The Dumbest Thing Ever Written about Social Media
Travis Burchart, J.D.
Radical communicator who's resisting the blackhole of graceless writing, shallow ideas, and the constant churn of "content."
There are 4 things we can say—with near certainty—about social media:
Recently, these certainties were challenged by The Atlantic in the dumbest social media article ever written:
Everyone Deserves a Voice (Just Not Too Much of a Voice) ?
According to The Atlantic’s Ian Bogost:?
A global broadcast network where anyone can say anything to anyone else as often as possible, and where such people have come to think they deserve[3] such a capacity, or even that withholding it amounts to censorship or suppression—that’s just a terrible idea from the outset.
There’s an obvious hypocrisy when speakers tell other speakers to be quiet, when those who have a platform denigrate others for having a platform, when polished voices seek to quash the unpolished[4]. The press itself is nothing more than a “global broadcast network” where journalists can say anything “to everyone and as often as possible.” So why those few but not the rest? The difference, I guess, is that Bogost speaks out under The Atlantic’s masthead. Those who don’t have a masthead, it would seem, don’t “deserve such a capacity” to speak.
This isn’t to say that social media isn’t without problems. Giving anyone and everyone a voice poses threats and difficulties. But giving a select few—the press—all the voice is equally problematic. The press is rife with bias, left and right,[5] and today’s salacious, emotionally-charged headlines[6] distort the simplest of facts.[7] As a “global broadcast network,” the press isn’t the clean, factual workspace journalists make it out to be … it has always been tainted by opinions, endorsements, and propaganda.[8]
Like it or not, social media and the press are fundamentally similar and fundamentally flawed. Both are imperfect at best; both are polluted with bias and prejudice. But at their core, both serve a function …. at times, a very similar function. Looking at the ACLU’s definition of “free press,” you can see that the two are nearly interchangeable:
A free media [and social media] functions as a watchdog that can investigate and report on government wrongdoing. It is also a vibrant marketplace of ideas, a vehicle for ordinary citizens to express themselves and gain exposure to a wide range of information and opinions.[9]
All Social Media Speakers Do Not Speak Alike
Bogost goes on to say
Instead of facilitating the modest use of existing connections—largely for offline life (to organize a birthday party, say)—social software turned those connections into a latent broadcast channel. All at once, billions of people saw themselves as celebrities, pundits, and tastemakers.
Yes, social media is an imperfect universe, but how imperfect is it really? According to Bogost, there are “billions of people [who see] themselves as celebrities, pundits, and tastemakers.” Really—“billions”—in the plural??Really, a quarter (on the low end) of all social media users? One can assume that Bogost doesn’t literally mean “billions,” but if so, it betrays the problem I mentioned earlier … the press, at times, chooses salaciousness over factuality, exaggeration over clarity. Assumably, with The Atlantic’s blessing, Bogost is being bombastic in order to impact his reader.
This is less journalism, more copywriting.
Because Bogost can’t actually prove “billions,” I’m sure he’d argue that his readers would or should know he’s speaking in generalizations. But to do so would admit that journalists and their mastheads are prone to hyperbole or, worse, half-truths. That’s not the press … that’s social media. But what’s even worse is that the “billions” generalization makes lacks balance; it’s an emotionally-charged overstatement of a one-sided truth.
The more likely truth … there are not “billions of people [who see] themselves as celebrities, pundits, and tastemakers.” The more balanced truth is that these “scoundrels”[10] make up a small minority of the 4.7B people who use social media across the globe. Of course, I can’t prove this (the same way Bogost can’t prove “billions,”), but I can prove that within my circle of friends and family, nobody has ever offered themselves as a celebrity or a pundit or a tastemaker.
Not my stepfather, who shares stories about vintage planes.
Not my wife, who shares posts of our smiling children.
Not my daughter, who posts funny videos with her classmates.
Not my friends, who share vacation pictures and life updates.
Not my business colleagues, who share LinkedIn articles and birthday wishes.
Definitely NOT “billions.”
Social Media Is Not a Carcinogen (Unless You’re Selling Sensationalism)
Bogost continues:
It’s seemingly as hard to give up on social media as it was to give up smoking en masse, like Americans did in the 20th century. Quitting that habit[11] took decades of regulatory intervention, public-relations campaigning, social shaming, and aesthetic shifts. At a cultural level, we didn’t stop smoking just because the habit was unpleasant or uncool or even because it might kill us. We did so slowly and over time, by forcing social life to suffocate the practice. That process must now begin in earnest for social media.
Social media addiction is an unequivocal truth, but “smoking en masse” is a sensationalized and misleading analogy. Even a child, trained in standardized testing and analogy questions, would see the error:
Smoking is to alcohol [i.e., substance addiction] as social media is to television, internet, video games, etc. [media addiction].
So the more accurate analogy … not the emotionally-charged one … is a comparison of social media addiction to the various, ubiquitous, and prolonged media (or technology) addictions that plague society. However, this analogy (though more accurate) suffers from vanilla journalism. Better, if you’re seeking readers, to choose a scarier (though less accurate) comparison, one that invokes the great Satan … smoking!!! This, of course, is great copy.
Needless to say, there isn’t much unholy terror in the truth. “Quitting the habit,” as Bogost puts it, isn’t a bloody fright when you’re comparing social media to the housewife who binges The Handmaid’s Tale … or the 13-year-old hooked on Fortnite … or the Internet-obsessed readers of The Atlantic.
Ordinary Folk … Best If They Stay Ordinary
Finally, Bogost says this:
Ordinary folk could now make some money or even a lucrative living “creating content” online.[12] … Social media showed that everyone has the potential to reach a massive audience at low cost and high gain—and that potential gave many people the impression that they deserve such an audience.
There’s a certain arrogance and suppressiveness in these two phrases … “ordinary folk” and “that they deserve an audience.” “Ordinary folk” (I’m not sure who falls into this “ordinary” circle[13]) echoes the oppressive idea that only special people (i.e., the extraordinary) deserve special things … a vote for example.[14]
In our earliest days, Americans limited the vote to a select minority of people deemed as “qualified.” The colonies only allowed men to vote who owned sufficient property and/or belonged to the correct church. …
These restrictions were intended to create an electorate of presumably educated, responsible men. …
Literacy tests persisted until the 1965 Voting Rights Act prohibited the tests in states that had obviously discriminated against Black voters. Not until 1975 were literacy tests finally banned outright by Congress.— Nilsson, J., & Brownfield, C. (2020, October 28). Should uninformed people be allowed to vote? The Saturday Evening Post.
If “ordinary folk” don’t “deserve an audience” (written, spoken, or digital), then the argument is easily extended to “ordinary folk” and their right to vote … or to anything of broad social impact … holding office, owning a pollutant, joining a religion, protesting an event, choosing a political party,[15] etc. The implication is that the vast expanse of humanity—us mere ordinary people—can’t be trusted to handle “potentially” dangerous things. Thus, to save us from ourselves,[16] to keep the sheep nontoxic,[17] it would seem best to keep extraordinary things in the hands of the extraordinary few.
This, of course, is a meritocracy where only those of merit (journalists, authors, broadcasters, celebrities, politicians, etc. … i.e., non-ordinary folk) “deserve” the extraordinary freedom of speaking into a “global broadcast network where anyone can say anything to anyone else as often as possible.” This is the old way where the few spoke out and the rest of us listened mutely, where the purse strings of speech were held tightly by privately-owned newspapers, big-money politicians, and taste-making celebrities.
Despite its messiness and its flaws and its dangers, social media ruined this meritocracy for the few. Before, publications like The Atlantic acted as the gatekeepers of merit; now, social media grants me (and over 4 billion others) the opportunity to prove my merit as a speaker, thinker, and influencer. Is it messy? You’re damn right it is. Is it causing angst and thrashing amongst our elevated speakers and polished voices? Undoubtedly so. But does it answer the question—a definitive question on equality and democracy—posed by playwright Laura Wade?
It's not a meritocracy until everyone starts with the same opportunities, is it?
It answers the question because social media lets everyone—i.e., ordinary folk—start with the same opportunities to speak out. Sometimes it’s good. Sometimes it’s bad. Sometimes it’s ugly. Very messy indeed,[18] but if freedoms are to be feared because of messiness, the only alternative is the clean, neat constraints posed by silence, suppression, and intolerance.
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[1] People who disparage social media in broad generalities typically focus only on the cons (and yes, there are plenty), being too lazy to research the pros or too biased to admit them. For example, social media offers (to some) the potential for positive mental health and well-being according to a study from the Center for Health and Happiness at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health :
Routine social media use may compensate for diminishing face-to-face social interactions in people’s busy lives. Social media may provide individuals with a platform that overcomes barriers of distance and time, allowing them to connect and reconnect with others and thereby expand and strengthen their in-person networks and interactions.
And this from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania :
Does social media definitely have a future?
领英推荐
“Yes, surely it does,” says [Pinar] Yildirim. “Social connections are fabrics of society. Just as the telegraph or telephone as an innovation of communication did not reduce social connectivity, online social networks did not either. If anything, it likely increased connectivity, or reduced the cost of communicating with others.”
It is thanks to online social networks that individuals likely have larger social networks, she says, and while many criticize the fact that we are in touch with large numbers of individuals in a superficial way, these light connections may nevertheless be contributing to our lives when it comes to economic and social outcomes — ranging from finding jobs to meeting new people.
And let’s not forget the social justice and activism that would never have happened without social media—Arab Spring, Me Too, Black Lives Matter to name a few.
[2] This, from the ACLU , is equally applicable to social media:
The digital revolution has produced the most diverse, participatory, and amplified communications medium humans have ever had: the Internet. The ACLU believes in an uncensored Internet, a vast free-speech zone deserving at least as much First Amendment protection as that afforded to traditional media such as books, newspapers, and magazines.
[3] “Deservability” is a reoccurring theme here. From the article:
Social media showed that everyone has the potential to reach a massive audience at low cost and high gain—and that potential gave many people the impression that they deserve [emphasis added] such an audience.
This, of course, leaves you with the impression that only certain people are deserving of a massive audience. But Bogost doesn’t answer “who” actually is deserving … Is it Hollywood? Writers at the Washington Post? College professors teaching students? Politicians on stage? Mothers writing blogs? Activists igniting change?
[4] From the article:
To win the soul of social life, we must learn to muzzle it again, across the globe, among billions of people. [emphasis added] To speak less, to fewer people and less often—and for them to do the same to you, and everyone else as well. We cannot make social media good, because it is fundamentally bad, deep in its very structure.
Phrased this way, the voice of the individual is clouded by the unpolished masses, easily lost within those “billions of [faceless] people.” But within this broad “statistic” lives a more personal and unsaid evil … that the muzzle should be placed upon you, me, our neighbors, our wives, our children, our grandparents, a Ukrainian fighter, a sexual assault victim, etc. It echoes the quote often attributed to Josef Stalin, "The death of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic."
[5] “First take the plank out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye.”—Luke 6:42
From Bogost’s article, one can assume that journalists “deserve” a vast public voice. The assumption can be made from the existence of the article itself: Bogost, as a writer/journalist for The Atlantic, is using his published voice to reach a vast and diverse audience; thus, because Bogost has given himself the blessing to speak publicly and broadly, Bogost must be one of the “deserving” few. However, why do journalists like Bogost deserve such a voice but not, as Bogost puts it, “ordinary folk”??One possible answer: when compared against social media’s imperfections, journalism is a perfect, neutral, and even-handed carrier of information.
But is it?
Journalists in the United States differ markedly from the general public in their views of “bothsidesism” – whether journalists should always strive to give equal coverage to all sides of an issue – according to a recent Pew Research Center study. A little more than half of the journalists surveyed (55%) say that every side does not always deserve equal coverage in the news. [emphasis added]— Forman-Katz, N., & Jurkowitz, M. (2022, July 14). U.S. journalists differ from the public in their views of 'bothsidesism' in journalism . Pew Research Center
[6] From the article:
The ensuing disaster was multipart. For one, social-media operators discovered that the more emotionally charged the content, [emphasis added] the better it spread across its users’ networks. Polarizing, offensive, or just plain fraudulent information was optimized for distribution.
Sharing “emotionally charged content” to better spread it “across its users’ networks” … surely that’s something traditional media would never do, correct?
Media polarization has increased in the past half-decade, and both liberal and conservative partisan media are likely contributing to polarization in the U.S. Cable news networks – of which Fox News and MSNBC are frequent targets of media bias allegations – have become “birthing centers for polarizing rhetoric.” … Cable news is a business that runs on ratings and advertisements and, in order to capture people’s attention, it needs to be engaging. [emphasis added] It has, therefore, increasingly blurred the lines between information and entertainment.—How The American Media Landscape is Polarizing the Country | The Pardee Atlas Journal of Global Affairs.
[7] By including adjectives or excluding qualifiers, the media attempts to sensationalize stories. Here’s a recent example from the Texas Tribune-Propublica Investigative Unit :
“Churches are breaking the law and endorsing in elections, experts say. The IRS looks the other way.”
At first blush, “churches” without a qualifier will likely be read in the broadest sense … e.g., churches in general or a large plurality of them across America. But if you read the article, the evidentiary number of churches appears to be:
Burden’s sermon is among those at 18 churches identified by the news organizations [emphasis added] over the past two years that appeared to violate the Johnson Amendment.
Only “18 churches,” which is about 0.005% of the estimated 350K churches in America. Which raises the question: for the reader’s sake, why isn’t the title more specific? My best guess … because “churches” in general is a lot more incendiary than the more factual:
“0.005% churches are breaking the law and endorsing in elections, experts say. The IRS looks the other way.”
[8] And while less sinister than “propaganda,” there’s also “yellow journalism”— journalism that is based upon sensationalism and crude exaggeration—and “muckraking”— the action of searching out and publicizing scandalous information about famous people in an underhanded way.
[9] Not all information on social media is misinformation. Not all opinions are combative and one-sided. And not every person on social media is a gullible, close-minded conspiracist. However, social media opponents like to argue in broad absolutes, that everyone and everything on social media is fake, fiery, and me-first. It’s a lazy argument, born of a close-minded echo-chamber; it’s the same as arguing that all Republicans are angry Christians or all Democrats are soft on crime.
[10] What exactly is wrong with ordinary, everyday, identity-seeking people defining “themselves as celebrities, pundits, and tastemakers”? The evil isn’t so obvious; it’s not like nuclear war or insider trading. At the same time, in a world of celebrities (Brad Pitt), pundits (Chuck Todd), and tastemakers (Tyra Banks), Bogost doesn’t explain the high status for some—and why they deserve it—over the public at large. One is left with the impression that only the special are deserving of celebration in the same way that only the special “deserve” a far-reaching voice.
[11] The “habit” of social media is often portrayed as a one-dimensional addiction … as extensive, hourly, and life crippling, usually by what is not said versus what is said. But media addictions sit on a spectrum. For example:
The Internet Addiction Test (IAT) is a reliable and valid measure of addictive use of the Internet, developed by Dr. Kimberly Young. It consists of 20 items that measures mild, moderate, and severe [emphasis added] level of Internet addiction.
Similarly, the addiction of social media is rarely tempered against the lesser “habit” of social media. Yes, a habit can be bad, but by definition, it’s not the same “bad” as an addiction :
According to the American Psychiatric Association, an addiction causes people to have an “intense focus on using a certain substance(s), such as alcohol or drugs, to the point that it takes over their life.” Addictions are much stronger than habits, causing them to take over a person’s obligations and responsibilities in favor of maintaining the addiction. Addiction is a chronic disease that changes a person’s thinking patterns and behaviors.
[12] Bogost’s social media boogeyman is, in part, the empowered ordinary man/woman who can “now make some money or even a lucrative living ‘creating content’ online.” By that definition, we should also tear down blogging and the more “dangerous” publications like Medium , which describes itself as:
… an open platform where readers find dynamic thinking, and where expert and undiscovered voices can share their writing on any topic. [emphasis added]
These “undiscovered voices” and content creators, like Bogost’s “ordinary folk,” pose the same free speech problems associated with social media:
Consequently, if social media writers need to go then these digital writers need to go too.
[13] Because Bogost has a voice via The Atlantic, one can guess that he—and “journalists” in the broadest sense—are not “ordinary folk.” But confront him with the rampant problems of a free press (bias, sensationalism, one-sidedness), and I doubt he’d be willing to forfeit his voice and thus, reduce himself to the Earth’s circle of undeserving and ordinary people.?
[14] It’s counterintuitive that freedom of speech is made better when less people can speak, but Bogost says “we must learn to muzzle” social media “to win the soul of social life.” If that’s the case, then Bogost can make no logical argument against muzzling voters if such muzzling will ultimately help win the political life:?
Political decisions are high stakes, and democracies entrust some of these high-stakes decisions to the ignorant and incompetent. Democracies tend to pass laws and policies that appeal to the median voter, yet the median voter would fail Econ, History, Sociology, and Poli Sci 101. Empirical work generally shows that voters would support different policies if they were better informed.
Voters tend to mean well, but voting well takes more than a kind heart. It requires tremendous social scientific knowledge: knowledge that most citizens lack. Most voters know nothing, but some know a great deal, and some know less than nothing. The goal of liberal republican epistocracy is to protect against democracy’s downsides, by reducing the power of the least-informed voters, or increasing the power of better-informed ones.—Aeonmag. (2022, November 20). The right to vote should be restricted to those with knowledge : Aeon ideas.
[15] As James Madison pointed out:
AMONG the numerous advantages promised by a well-constructed Union, none deserves to be more accurately developed than its tendency to break and control the violence of faction.— Federalist Papers No. 10 (1787)
In light of today’s animosity between political parties and (despite Madison’s hope) the Union’s failure to “break and control” these violent factions, it would seem justifiable (per Bogost’s reasoning) to ban ordinary folk from political partyism.
[16] Saving our messy selves from our messy freedoms is a slippery slope toward totalitarianism, one that’s easily disguised as “what’s best for us.” It’s a point that was recently made by U.S. District Judge Mark Walker , who partially blocked a Florida law limiting the discussion of racism and privilege in schools and workplace training:
The State of Florida's decision to choose which viewpoints are worthy of illumination and which must remain in the shadows has implications for us all. But the First Amendment does not permit the State of Florida to muzzle [emphasis added] its university professors, impose its own orthodoxy of viewpoints, and cast us all into the dark.
“To muzzle” … not unlike Bogost, who says that “To win the soul of social life, we must learn to muzzle it again.” Regardless of how it's used or the intent, this muzzling is a similar attempt to “cast us all into the dark.”?
[17] “If the freedom of speech is taken away then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.”—George Washington
[18] “Democracy is messy, and it’s hard. It’s never easy.” — Robert F. Kennedy