The Effects of Social Media on the Shape of Thought
It is not only what we think about that has changed. It is the texture of thinking itself.
Cognition under optimization
For most of human history, the average person spoke to a few dozen people in a lifetime and read no one. Today the average literate adult is exposed to thousands of strangers' opinions before lunch.
The medium rewards what spreads, not what is true. Outrage spreads. Nuance does not.
What gets selected
- Short over long - Certain over uncertain - Tribal over individual - Image over argument
A note on despair
There is a temptation, common in this kind of essay, to end with a call to "log off." That is not realistic for most people, and not necessary. What is necessary is to notice the medium as a medium — to recover the sense, lost almost everywhere, that the feed is a designed object with interests of its own.