/social networks making us worse at communicating. I don't think this is necessarily the case and many would not talk about the early days of facebook (before all the news feed algorithm optimizations) or instagram in this respect. And I think many would agree that facebook is at some level useful as a search engine of one's friends and photos and that this component as well as the implementation of facebook groups are the only reasons they still stick around on it. I think the real problem with the social media applications--and the genuine source of their power-- comes down to the ease of access of stimulation. There is no mindful action required to access these applications and it can be done entirely through muscle memory. we can get on facebook twitter tiktok reddit etc without ever even thinking about it. we are instantly confronted with posts from people and these in a way invade our subconscious which sort of helps to erode our sense of self and can much more easily drive us into extremist ideologies. (sidenote: i think that the character of jobu tupaki really exemplifies the invasion of the subconscious and the dissolution of the ego in the era of being forever online.) our brain does not like to be bored or to deal with difficult problems, and so whenever this happens, we instinctively reach for our phones and without ever thinking about it go to the app which the brain knows will reliably deliver stimulation. social media apps are particularly good at delivering this stimuli because the content is algorithmically delivered and user-generated and therefore provides a much more dynamic and interesting set of stimulati than say something like CNN.com. i am of the opinion that new and more stimulating social media (think of how terribly alluring a more advanced AI-powered social media can be) will continue to spring up as time goes on, and that trying to regulate specific algorithms or companies is a sort of bandaid on a broken leg. We need to really stop the problem where it starts: being able to access content without genuine intention. If we make users interact more mindfully, they will be less prone to extremism and will be better able to retain their attention because their brains will know that if they want to go to twitter they will have to do something that will make their brain work. we need our technology. we need our phones. but we should need them like we need a toothbrush and they should not be something we need to be on every second. IDK if you might be interested in discussing more, but I would be happy to share an essay I've been working on this topic with you.
Christopher Agostino
2023-02-28 22:53:08 +0000 UTCGreat video!
Luis
2023-02-28 02:26:57 +0000 UTC
