Anti-Social Media
As someone always interested in new technology, I set up a Facebook account first -then LinkedIn, then Twitter and then Instagram and Pinterest over the last twelve years. I still visit the first from time to time and Twitter even less often, and the others hardly ever. Distant family members draw me to the first two. My followers are modest in number. As places for either information or stimulation, the word for these sites that comes to mind in my personal experience is bland. Canadians offer the odd “tut-tut” comment about life within and beyond their borders but few comments there affect my blood pressure – because, of course, I agree with them.
I still read one newspaper on a tablet in the morning and scan the headlines of two leading American ones every day. I switch between two Canadian news networks, CNN and PBS in the evening. Am I in a bubble? Of course. Do I know what is going on in other bubbles? Only what my existing sources tell me. I have a colleague whom I have talked to for years – who told me recently that he refuses to follow any traditional sources for his news. He recently joined Facebook – and by linking up with his alternate news sources he now is pleased to have 2300 “friends”. While I am one of them, the algorithms never allow his posts to reach me. It’s just as well, perhaps, since he says Facebook occasionally shuts down his account for a few days.
I came across an article by Charles Warzel, an opinion writer for the Washington Post, who has followed the divisions within social media for years. He recently decided on an interesting way to experience the divided worlds firsthand. He asked two people to give him the passwords to their Facebook accounts for three weeks leading up to and immediately following the US election. He wanted them to be typical older Americans - not conspiracy theorists - who nevertheless received more news via Facebook than they did in the past. Both had been mildly conservative but were drifting toward more progressive politics and both voted for Biden because they thought he had more capacity to reach across the aisle.
The 62- year -old male first saw a picture of grandparents admiring the new baby. Next was a picture of Joe Biden with a For Sale sign photoshopped on top. Then an image of a Democrat wearing a tutu giving the viewer a middle finger, Then images of a dingy hospital, an inner city store with empty shelves, a politician’s palatial residence – all labeled “ SOCIALISM”. These continued with no context and were interspersed with the usual feed items of the dogs and cooking prowess of friends.
Like many of us, this viewer joined FaceBook some years ago to keep in touch with friends. He took early retirement and when the Covid pandemic struck he found himself with even more spare time and glued to his phone. It started harmlessly but soon he found himself arguing with friends he hadn’t seen for years, whose political views now shocked him. While it started with mild expressions of disagreements and attempts to fact-check sources, he became more involved and addicted to the discourse. He discovered that the anger expressed actually scared him. Post-election claims of fraud were even more frequent and without sources. There were accusations that one should not trust fact checkers. Democrats were linked with Satan.
The feed of the other baby boomer, a 55 year old woman, was different. She never questioned anything political and consequently had far fewer political entries. Most simply endorsed the Biden-Harris ticket. Even so, she was distressed by the issues that were debated and the polarization expressed. While Warzel saw little of this on her news feed, she explained that she had left Facebook after it started. She shared how she felt disturbed in the same way that the male viewer was, by seeing old friends and acquaintances espousing conspiracy theories full of hate and meanness.
Warzel came out of the experience with some learning:
The worst part of social media is in the comments section. That’s where the infighting is most intense with no attention to content and where the vitriol flies. These are what often get shared and go viral. Comments are not subject to either moderation or fact checking. One of his colleagues terms it the “Town Hall for Fighting”.
We don’t think often about the people whom we admitted into our lives as digital “friends”. At the beginning we are pleased to discover people at a distance or people we knew from past contexts, but they are acquaintances at best. We are often invited to add friends of friends – and suddenly we are part of a network of people who are communicating with us in ways we have never intended.
Warzel quotes Joan Donovan of Harvards’s Kennedy school describing this as an “economy of engagement’. We are giving our time and emotional energy to those on our self-created platform. The cost in some cases may be watching our friends lose touch with reality. This is not my personal experience of the social platforms I follow but it is easier after hearing these stories, to understand the experience of my American contemporaries.
But in a recent experience, just through Email, I saw a similar pattern. People in one of my communities received news that they initially responded to with shock and anger. The immediate response to shoot the messenger, and to scapegoat the perceived henchpersons was remarkable – and reinforced by the ease of sharing gut feelings. Few perceived that this was perhaps enhanced by our being locked down in a pandemic and giving it more energy and time than we could normally afford. When a requested public meeting online was set, and when the agenda became a different one, it was not at all unreasonable for some participants to be even more upset, but the result was very much like a social media name calling which now involved bystanders who watched members and long term friends within the community turn on one another.
How do we recover socially in poisoned environments? A wise counselor in that situation suggested two ways in a parting address. He told the story of his own background of participation in a world body with thousands in attendance, where views were so deeply divided that some participants would not even attend. It affected him deeply enough that he proposed a small forum of participants from around the world to meet in person following the gathering.
The large body met again ten years later, and the difference was palpable. Some of those taking part in the small discussions had listened to other views with respect and realized that they could hear other perspectives without having to accept them. The processes followed the South African one called Indaba. Indaba is an African Zulu cultural process for engaging different points of view on a shared concern. It involves listening to the stories and experiences of others and how they came to be where they are.
Over time those who participated in Indaba process became more knowledgeable of others’ views. It did not result in a melting pot, where everyone now felt the same way. The difference was respect for the reality that we don’t all think the same way. As another wise counselor commented brightly when dealing with two strong opposing views in another situation, “Isn’t it interesting how different we are”.
The engaging American Episcopal presiding bishop Michael Curry who recently spoke at my College’s annual Larkin-Stewart lecture, perhaps has the last word.
“We will either live together as brother and sisters (Siblings) or we will perish together as fools – either community or chaos – the choice is ours.”