The Impact of Social Media

Making Sense of Social Media and the Information Landscape

The Making Sense podcast is a subscriber-only podcast that covers a wide range of topics, and this particular episode focuses on social media and the information landscape.
The series aims to provide an overview of Sam Harris's perspectives and arguments on the topic, including the relevant agreements, disagreements, and pushbacks from his guests.
The episodes will cover the economics, politics, and psychology of social media and how it affects our attention and well-being.
The series will feature conversations with defectors from Silicon Valley, including Tristan Harris and Jaren Lanier, as well as authors like Jonathan Haidt and Cass Sunstein.
The series will also touch on the emerging deep fake technology that threatens to further erode the integrity of global information.
Social media has both positive potential and negative consequences, and the economic model that supports it has been called surveillance capitalism by critics and personalized advertising by advocates.
Tristan Harris, a former designer for Google, has been called the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience and has been laser-focused on the problems of social media.
Harris argues that technology has undermined human weaknesses and vulnerabilities, leading to problems like distraction, addiction, polarization, bullying, harassment, and the breakdown of truth.
The film "The Social Dilemma" is a recommended viewing for this topic, and it highlights the problems of social media and the potent attention-harnessing techniques behind the apps on our phones.
The attention economy has always existed, but smartphones have become the primary vehicle for daily activities, and social media has taken over the infrastructure for basic verbs like ordering food or speaking to someone.
The emergency of the situation becomes salient when considering the harms of social media, including the spike in teen depression, self-harm, and suicide.
The goal of the series is not to provide a complete picture of any issue but to entice listeners to go deeper into these subjects and offer reading, listening, and watching suggestions that range from fun and light to densely academic.The Unintended Consequences of Free Information and Advertising on Social Media
Information cannot be truly free as it only has meaning when it is grounded in human experience.
The idea that information is free has led to an infinite supply of information that people cannot experience, leading to a denial of service attack on the quality of information.
Social media platforms have amplified the worst impulses of people due to the absence of postage on email and the ability of anyone to post anything without cost.
The power of social media algorithms to target weaknesses has created a degree of asymmetry between users and technology that threatens personal autonomy and the health of democracy.
Asymmetry is a result of social media using predictive analytics to determine the perfect next video to keep users engaged.
The exponential degree of asymmetry means that technology knows users' weaknesses better than themselves.
The economic model that relies on advertising as the oxygen for social media platforms raises questions about the effectiveness of persuasion and attention-grabbing.
The use of personalized targeted advertisements suggests a shift in the power to persuade effectively, which may encroach on personal autonomy.
The economic hole we are driving ourselves into is the same as the information wants to be free, as AI and robots require information that ultimately comes from people.
The ad economy answers the need to have information be free, but it has consequences, including continuous behavior modification by algorithms.
The behavior modification by algorithms is different from advertising.
The absence of postage on email and the ability of anyone to post anything without cost has put people out of work, which is fundamentally a form of theft through dishonesty.Jack Dorsey and Sam Harris discuss the impact of social media on society and potential solutions
Podcasting is still an authentic medium that has not been heavily manipulated by algorithms
Social media companies have become manipulative and creepy, undermining human dignity and self-determination
The solution is to gradually bring money back into the world of information and pay people who add value to the network
Business models should encourage people to pay for what they want to avoid commercial bias and crap
Middle-sized organizations need to be created to collectively bargain for individuals and enforce quality and trustworthiness
Social media has potential to do good, such as enabling revolutions and empowering dissidents
Twitter has caused controversy due to its impact on politics and journalism
Dorsey aims to work in public and make decisions in public to earn trust and learn from conversation
The intention is to earn trust, but Twitter is not there yet
Social media has created an echo chamber or filter bubble phenomenon, exacerbating partisanship
Social media companies need to be held accountable for their impact on society
The internet needs to be rebooted by paying people who add value, creating in-between institutions, and encouraging business models where people pay for what they want.