this is a :a-guy: post

So my grandma couldn't live alone anymore and she moved into my parents house about a year ago. Her new bedroom doesn't have cable. Her media diet used to be like 90% TV and 10% internet. Now it's reversed.

She's 90 years old and just a conventional methodist.

What probably happened is she searched youtube for gospel music to do crosswords by. 100,000 iterations of the algorithm later she believes in ancient aliens, crises actors, millenarianism, all of it.

Same thing probably happened in rural communities who got the full internet all at once. They didn't get it by degrees, dial-up alta vista, to learn years of bullshit filtering heuristics.

  • JoannaNewsom [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    Welcome to the Internet, we have two items on the menu:

    1. Insane right wing conspiracy theories
    2. Severe anxiety and depression

    Take your pick

    I wrote a much longer post but that’s what it boils down to really I think. At least with an Internet that exists for private profit, and so must drive ‘engagement’ as much as possible in order to sell ads.

    Makes ya wonder if the human brain just isn’t cut out for something like the internet. Our natural human inclination to try to make sense of the world and our need for social interaction get subverted for profit

    • Socialcreditscorr [they/them,she/her]
      ·
      2 years ago

      Makes ya wonder if the human brain just isn’t cut out for something like the internet.

      Our natural human inclination to try to make sense of to make sense of the world and our need for social interaction get subverted for profit

      profit

      :soviet-hmm: