Social Media: A Boon Or A Bane For Society?

Boon! I have met in "real life" many wonderful people who I only first met online, and wouldn't have met otherwise.

Social Media has of course the potential of both,
it's the old two sides of a coin analogy and it depends upon how we use it.

I think it's the beginning of the end, it allows the Crazies to be louder, more influential and contagious...

It depends how you use it.

Its like asking - eggs, boon or bane?


----Mike Savad

It's both.

Instant information and communication at your fingertips is priceless.

But the trouble is, you can't trust it. It is now a propaganda tool. And it has exponentially amplified bad behavior.

Oh and, contrary to it's supposed intent, it has turned us inward, not outward. It has warped reality and made us incredibly dependent and vulnerable.

I think there's truth and peace when stepping away from it. Easier said than done unfortunately.

Childish. Some day, when those who engage in it substantially finally grow up, they will look back and think "What the H... was I thinking?."

Depends how you use it. It's like dynamite, there can be severe damage done, or it can be very helpful in other situations.

IMO social media is a cancer, the negative impact of which is steadily sweeping through society. Yes, there are some positives - keeping in touch with friends, reaching a wider audience, etc. - but I believe the cons and long term effects that it has on society as a whole far outweigh any benefits. There's just so much negativity on there, not to mention peer pressure, trolls and bullying, fake news, the constant bombardment of adverts, etc. If it dies a death tomorrow I wouldn't miss it and I'd be thankful for its demise.

AG,

As mentioned, depends on HOW YOU USE IT! A hammer can be a dangerous weapon or a constructive tool, just depends. I think the VAST majority of the usage is probably a negative thing. Especially by the younger crowd, making them even more "It's ONLY about ME!" We as a Society have SM "influencers" making MILLIONS of dollars, doing WHAT? Look how I'm dressed or LOOK, see what I'm eating!!! Not good....to quote John Prine.....
That's How Every Empire Falls".....

Rich

Bane.

The same arguments went on back with Television.

Same answers...

It is what it is. It, in itself, is totally netural, it is how people use it and that will include every conceivable form of good and evil.

It is the people, not the medium.

I think Dave is right. Its a cancer. Generations of young people staring at the devices when they should be out playing and interacting with other people. Its making them self-centered and that's causing the political tribalism we see today. " I'm right and I'm not going to listen to you because you are not in my tribe." People don't think anymore. They just find information that supports their tribal teachings.

" And worth noting: The Mona Lisa has a huge social media presence. Her picture is everywhere. But she doesn’t tweet. She’s big on social media because she’s an icon, but she’s not an icon because she’s big on social media. "

~ Seth Godin

For selling artwork having an email list is much more impact and response I think. It takes just as much work to put into it as Social Media and, when done correctly, the people who subscribe are more engaged ( though algorithms and tracking is beginning to be used here more as well ).

I use the social media mostly when I want to exercise my brain, becoming the "Devil's Advocate", questioning those a generally agree, with questions forcing them to defend their position, always going beyond the standard talking points

Floyd nailed it.

It's The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly at our fingertips.

It's a boon for those who want to data mine you

A bane if you want privacy

a boon itf you want to connect to art buyers

a bane if you want privacy

although you can get privacy by disconnecting but then it is harder to sell your art.

As a kid, I could never imagine my mother constantly keeping track of me

Yet, on the other hand,''

I would have never been able to understand how I could travel and directly connect, although digitally, with a world, way beyond the confines of the universe I physically lived in.

Where 0's & 1's replaced the actual sights, sounds, smells, tastes and touch of all that surrounded me.

Like any pervasive medium or like alcohol, the bigger question is whether you let it control your life. In the case of SM, the first thing people need to know is when to turn if off, then how to evade the BS when you are "using", and then, how to not give up information that you should NOT give to the world.

Don't confess to the bank heist you pulled last week or announce that you're doing another one next week.

Recall that the cops, the CIA, FBI, and every bad player you can think of will be reading YOUR stuff and act accordingly.

Like anything that's powerful, it comes at a cost. In this case, the benefit is that, today, I'm eating lunch and conversing with a bunch of people in the art world instead of studying yesterday's baseball scores. That's a good thing.

I disagree with "It depends on how you use it"

Social media is affecting our society, and rather or not you use SM you still have to deal with the changes it creates in society.

It is both boon and bane to society, but unfortunately it will gradually boil down to the lest common denominator. Boon to society is the least common denominator here.

I can't think of anything else that is so wonderfully good and horrifically evil as the "internet". It should all probably be age restricted.

I found this interview quite fascinating. It's with a Black Hat hacker and he puts quite a lot of things into perspective as it relates to modern technology, how people use it, the dangers therein, social media and what it's doing to society.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ZtkMmVDNEo

It's really worth watching in its entirety if you have 40 mins to spare.

Social Media - boon! Everybody finds something new, someplace to belong, new friends.

Social Media also allows "everybody" to believe that their opinion and values are "universal"
and so creates great confusion and dispersion of value - in that nothing can cohere - nothing
can inhere.

This last position is not a particular character of Social Media; it was around some time before
Social Media became the "be-all-and-the-end-all!"

The Post Modern era (the one which allows irony to be at its centre) allows equal values to all
points of view. In which case if all values are valid - nothing has value! And the first casualties
are facts and truth! This current Post Modern era has been dubbed PoMo!

Living in the post-factual, post-truth world as we do, is it no wonder that each
competing voice on Social Media "has the same value as the next one", leading to the situation
where there is no division between the sane and the mentally challenged; the good and the bad;
the right and the wrong; the saint and the sinner ...

Go figure!

I believe a good comparison for society and its effects on the total number of people, would be the invention of the printing press by Gutenberg. In 1997, "Time–Life magazine picked Gutenberg's invention as the most important of the second millennium". A LOT of similarities, both good and bad stuff produced by the printer and like today, depends on how it is used and for what purpose...like any tool, a hammer as an example that I used above...

I think this technology has done good things, people that might not have a social life, can now become part of some group and on the other hand, political use by some has become dangerous....

Rich

The main problem with social media is that it's assumed that it represents a majority of people's opinions. In fact, it does not. The majority of people in America, for instance, don't use social media. Twitter is not the voice of a nation, but many corporations seem to believe it is, and often overreact to every Twitter trend.

"The majority of people in America, for instance, don't use social media."

Interesting ...

Frank, J L.Meadows,

Here's WHY it's interesting...

"Percentage of U.S. population who currently use any social media from 2008 to 2021"

"82 percent of the population in the United States had a social networking profile, representing a two percent increase from the 80 percent usage reach in the previous year. This equals approximately 223 million U.S. social media users as of 2020".

So my statement stands for the printing press and the IMPACT of Social Media on Society!

Rich

JL source please for that statistic

And Rich.

In fact, everyone!

Statistics must come with link to origin

According to Wikipedia, the current U.S. population numbers 330,149,796.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States

Only 23% of Americans use Twitter: https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/2021/04/07/social-media-use-in-2021/

Well, Twitter is only one of the venues for social media...I think it is a boon, not only am I able to connect with many interesting people I never would have known but I am able to reconnect with several old acquaintances. There are of course crazy people out there and adds and scams but that early bothers me, I block the crazies, gloss over the adds and keep in mind if it sounds too good it probably is a scam.

Bane...boon, benefit, awful? We have to fact up to the fact that, like it or not, it's here. The water has not just gone over the dam, but down the stream into the ocean. There's no turning back. That's our quandary. The likelihood of anybody doing any sort of government regulation is probably a non-starter. An individual site, of course, can do what it wants to enforce rules, but widespread enforcement is not going to happen any time in the foreseeable future. There will be no profanity filters, truth tests, kid safety features, authenticity guarantees or honesty criteria that get anything other than individual site enforcement.

Much of this is rooted in the origin of the Internet, which was a combination of government and military people trying to ensure that some sort of communication could happen after the phone system had been nuked. Unlike phones, the internet is resilient and information can go by many redundant pathways. Nobody had computers in their homes. Computers were big, hardwired monsters in big buildings and connectivity hardly existed. Now we have all of that.

Oh yeah, back in "the day", they forgot to hard-wire security and oversight into the system, since only they would be connected. We got what we paid for....gonna have to live with it until somebody invents something that completely changes everything. Then we will have to fight about oversight. Ain't gonna happen.

Twitter, Tik Tok, Facebook and all of their numerous fans will determine what Truth is by harassing each other into submission. What a fu**in* mess. Tell me I'm wrong.

The majority of people in America, for instance, don't use social media.

72% of Americans use social media. Last time I checked, 72% constitutes a majority. That of course doesn't mean they are all using Twitter or FB. Nextdoor.com for example, is considered social media.

https://www.pewresearch.org/internet/fact-sheet/social-media/

Yeah...Nextdoor. In my part of the world, that platform is so contentious and judgmental that I feel like I need a shower after I click to wash off all of that bile. Unfortunately, some neighborhood groups I follow are on there, so it's something I see now and again. Most of the time I regret going there.

@Doug ... harassing each other into submission ...

A contentious statement! The truth about truth is that real truth
is worth dying for. It only takes ONE man/woman to hold out
for the truth - no matter what the harassment - no matter the
consequences, no matter the cost!

Social media just makes information spread faster around the country and around the globe. It can take years to built something and a few seconds to destroy it. IMHO social media is much more destructive than it is constructive. We'd all be better off if all the social networks vanished overnight. The algorithms are designed to addict you so you'll engage more and generate more ad revenue. If you watch something that tells you that dolphins are flowers and "like" it or maybe watch the whole thing, pretty soon you'll get fed more content designed to convince you that dolphins are flowers. That will be your reality and you'll stick to it. You'll argue with marine biologists that dolphins are in fact flowers. When you go to the local flower show you'll ask why they don't have any dolphins on display. Pretty soon different people and groups of people have completely different views and firm beliefs on what is reality and what isn't reality based on random crap they see on social media.

There is no fairness doctrine, there is no responsibility to ensure anything is true before posting it or consuming it or believing it. People end up in groups that only reinforce what they want to believe regardless of whether there is any merit or truth to it or not.

It all depends on the self-discipline of how much time you spend on social media. If you have too much time on your hands, it can be an addiction as it's very entertaining.

I have zero time anymore as I work a 50–60-hour work week at what I love doing, so I tend to just look at social media as entertainment, but I know not to get triggered.

Entering into conversations that include opinion or beliefs is not my cup of tea and cookies. I love the arts, animals and uplifting things. If I have to see anything nasty, I snooze it immediately, because it's not good for me.

Selling art is fun but I'm not into any kind of artificial expectations, connections, or things I haven't committed to.

Abbie,

Forgots me!

https://www.statista.com/statistics/273476/percentage-of-us-population-with-a-social-network-profile/

As I mentioned earleir same "effect" Worldwide as the invention of the printing press....same criticisms...too....turned out okay...mostly."

The "side-effect" NOW, is this new generation of "selfish" users, people with their phones STUCK to their hands....waiting to see who LIKES them next....even while driving....

"1 out of every 4 car accidents in the United States is caused by texting and driving."

https://www.edgarsnyder.com/car-accident/cause-of-accident/cell-phone/cell-phone-statistics.html

Rich

"@Doug ... harassing each other into submission ...

A contentious statement! The truth about truth is that real truth
is worth dying for. It only takes ONE man/woman to hold out
for the truth - no matter what the harassment - no matter the
consequences, no matter the cost!"

So what IS the truth? I've heard way too many versions of so-called truth to have much faith in that. Imagine dying for something that's somewhat short of the truth. That would be pretty sad and pointless.

"harassing each other into submission"

SM provides nearly anyone regardless of their real world personality the platform to take on a new and unique psychological and sociological persona. This digital persona is imprinted into the fabric of the internet and now can be targeted, mined, analyzed and profiled by webcrawing AI bots.

"harassing each other into submission"
This statement IMO conveys an extraordinary insight to what SM has evolved into and its underlying socially engineered purpose.

Digital personalities now can be categorized, organized, manipulated and reprogrammed. How?
By "harassing each other into submission" and advancements targeting the individual given them what they want to see and skewing their perspective of reality.
Peer pressure, public shaming, and fear of being outside the circle of influence are brainwashing tools used by propagandists, human relations specialist, cults, advertising agencies and SM.
"Fear of Missing Out" the phenomina controlling the SM addicts maintains huge groups who follow their manipulators because their digital persona dominates their identities.

Have a great day, FAA!

It's both, just like anything else it depends on what you use it for. We each decide what we get out of it.

It is indeed both. It's given a voice to those who didn't have their own website to blog on, but then in doing so, it's killed off a lot of real blogs. It's also given voice to a lot of negative people who love nothing more than to cut others down and it's allowed scammers to really rev up their presence everywhere, especially on those platforms that do not talk to their users with real people. It's a real shame that Instagram got taken over by Facebook (now Meta) because it was a true community of photographers, which are now being completely overlooked by its owners, in favor of TikTok style videos which I personally find so annoying. As if we need another TikTok. Isn't one too much already. I've been living in hope of a newcomer that will provide what photographers wanted from Instagram, but then even if one does come along, what are the chances that Meta will simply buy it and ruin it too? The whole thing is completely overdone and leaves me longing for the good old days before all of this oversaturation.

THE one platform that did it all so well, was Myspace in it's original form. Nothing has ever come close to what that was before Facebook emerged. I look at Myspace now though and I can't make any sense of it.

Social media is simply a tool that enhances connections that would never have probably been made otherwise.

It enhances the good and the bad in all of us. But it didn't create those characteristics, they came from us.

The question shouldn't be is social media a bane or a boon, but is the human species mature enough to use it. That remains to be seen.


"The real problem of humanity is...We have Paleolithic emotions, medieval institutions and godlike technology." ― Edward O. Wilson.

I am enjoying SM free life. Back in “the day” people would get very angry if someone snooped and read someone’s diary. Now? People get bent out of shape if people DONT read what xyz is writing or posting for the whole world to see.
Sometimes ignorance IS bliss!

I enjoy it on a daily basis, but have fairly high standards for bile avoidance.I only check for people I actually recognize, delete anything else and pay little attention to all of the toxic advertising. I'm happy to see just how far off target the advertising I get is. It makes me realize that I'm doing something right that I get ads for bulk quantity golf balls (I don't play) or Montana real estate (not interested), or my favorite, female undergarments.

I don't post anything that I don't want the entire world, including my worst enemy, to see, don't confess to doing crimes or give out my vital information, and realize that about 90% or what's on those platforms, is pure, malignant BS. With that in mind, it's like living in the city, which I've done for a long time too.

I really enjoy Facebook and Instagram but only uplifting stuff.

Sometimes family will post a painful to read meme, but I just roll my eyes at it.

I dropped Twitter a year and a half ago. I recently dropped Pinterist a minth ago because the removed a pin of an image I have called hunting supplies. Facebook is only being used for self promotion and are close to being deleted also.

Instagram I never use anymore. Currently I use vero linkedin facebook but main focus is youtube

They are a bane when they start to become judge and jury over things posted. I believe in free speech for all even though I may not agree with them. When voices are silenced based on opinions or content they decide is wrong I remove them from my life.

Not very social if you chose to silence those you do not agree with. Just my 2 cents and no it was not politically motivated.

I'm back to this because, in the past few weeks, FB has become even more toxic than it was and slow on top of that. I was reading Bonfire's remark and having been swept up in that net for different unintended content that landed me in Facebook Jail (a recipe for sautéed chicken "chest"), I think I'd like FB more if they offered content channels based on some common sense filters.

Having been the cop on a much smaller forum, I know about the competing demands made on the admin. On the one hand, summed up by "protect the children", on another, "don't support immorality" and on yet another, "freedom of speech, no matter how offensive it is". They are seriously conflicting demands made by users. What's worse is that, while on the forum I worked with I could read everything, on FB or these other SM monsters, messages probably come in at a million per second. Nobody can read all that and make a seat of the pants decision as to whether someone is just blustering or whether they're a serious threat, so it's up to somebody's AI algorithm....mention this word - ****, and you get banned for 3 days, ********* (my stars, not FAA) and you are gone for a month, etc.

As for FB, I my wish list includes a button choice - something like movie ratings, from kid friendly to anything goes. The problem is that they'd also need to filter the ads that make up 80% of my stuff. At this point in time, my FB ads are only a little bit short of ads for "services" of the sort not allowed in church. Most of us don't really realize that those forums are not actually social media. They are targeted advertising businesses and freedom of speech doesn't apply because it's information stored on privately owned servers and they have the right to delete anything for any reason. They want to sell stuff not just to the G Rated crowd, but also to the Anything Goes group and they get us, the users, to supply content. They're not going to cut off their market unless users decide to boycott. I don't see that happening any time soon.

I dropped Pinterest years ago after I found out it's a nursery for image theft and Pinterest refused to close my account and delete the few images I had/have on there

I opened a twitter account years ago, but never really went there until a few days ago only to find out that my account was suspended due to spamming or something and the only posts I found under my name were from FAA the last one of that was in 2019.

I tried to submit an appeal form, but it won't let me because my account is suspended and the only form I am allowed to submit is that appeals form I tried to submit and won't let me. Go figure. Obviously I am unable to let them know because the only form I am allowed..........well,.....groundhog day

I stopped trying. I do have their customer service number, but I don't care if I am on their *.*list or not

For me it is boon because I am bad at communicating in real life.

" I dropped Pinterest years ago after I found out it's a nursery for image theft and Pinterest refused to close my account and delete the few images I had/have on there "

It's unfortunate but true. No image dies, goes away or is deleted on the internet, even outside of Pinterest. That's the nature of the beast. Fortunately most images you see are either shrunk, cropped, compressed or all 3, so the image thief doesn't get the original, but yeah, you have to balance theft against the opportunity for exposure and hope that works in you favor.

In general, what I find to be a benefit about all of this is the potential for communicating with people I'd never meet in life. So far, it's worth the aggravation, but it gets harder to wade though all of the junk and bile each year. Having been a long time since I've been to Florida, my chance of ever communicating with Rudy Umans would be otherwise very low, but here I am.

There's something to be said of all of this.