One of the prevailing topics I see bantered about on the internet these days is the Dead Internet Theory, which asserts that the internet is now mostly filled with bots talking to other bots, and that most of the creative endeavours by humans have been replaced. That comment you see on a Reddit post or underneath a YouTube video is just as likely, if not more, to have been left by a robot. It’s really challenging to know if you’re talking to another living, breathing human being, or a soulless clanker.
Related to this, I see a lot of discourse about how social media specifically is where the issues lie. I’m not totally against this idea, but I think that is short-sighted in a lot of ways. For one, social media has been one of the things that has allowed me to live such an incredible life. It’s where I met a ton of people, including life-long friends and even someone who was willing to donate a kidney to me. It was instrumental in me finding and landing my dream job. It has brought me to some of my favorite music, books, movies, and games. Other than the occasional snark you see, or the “well actually” people that sometimes leach into your replies, it has been a tremendous source of enrichment in my life. I am better for social media having existed.
But I know that’s a privileged and lucky perspective. Most people find it negative, and it weighs on their lives. They are bullied and harassed there. They get dunked on, laughed at, and driven to mental and physical health issues.
Sometimes I ponder what the world would be like if social media never existed. But the truth is, I don’t think that world would ever exist. At least, not while the internet itself exists.
The truth about social media networks is that they’re just feeds. They’re not that different from an RSS feed, or even just a list of posts. People are naturally curious about what their friends, family, and other acquiatances are up to. They want to know about the cool book someone else has written, or a song they’ve sung, or a painting they’ve made. You want to keep up with the work of people who are doing things you love. And wouldn’t it be great to have all those updates in one place?
Once you arrive at the feed, the rest of the social web is just a stone’s throw away. You want to be able to tell another person you enjoyed what they shared. What if there was a button built in to send a reply? Or better yet, just click a button to let them know you liked it.
To that end, what if you wanted to let the people in your cicle know about it? You could just link to it. Or, even easier, click a button and make that post appear to the people who follow you.
Even if MySpace, Facebook, Twitter, Mastodon, Instagram, etc. never were invented, I am positive that something that looked very much like some or all of those would have appeared.
Maybe if advertisements weren’t sold against these networks there wouldn’t be an incentive for companies to use algorithms and similar tools to try to get things in front of as many eyeballs as possible, or to stir outrage just to get more engagement. That’s part of the reason I’m so impressed by and interested in federated social media like Mastodon.
But ultimately, social media is nothing more than a simple feed, sometimes with a couple extra buttons thrown in. I find that beautiful — and sometimes, a bit scary.