The person arguing the affirmative called out something I’d not fully appreciated: binge watching of shows has killed what we used to call water cooler conversations. Prime time TV was a great provider of shared experiences most weeknights. Sunday evenings would be some just-released-to-TV blockbuster. And we’d roll into the office the next day and “omg! Did you see X last night?!” Of course they did, there was only like 3 channels back then (I’m in Australia, don’t laugh ;). But binge watching, catch-ups, streaming in all its form has sufficiently time shifted everything to the point we have low guarantees about having a shared experience. Or maybe I only managed to consume 2 episodes, and you watched them all. But you cant remember exactly about… “episode 2, is that the one… oh no that’s episode 3! Never mind”. We’re not able to have the same kind of free flowing conversations we used to. They also pointed out that sport is one of the last remaining shared in thine experiences that provide that offer similar opportunities. But it carries with it the factional tribalism the can push us away from someone as much as it can unite us.
That was used as a jumping point to suggest this lack of shared experience has slowly broken our sense of togetherness and community. That in turn has fostered the kind of hostility to others that seems prevalent online.
I found that a bit of a bridge too far. Though at the same time so much of the rest of the rationale actually resonated with my own experience, I’ve just not found the destination we’re at quite as bleak.