It could just be me, but I feel the offence/outrage culture is very tiring on social media. It seems like certain parts of the internet have become a sponge of human frustration, often misdirected, often unnecessary. Is it healthy for us to keep consuming these micro-outrages all the time?
I would offer that there's no use for social media! Anecdotally, I stopped using it altogether many years ago - I feel I've lost nothing for it, and I am also much happier and focused.
I don't blame you for seeing this as outrage or offence, or me victimizing the users of social media. But I think you're labelling this as outrage because we're so used to seeing outrage online.
No, this is just an observation with no strong emotions or reactions attached - it's tiring and it's probably unhealthy. No one has wronged me or caused offence to me. If anything, it's self-inflicted. We all ultimately decide what we consume.
Anyways, your comment was interesting in the way you see this, and I think, illustrative of the point I was making. Outrage online has become so normal it is to be expected.
I think you misunderstand me. If I understood your original comment, you are saying you are tired of the social media outrage culture, with the complaint about the EFF blockage being an example of said outrage.
I was just saying that it's ironic that the outrage is being directed towards Facebook, which is usually the generator of social media outrage, and out of all the outrage you complain about, it's the one directed at the source.
Ah, thanks for clarifying. Yes, I agree. I think that social media is responsible for a lot of this outrage culture, although the culture has spread outside it. People were much less adversarial and easily offended in the 90s and 00s. There was a lot more empathy and agreement, overall.
It seems like there are many small but easy to understand factors in social media that led to the outrage culture. In one of Sam Harris' or Lex Fridman's podcast episodes with Jack Dorsey, an idea was brought up that we might have less fracturing in our society if the social media didn't have a "like" button, but instead a "thanks" button. People like a lot of tribality and toxic things, but few are grateful for them. I think that things like these show the negative impact social media had in this area of the social fabric.
You can really see how people are much more likely to take sides and galvanize against each other in every day life, even if it's against their interests. It's certainly not limited to social media, even if it could have been the biggest driver for it.
