I was in a Twitter conversation recently that went a bit sideways. I don’t want to get into details, but I want to talk about a landscape of social sharing that is exhausting me. Is it just me or does every challenging conversation seem to go somewhere it doesn’t have to?
Pick any prominent public figure, if they say anything germane to a serious topic, the comment responses are caustic and angry. It’s like people are trolling just to attack. That’s not what happened in the conversation I was having, but that’s where my mind went.
What happened to me was that I went silent. I had more to share, but saw no use in saying more. The conversation between two others went to a place where I could add no value. It was upsetting. I am not someone who likes to walk away from something unresolved, but I didn’t have the words. I typed a response, then deleted it. I did this again.
I can’t stay on Twitter and only share things I think will acquire likes and positive comments. I’m not a poop disturber either, but I want to be able to go to hard places sometimes, to question and to learn. But I’m not feeling like good discourse can happen on social media anymore. Discourse has become argument and different views are not tolerated.
What I’m talking about goes far beyond the conversation I had, but what I’ve seen recently has pushed me away from following conversation threads on Twitter… Not because I’m not interested in the topic, but because I’m not interested in the polar, angry, and even nasty comments that fill any (even slightly) controversial thread.
Social media seems a lot less social these days.
I feel that this is the challenge that Douglas Rushkoff is trying to grapple with in regards to Team Human.
Ian O’Byrne also wrote a similar reflection lately in which he wonders if we need to take a step back:
I often come back to Venkatesh Rao’s piece on the Internet of Beefs.
Reading your post on the Internet of Beefs, by Rao, I couldn’t help but think that it wasn’t just about the internet but also news television. That behaviour is exactly what we see when there is a panel of speakers on a topic. This quote you shared absolutely nails what happens in those hot topic debates:
“The combatants fight not for material advantage, but for a symbolic victory that can be read as signifying the cosmic, spiritual righteousness and rightness of what they are fighting for.”
So, it goes well beyond the internet, and is part of the fabric of how people have a discourse… actually how they argue/bicker/display opposing opinions… it isn’t discourse which suggests an opportunity to learn and grow.