Item — HN Reader

Yes. It's an odd phenomenon. Some messages of this form seem to live and recirculate for years, perpetuated without much analytical thought.

I often get preached at about how bad social media is. The irony is that I don't have any, and the people preaching at me do.

My best theory: I suspect both online and offline, people "parrot" ideas 90% of the time. They hear an idea, repeat it without much thought, if it resonates well they repeat it more.

I think the reason people do this in-person is the same as they do it online. They say things not because they have deeply reflected on all the ramifications and sincerely believe and live by those ideas. They say things "to get likes."

2 comments

So there is this common idea that social media is creating sort of "fake" social interactions where things are said and pictures are taken in pursuit of social reward (likes, follows, engagement). But this behavior isn't really caused by social media, in fact this is just a digital representation of a behavior that people have been doing for a really long time.

This is a completely fresh perspective to me and I find it very interesting, there's a good chance that you're right.

I don't think it is that odd at all. It is a bit like how people brag about how drunk they get, how stupid the things they did while drunk were, how hung over they are. They pretend like they are confessing but they are really bragging. Same with smoking/vaping. Same with people who relish in the toxic drama they invite into their lives.

I believe there is some dark psychology behind all of this. I think we test each other not only on how virtuous we are, but in what ways we are morally deficient. Being addicted to social media is one way we give ourselves permission to indulge in types of negative behavior that existed long before computers existed. These kind of articles are a tacit justification of those behaviors.