> Most critical is the disappearance of dance.
Have you looked at TikTok? It is full of young people performing incredibly complex dance moves.
Have you looked at TikTok? It is full of young people performing incredibly complex dance moves.
I know what you wrote is fairly obvious but the wording really resonated with how I feel about social media platforms but couldn't quite word it so well.
My wife was maid of honor (we weren't married yet) at her college roommate's wedding. I danced with several of their friends at the reception; one taught me to two-step (it was in San Antonio). I taught her basic swing. There was exactly zero romantic involvement; I was there with my girlfriend, for heaven's sake. But she was nice, she was fun, and we just chatted as we went through the dances. Got a couple of her funny college stories out of that. And that's what it's about: having an excuse to be physically close to someone else, doing an enjoyable activity that rewards skill, and to gossip a little. We, like all apes, are social animals. We're happier when we do that.
We've traded social connection for micro-dopamine hits.
And I don't think I'm being an old man shouting at clouds. I think it's genuinely worse.
"Social connection" and "micro-dopamine hits" are two different phrases for the same thing. Connections through social media apps can be every bit as deep and genuine as those made through standing in the same building.
Liking a booty shake video from some thirst trap influencer is exceedingly unlikely to result in any of these.
Saying hi to a stranger in a bar is exceedingly unlikely to result in any of these.
Maybe introducing yourself in-person is slightly deeper than thumbs-upping someone's video, but by the same token the latter is a smaller step; you can always go with a full-sentence comment or a video response of your own if you want the slightly deeper interaction.
Many people can go to a bar and fairly reliably get laid several times a month. That’s simply not possible for the overwhelming majority of people using TikTok. TikTok / Twitter/ Instagram etc are designed to be shallow interaction so people stick around. Dating apps fill that niche, but also want people to come back.
Being in public allows for the full range of relationships in any setting. You can meet a great friends at a bar etc.
In forms of social media that existed primarily to produce inter-personal connections (i.e. very early Facebook, or maybe even LinkedIn) your argument works significantly better, but the way that instagram/tiktok/etc prioritise influencers in your feed makes the likelihood of 1-to-1 interactions infinitesimally low (unless you yourself are also playing the influencer game)
There is a reason people “sliding into the DMs” is a term. It usually starts with liking posts and later moves into DMs. That same guy also showed me that he also slid into the DMs with some other woman and has another first date scheduled.
Social media is super important for the younger generation and their social life.
In any given social network this ratio is very screwed. Most people have to became interacters at least a couple of times before they can become an interactee.
How? Give an example that actually happened. If you can, address the relative likelihood vs. in-person contact.
Someone much more charismatic in the right scene certainly can do such things more consistently. What's the equivalent here, Tinder dates? I wonder which is more effective for that tip charismatic male? (it's no doubt women are wayyy more successful on dating apps. Too successful).
I chatted up a woman who was probably 20 years my senior, and the two of us had grown up in the same neighborhood in that city separated only by time. We had a wonderful conversation for an hour or so. My now-wife came over at one point, I said we were having a conversation about my neighborhood, and she said, oh, you people always find each other (it was pretty distinctive in the city, and yes, we really did find each other). Now-wife walked away and went back to the others she had been hanging out with. I knew the exact house this woman had grown up in (it was one block away from where I was living at the time), having ridden my bicycle past it hundreds of times as a kid, and just listened to the stories of what it had been like then.
The bartender played no role in it at all.
You won't have that experience on TikTok.
Standarding in the same building does not create then either. People talking in groups and one-to-one, people meeting the same people regularly does. That is what dancing was.
I've seen it happen, so it absolutely can. People have back-and-forth interactions, find regular partners, and form dance groups.
And they're usually right. It's just that subsequent generations mainly see the new normal and forget.
> "Social connection" and "micro-dopamine hits" are two different phrases for the same thing.
No. It's like the difference between a piece of good chocolate cake and some sugar cubes.
> Connections through social media apps can be every bit as deep and genuine as those made through standing in the same building.
It's possible, but far less likely.
And that's been my experience online. Lots of neat niche connections with people I'd never meet IRL. But you'd be surprised how quickly that connect can sever when that person leaves the community, even if you keep trying to reach out.
But i don't know, maybe this gen Z figured out something this boomer Millenial and other older generations couldn't. I'm open to being wrong.