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Comment by nutanc | Hacker News Reader

Other than the obvious discussions around free speech(very valid points), do we have any real studies on the actual effects of social media? What if social media platforms didn't exist. Would the world have been a better place? I don't know the answer, but atleast from my observations it feels as if almost every country in the world has moved to the right but by bit. We have moved away from globalization and are into protectionism. Is social media to be blamed for this? I think it has certainly played it's part for sure.

One advantage of social media I see is that it has allowed people to create D2C businesses.

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Social media platforms are no more closed circles. They are platforms for advertisers and "click fishers". And people engage with content which revolt them.

As a consequence social platforms, and low quality newspapers, have converged to show the bad news from all over the world. There is no shortage of them. This affects people's morale, confidence. Have you noticed how people you talk to can be very concerned about seemingly minor events that occurred on the other side of the world, to which they cannot change anything, and which should not change anything in their life?

Turns out today I have cut access to Youtube, Google Play to my 12 years old daughter. Internet is limited to a whitelist of sites, with only Wikipedia for now. She had turned phone addict in an unmanageable way. Blame Youtube and Tiktok. Unfortunately she needs a smartphone for school, she would otherwise have a dumb phone.

Of course there is wonderful content on Youtube. But the "shorts" is a literal trap for kids. As for the adults (well, me) it is just painful to see the list of trending videos, such that I seldom go and never stay. This is a stinky place. Ask the dictator in me and I would say blocking Youtube makes more good than bad.

And full of bots. So you think that you have discussion with a human but it is a bot :)

Social networks are waste of time and source of anger combined with cheap dopamin. Lovely. It is what is really good for your health /s

I don’t think it’s a coincedence that both social media and conservatism thrive on viral fear and outrage. The two are most certainly connected.

The world would probably be a very different place today if instead hope and joy were the bread and butter of Twitter, Reddit, etc.

In the specific context of Nepal, because it is clearly the next step in consolidation of power and move to authoritarianism.

The government is corrupt and has taken a lot of incredibly unpopular and objectively anti-people moves in the last 2-3 years. Taming social media would allow them to do more of that with less of the backlash.

It is clear they aren't even remotely concerned about the actual bad effects of social media. They didn't ban TikTok, of all things.

Social media algorithms are tuned to maximize engagements and this is easily done by keeping the user happy. This creates echo chambers and ends up polarizing users. Not everyone gets polarized but a vast majority of users become victims of confirmation bias, which leads to an increasingly fragmented and divisive society. Am I wrong?

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