Should I Leave? Confronting Social Media

It’s with risk one voices an opinion on media these days, especially with FB, X, and Tik Tok swarming with heated blurbs hurled at those whose opinions run contrary to their own.

I’ve toyed, like my daughter, with abandoning FB, not only for its myriad inflammatory posts, but for its subjecting me to an onslaught of advertising memes. I don’t like being tracked.

I continue with FB only because of friendships made over the years. I don’t want them severed.

Not least, I hold memberships in several groups that have greatly helped me in their counsel and sharing of interests.

But the temptation to slam the door on media, nevertheless, remains strong. I think the Internet, in general, can be an unsafe place, affording anonymity to the mischievous and those just plain angry with life.

Lately, I’ve discovered that AI itself, sometimes useful to retrieve detailed info, can be programmed with bias, not only for what it yields, but for what it omits.

But back to media, I appreciated Sam Harris’ recent Substack piece, “We are Losing the Information War with Ourselves.” I’ve always admired his level-headed, spot-on appraisals of our human dilemmas, and suggesting their best remedies.

Space confines my commentary, but Harris rightly observes that “There is no party of murder’ in this country. And insisting that there is just adds energy to yet another moral panic. Social media amplifies extreme views as though they were representative of most Americans, and many of us are losing our sense of what other people are really like. Many seem completely unaware that their hold on reality is being steadily undermined by what they are seeing online, and that the business models of these platforms, as well as livelihoods of countless “influencers,” depend on our continuing to gaze, and howl, into the digital abyss.”

His counsel is to follow his lead:

“Get off social media.
Read good books and real journalism.
Find your friends.
And enjoy your life.”

For Dee Dee and me, not only the above, but evening baseball with our beloved Red Sox, even though they often break our hearts.

Point is, life is short. Make it fun!

RJ