Social Mood Shift: Social Media Is Making You Depressed

Social mood is turning on tech. The downside of social media is being discussed more than the positive side. There isn't news here in the sense of a "big reveal." Facebook's privacy troubles weren't a shock either for those paying close attention. What has changed is social mood and what aspect of technology people focus on.

Social media makes people depressed, exacerbates polarization, increases anxiety and creates conflict where none would exist otherwise. Most people do not discuss politics with their neighbors. But if they're Facebook friends and one says Trump is a Russian agent and the other says Obama was born in Kenya...

ZH: "Delete Your Account" Warns Virtual Reality Founding Father

When you watch the television the television isn't watching you. When you see the billboard the billboard isn't seeing you... When you use these new designs — social media, search, YouTube — when you see these things, you're being observed constantly and algorithms are taking that information and changing what you see next.

...This is what I could call almost a stealthy addiction. It's a statistical addiction.

What it says is we will get the broad population to use the services a lot, we'll get them hooked through a scheme of rewards and punishment, and the rewards are when you're retweeted and the punishment is when you're treated badly by others online, and then within that we'll very gradually start to leverage that, to change them.

It's this very kind of stealthy manipulation of the population. -Jaron Lanier to Channel 4