Mark Zuckerburg not only announced that META will end fact checking, but he also baselessly accused the fact checkers of being “too politically biased” and said they “have destroyed more trust than they’ve created, especially in the U.S.” Elon Musk claims to value free speech, but has shown he might even penalize conservatives who disagree with him on X. I know a lot of people who have left X because they do not feel safe. Especially from stalkers after the latest block policy that enables stalkers to continue stalking.
Are there lessons we can learn from the pre social media past and move forward?
Social in the 80’s
Contrary to the memes, it was not all face to face, but the face to face interactions we had largely happened in third places. We met at malls, public parks, arcades and each other’s houses.
We also had our face to face interactions in music culture through concerts, party scene through house parties, clubs, and raves.
Extracurricular activities and clubs were spaces we could, and would, meet face to face as well.
The telephone was an important way for us to speak as well. With creative use of multiple friends using three way calling, a small group of friends could chat on the phone. If someone lived far away, you wrote letters and sometimes you even made pen pals.
We played video games together, listened to music together, talked about our hopes and fears and frustrations. We did sometimes talk about the news. We still do, but it is different and we will get to that.
News Media in the 80’s
We had to choose our news. If you read the newspaper you picked it based on your favorite reporters or favorite section. There were sections of the paper you likes and others you either did not like or were indifferent to. Magazines gave weekly or monthly news and would often have an emphasis on things you were interested in.
Then there was television. You chose your favorite channel based on many factors. Time of news shows, political emphasis, favorite personalities, and if you preferred hard news or entertaining news.
Radio was another common option and like television and news papers you had a variety of choices and reasons.
In all honesty, as we look at then and now, much of it has not changed much, but there is about to be a big difference.
Social Included the Media, but Was Not the Media
When we were hanging out at the mall, we did not all come with photocopies of the latest newspaper and hand it out to all of our friends. Neither did we then go find people who were doing the same thing in another part of the mall with this week’s national enquirer and try to pick fights with them.
The mall did not send Paul Blart after someone who bought a National Enquirer or Weekly World News and make sure they knew it was fake news while handing them a copy of the New York Times as verification.
The news agencies, unless it was for human interest, did not use people at the mall or the bowling alley as a source for their news in the manner that legitimate news agencies use comments from X and Facebook as valid sources.
We talked about the news and things going on in the world and if there was someone who was a bully, we tended to not include that asshole in our future events. If we had gay friends and someone said homophobic shit, you called the guy a jerk and walked away.
Where We Changed the World
We donated to causes, we attended events, fundraisers, and demonstrations. We voted. Then we let people know about these things by inviting them. The diea of thinking memes and liking something would change lives and policies would have seemed nuts to us.
The Difference
I do not think it was simpler or better back then. I love that I can communicate with my friends all over the world in real time without the expense of a long distance phone call. A private message, DM, or email arrives much faster than a letter in the mail does. What I think is different is we had more intention.
Doomscolling is an interesting term and the difference. The action is not the doom, it is our reaction that is the doom. The action is a very passive action without the same level of intention we once had. We habitually lose track of time scrolling through our feed and along the way we find content that causes feelings of sadness, anger, isolation, loneliness or anxiety. It has been found to be harmful to our mental health. Useful tools like photoshop, the written word and AI can be used to create false narratives that while passively scrolling we may be fooled by. And that deception affects us and our society.
Social media platforms are always going to be problematic. We are not the consumer, we are the product and the consumer is the advertiser. To better target they need us to stay on and scroll while we engage. When we are passive we engage with our amygdala. When we have intention we invite the pre frontal cortex and have some healthy cortisol and dopamine as our reward and pleasure centers find connections, enrichment, and joy.
Recently we invited former journalist Ivy Guiler to write an article at Gen X Watch. She gave us tools to vet news sources with intention in search of truth. Without social media providing those guardrails, we have a wonderful guide on how to do that yourself.
In your social media, have intention. I love music, watches, philosophy and pop culture. I have groups where I meet with people online with those same interests. It is wonderful. I have medical conditions and mental health concerns. I have groups where people with the same diagnosis share information, resources, and unique comradery only those of us who experience these things can understand.
My friends? Just as I did when I was in high school, I check in on them with intention. I cannot trust the feed scroll to do that, I have to wonder what Ivy, Jeremy, Karen or Sanjay is up to and give what they post a like or a comment and then follow up with a private hello.
When I do scroll, I play the game. Social media studies what I look at and do not look at to determine engagement. If I click remove on my wall as I get something on my feed I never signed up for, it gives me less of that. But sometimes, there is something I am interested in…and I give that a click, but I do not click the thing that angers me or gives me anxiety.
I will be honest, this takes effort..intention.
So how do we make social media retro?
Intention and active is the key as opposed to passive. Seeking pleasure and joy in engagement instead of passive doom. Vetting information instead of reacting and seeking bias conformation.
We do need to be concerned with Zuck’s position as it has been proven that bad actors did manipulate conservatives and liberals. This threatens democracy. It has also been proven that META knew that content was hurting teenage girls emotionally on Instagram, but they dismissed it for profit. Those actions are things that do need oversight and oversight is not something that Zuck, Musk, Bezos, and others want. Their ilk never wants oversight. When they get their way, history shows that people, economies, governments and societies suffer because of it.
In some ways this is not in our control, but it can be. If we are more intentional with our friendships, our time, our money, our information and our activism we can be the guard rails and join forces with the journalists, activists, and innovators to be the watchdogs. But to do that we need to be healthy and one of the keys to that is less passive doomscrolling and more active intention in our social and our media. For those in therapy, this is the difference between coping mechanisms and coping skills. Mechanisms is what you do without intention and just gets you by, skills are what addresses the symptoms and fosters healthier living.
I do hope that as you make those choices, you choose Gen X Watch as part of your world.
Storytime
I have been online since 1983 with a Commodore 64 and a Vicmodem using Compuserve to access my favorite BBS boards. Over the decades I have made amazing friends and been exposed to ideas and concepts and people that have made my world larger and more beautiful. But keyboard courage and anonymity has always been anxiety inducing and could lead to hurt that is as real as some of the friendships I have made.
Simply because my child is LGBTQIA+ and I believe women should have bodily autonomy I have been doxxed, threatened, accused of child abuse and accused of horrible things. Even though it would take less than a minute to discredit some of the claims, some still choose to believe.
In this venture, someone accused one of my columnists, Jeremy Ritch, of having said something homophobic. That led to a large and vitriolic DDoS attack on the site that cost me over $300 in tools and aid to keep the lights on here.
Prior to my suicide attempt I was the doomscroller to beat all doomscrollers and if there was something anxiety inducing I HAD to prove the person wrong to my own detriment, and possibly to that other person. And here is the irony. Prior to 2006-2008 I was a conservative fundamental evangelical who was anti gay (among other things). Someone yelling at me never once changed my mind or my heart. What did? A gay pastor and lesbian woman did something amazing. They befriended me. Somehow they knew my heart was good, but I had been fed some bad shit called theology that poisoned me.
For a few years I was a data broker and I know how sophisticated algos are. My point here? In some ways we knew more about you and what you would do in the next six months than you know about yourself. We legally bought and sold not just your email and feed access, but you. Your habits, hopes, dreams, and what it will take for you to hand over your credit card and be a good consumer adding to cart and clicking now.
I know Zuck and Musk and possibly Mr Wonderful do not give a shit about us or the damage their algos and worst players are doing to us, teenage girls, and democracy. But my life would be less without the connections I have made on social media that have changed my world view for the better.
Taking control of your social media behavior and having intention instead of doomscrolling is hard. It takes effort. The sublime and horrific truth is that the internet and social media can be the most helpful thing to our future and it can also be our downfall. We stand on the razor’s edge of life and death every time we log on. We post things that can inspire and enrich or we hurt others. We can be inspired and enriched or we can be hurt and buy shit we do not need and cannot afford while Zuck gets another fuckin tax break and a yacht. He took away the guard rails. In my opinion he took them away to curry favor with the incoming president. If I am right it is a smart business move to make even more money, but it is a dick move to humanity, kindness, democracy, and teenage girls.
I hope you continue to follow us online. I do not play algo games to manipulate. I go old school and ask you to share, comment, and make a choice. I will never get a yacht that way, but I am also safer from Orcas and can sleep at night.
Stay totally awesome.
Stay true to you.
You matter!
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