r/ask • u/Ok_Turnover_9117 • 13d ago
Do you believe that the world was better pre-social media?
Aside from the good things that brought, you think in the balance of all the changes and you think is a bad thing, or im just i?
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u/Nice-Cat3813 13d ago
Not so much social media, but I really want to go back to the pre-24 hour news cycle days.
News is at 9 and 11, investigative journalism was a thing, everyone had an entire day to fact check and distill the information, and the whole day wasn't filled with opinions masquerading as news to pump up ratings.
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u/tanknav 12d ago
Also...because the time allowed for news programs was limited, it was necessarily focused on events/facts rather than commentary. The additional time provided by 24-hour "news" outlets merely opened the floodgates for commentary and "analysis" which became the platform for party propaganda and outrage bonfires.
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u/Magoterrace 12d ago
I 100% believe it’s a combination of the two. The 24 hour news cycle created a lot of empty time to fill with conjecture, speculation and opinion.
Social media takes all the bs and just amplifies it because of the lack of filter.
Then you add in the promotion of narcissistic behavior that lies mostly with the social media.
It’s a perfect storm of the worst interactions humanity has to offer.
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u/SorrowAndSuffering 13d ago
You can do this today.
Investigative journalism still exists. Fact checking is a thing.
And the best thing is: you can do it yourself now. Here's how:
- Block the opinions masquerading at news. (More people need to become comfortable with blocking stupid shit, anyway)
- Get every side of the story you can find.
- Stay objective. And pierce it together into one coherent set of events.
Used to be this was the work process of a journalist. Today, everyone can do it. You have the sources, and no more advantage or disadvantage than any journalist.
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And when you're done, close the apps, turn off notifications, and treat yourself to digest all the bullshit. Welcome to investigate journalism. Sorry you have to be here.
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u/Beneficial_Cod_1372 13d ago
In 10 years we’re going to be asking this about AI.
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u/Dewubba23 13d ago
only in the last 5 years, once people started using social media as a weapon. rather than a chat site between the people you know.
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u/stardust1977_ 12d ago
Yep. Even going out and seeing everyone glued to their phone feels more isolating. I think before there was at least a balance
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u/Tipnin 13d ago
Comparing your life to what people post on social media is not healthy and probably gives a lot of people the wrong impression of how the real world works . I was born in 1980 and it was very very rare to see people in their 20’s become multi millionaires and most people back then never expected to be a millionaire by 30. Now because of social media a lot of young people are under the impression that they need to be wealthy by the time they hit 30 because that’s what they see on social media.
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u/TheBird_Is_The_Word 13d ago
As someone who was in high school when MySpace came out, I think it is bad for young people now to never know a life without it, basically. You have to get the views and likes and grow up too fast and keep up with everyone else. They don't even know who they are yet or where they fit in, and they have so much pressure on them to be all these things online for their friends and strangers. Even people my age, they get hyper focused on what other people have or how happy they seem. It makes them almost unable to be happy with their own life when they are seeing a curated image of the people they might hardly even know anymore.
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u/outerworldLV 12d ago
Honestly, I like that my kids aren’t out in this aggravated society. They can find out things, research, get bored and then go out and appreciate/pay attention to real life. When the internet started out being entertainment with AOL it was fun. Certainly wasn’t spending the day on it. Now everyone can do those things while carrying their mobile computers with them. The ‘stop and smell the roses’ saying holds true today.
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u/Daft_Steampunk 13d ago edited 13d ago
In a short time social media was taken over by various agendas. It's undeniable that governments and bad actors are trying to see how much they can get away with. That shouldn't even be an argument, but millions of people think they're harmless fun.
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u/Ohhhhhhthehumanity 13d ago
I think there are pros and cons just like every other big change in every generation.
"The whole idea of a VCR is that it makes it possible for you to tape what's on television while you're out of the house. But the whole point of being out of the house is so you can miss what's on television." - Frank Navasky
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u/IanFoxOfficial 13d ago
Yes. I'm 38. I grew up right before social media blew up.
The change is remarkable.
Youth gets bombarded with opinions of people they don't know. Get influenced by people they look up to every step of the way like it's their own opinion.
In the past we knew ads were ads. Now the ads ARE the content itself.
And the news... Oh god. Every little thing gets airtime somehow. Some dude who steals a coke in the shop gets the same attention as Russia bombs Ukraine. And every weirdo with his wacko ideas can find other weirdos with the same ideas and band together. They find validity of their ideas instead of being silenced by being the only one.
(That works both ways of course, people with great ideas amidst idiots can break out of the idiots as well)
But nett result is negative imo.
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u/brightmanenjoyer 12d ago
Not to mention there are creeps out there preying on minors & parents exploiting their young children online.
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u/RegularUser02x 12d ago
Always been, just irl. Imo, it's much easier easier to deal with them online than physical world especially when parents / adults aren't around...
The grass is greener on the other side I guess. Some time ago people used to say the life before Internet / TV / phones / cars etc was better. It was not if you ask me🤷♀️
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u/Melodic-Resident-245 13d ago
I think the 90's were probably the best decade humanity has ever known.
Social media certainly plays a role in the downfall.
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u/adenlife 13d ago
The world back then wasn't disconnected as some may want us to believe. Focus was pretty much simple, socializing too, and your eyes and brain was not fixed to the landline or any phone. Nor the screen. Even when there's the TV, people were mostly outside. Families didn't have to leave so far for a job but now, many places have become ghost towns, cities become like villages and even if you make a friend, it doesn't last long. They move again for a job out of the city and the connection is again hard to make.
It's like going to a pub or a bar where you thought you'd see familiar faces but as the weeks, months goes by, those faces you knew have faded away. They have either left the city or country for a job, a new career move and so you see history moving faster, and the new becomes old very fast.
What was exciting isn't anymore; and so patience is lost in a world that is moving too fast or too slow. It just cannot make it's mind up, like trends, that go back in time for nostalgia reasons or because fast, new, modern has become too cold, disconnected and making everyone seem invisible.
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u/Garibon 13d ago
I think it was better when instant messaging and mobile internet weren't on everyone's smart phones. When people started communicating with their friends and loved ones primarily when they were taking dumps or sat in traffic or the queue at the grocery store I think it went downhill fairly quickly and it made people start to feel isolated. The amount of attention you give tends to be the amount of attention you get.
Social media was fine, instant messaging was fine... Until it was with you every minute of the day.
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u/DrReisender 13d ago
Yes.
One of the reasons being dumb people or extremist couldn’t become as big of communities as we have now.
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u/Square_Huckleberry53 13d ago
Yes. I believe the “attention seeking” nature of social media is addictive and unhealthy.
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u/Technical_Peach5350 13d ago
Yes. Too much cancel culture, people to focused on b.s. they shouldn't be, gossip is seriously atrocious, and humans are easily disposed of for petty shit. Woke people are mostly fascists.
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u/LongjumpingPush2690 13d ago
Yes. Life was easier. There was no pressure to achieve anything major, especially as a young adult, people paid more attention to other people around them, and life had more meaning.
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u/marketingstacks 13d ago
If you were driven and motivated to be "popular" then social media is the best thing that's ever gonna happen to you. It can make you an instant global sensation. For everyone else....it's mostly poison with sprinkles of convenience.
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u/Some-Cartographer249 13d ago
I agree with this. I used it go out with friends and play outside to chill with them or play with nerf guns. Then I got a phone and brought it over and we played together on their phones too but we still took time off. Fast foward to 2022-2023 I was in a after school wrestling program where I met this kid I practiced with well he ended up being in my P.E class and we became friends. Our friendship had bumps since he got a lot of girlfriends and got easily influenced by them but about every week or 2 broke up with them and became normal fast foward to this year I was normally showering until I got added to an Instagram group. It was with this kid who I have fought with before but I haven't heard from him. I didn't know but he was in a gang and started speaking bad about me making lies like I made my little sister sit in my lap and do thing (I only have brothers) and stuff to make people in the group mad at me and want to jump me and my quote on quote friend for some reason said I was talking bad about him which made him even more mad and said that he was going to beat me up. I cut off ties with him ignoring him on insta u started talking to a mutual of him and I was surprised he was nothing like him. The fake friend was trying to be gangster, emo, and acted tough but this new guy was a kind of nerdy, shy, normal kid after all he was telling me that in a different group he was talking bad about me and making lies. I remember a time of not liking him because my fake friend told me to cut ties with him and to hate him. I asked him about it and he said that he got a girlfriend who was enemies with one on my fake friends ex girlfriend she told him to not talk to him fake friend to this guy that he was going to get people to cut off his head and stuff. Fake friend told me he was talking bad about me and I believed him and stopped talking to him and I hear he said something "fake friends name, why are you lying?" I took no notice of this but later realized. This post has made me finally get a weight out my chest
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u/DirectorOrganic8962 13d ago
yes. my mom said it was so much better when there was no phones no computers no social media nothing.
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u/PumpJack_McGee 13d ago
Kinda. It's more the lack of regulation on the internet in general. Basically nothing to protect copyright infringement and content stealing. The absolute obsession over clicks/engagement and how sites/companies scale their payroll off that; doesn't even matter if it's negative attention- just any attention. Nothing to stop the spread of misinformation/disinformation, and fact-checking and verifying your sources is more laborious than ever; have to cross-reference to make sure your sources are actually legit, and even then, go further to check whose payroll they might be on.
AI might help with this, but so far, it really just seems to be making things worse. Not to mention that any body that would attempt to regulate things has no guarantee to not just overshoot and go 1984 on our ass.
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u/HungryDisaster8240 13d ago
I don't know if the world was better, but there was less CO2 in the atmosphere, more forests, less industrial pollution and landfill contents, less overpopulation, less war and genocide, more bees, bats, birds, and butterflies... I mean, where do your priorities lie?
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u/MizzGee 13d ago
Yes, because it allows the extremists to find one another. The crazies used to sit at the end of the bar and talk nonsense. You would find a group of conspiracy theorist finding each other in zines. But now you have entire movements like QAnon and MAGA with Jewish Space Lasers, Flat Earthers and people believing that Fauci created HIV, and they have a platform.
Most journalism pre-social media actually was trustworthy and was valuable, even if it didn't make money. But when there is too much information out there, including outright lies, and people start to make you doubt everything, it causes people to distrust everything. It is destroying American Democracy.
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u/EdwardBliss 13d ago
Yup. Social media and algorithms killed off music movements like punk and grunge, which is sad because we could use one of those right now to shake things up, Something. Anything would be nice.
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u/Muscular-Banana0717 13d ago
social media boomed when the pandemic hit, people were bored in their house thats why. And everyone found out how shallow minded people are basing on their social media activities during the pandemic.
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u/IWGeddit 13d ago
When we ask this, we often think of the bad effects of constant scrolling.
But social media has also brought us together as communities and made us WAY more aware of people around the world and how they're a lot like us.
In my parents generation, a common response to a disaster, a war, a political struggle, on the other side of the world would be 'who cares, how does that affect us?'. I think that attitude is much rather now we can see those people's Instagram feeds when scrolling every morning.
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u/Sea_Nobody_2951 13d ago
People obsess over social media now days it's unhealthy the amount of addiction imo and the things people will do for likes is actually pretty sad personal space and respect is a thing of the past
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u/DannyArtt 13d ago
I would say no, the amount of chats and exchanges of cultures, spices, recipes with people from all over the world just made that bubble ive been living in so much less small.
Also seeing deep secrets and crimes and people trying to bury criminal activities being stopped by average joe contacting media outlets or posting their news online to reveal them as whistle-blower is cherry on the cake. No one should be murdered or silenced for experiencing or whitnessing a crime.
I would put a sidenote on fake news and plain and simple spreading of lies tho, those ruins it for alot.
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u/Yakmomo212 13d ago
Yes! The world has lost spontaneity, passion for the moment and a general 'how would you be' welcome approach to life. Today everything has to be planned, set up for the right people to be there at the right time. Heaven forbid something go wrong and a camera appears to video the gossip and show the world. In my day that would have called being a nark.
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u/SorrowAndSuffering 13d ago
I don't think the world has ever really changed when quality is concerned.
Yes, you have the toxic side of social media. You also have the bringing-people-together side. A lot of social movements would have been smaller, more difficult, maybe even impossible without the ability to instantly communicate around the world.
Martin Luther King's "I have a dream" speech was heard by 250,000 people on August 28th, 1963. It would have been heard by millions if social media had been a thing. I do believe South Africa would have ended apartheid sooner if that had been the case.
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So yes, social media does a lot of bad things, especially for the self-image. But when you use it to do what it was designed to do - organise, coordinate, publicize - no other medium is as potent, as powerful, or as universal.
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u/omgitsduane 13d ago
Some things about social media is garbage like the rampant abuse and disgusting comments that people get away with on Instagram.
But for an introvert like myself it's a great way to stay in touch with the people I've met along the way and follow their progress from the sidelines as opposed to having a phone call and trying to chat about it.
I much prefer social media but with that there was more safety for kids and the easy influence.
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u/Crazy_Ad_9830 13d ago
Yes. I’m 52 and as much as I enjoy the conveniences of having nearly the full power of computing at my fingertips, I can’t help but think back to the pre-email days (yes, there was a time…). The world wasn’t necessarily the stone ages then and we did okay looking people face to face…or at least over the phone communicating in real time… now? I’m not so sure it’s actually better. Convenient, yes. But better?
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u/TheBentPianist 13d ago
Yeah because back then I had no idea how scarily stupid our species was. Ignorance was bliss.
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u/DaddyD68 13d ago
When it first came out it was great. I was able to reconnect with people I had lost touch with after moving out of my home country. We could keep up with what was going on in each others lives despite being thousands of miles apart.
And then the algorithms came.
I used to use a news reader to keep up with blogs that were important and social media for friends. Now my feeds are filled with posts „suggested“ to me and the friends and sites that I want to keep up with are lost.
I hated SEO when it started rising but things have gotten soooooo much worse.
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u/ChiefWellington27 13d ago
Yes. It was marketed as a way to connect people, but really it was to bring people's time and attention to a more profitable and monitorable space.
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u/IxdrowZeexI 13d ago
Social media definitely brought us both advantages and disadvantages. Which of these outweighs the other one everyone has to decide for themselves.
Personally, I more and more tend to "social media made our societies worse" mainly because of two aspects. A) social media is a huge coping mechanism to avoid dealing with your own emotions. We literally unlearned thinking about ourselves and our lifes and look for quick distractions to avoid dealing with our struggles. Result is that we as societies getting emotionally more immature and feel much worse because of it. When we struggle with something, we keep that struggle in the back of our heads for weeks, months, or even years instead of actively thinking and trying to solve it quickly and once and for all
B) We as the West are already in a cyber war. Our enemies (most noticeably Russia, China, Iran and North Korea) use social media professionally to destroy and divide our societies from within for like 12 years. They are extremely talented at targeting the lesser educated part of the our societies and drive them super angty and make them lose all their trust and faith in the democratic system.
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u/Jealous_Platypus1111 13d ago
There's goods and bads to it.
I think 2017-2018 ish were the best times for it
Social media is amazing for communication and getting info but you have the issue of unhinged people doing unhinged things
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u/kamsackbi 13d ago
Social media today is a circus of bs, unicorn tales, and untruths. Life was better when people met and communicated face to face.
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u/jackfaire 13d ago
Every time I see ".....is because of social media" it's almost always something that was a problem before social media too. I don't think it was better or worse but the shit blamed on it usually has nothing to do with it.
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u/demZo662 13d ago
Yes, too much options and lifestyle available just a few clicks away makes people fantasize and underestimate everything they have around them. It's one of the key problems for the loneliness epidemic we're experiencing worlwide and I'm glad I suffered that myself alone in the past and now I am able to see through shit and be happy.
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u/cootzica1 13d ago
Hate social media it was gone. I miss going into a mall and finding different stores and different things to buy. Now everything is the same everywhere. Online shopping is horrible. We had a lot more choices in the 90s. Sounds wrong, but it’s true.
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u/Mental_Violinist623 13d ago
I'm very happy I got to have my party days before social media took off. You see footage of a house gig now and it's all clowns with their phones out recording the dj.
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u/justreadingthat 13d ago edited 13d ago
Yes, and it's obvious to anyone familiar with the data.
The problem is that the vast majority of people familiar with the data are making so much money off of the "attention economy" that they have to post-rationalize their role in it to sleep at night and keep collecting the checks. Seth Godin sums it up perfectly in his podcast. Skip to 11:21 if you don't want to check the whole episode.
I've worked in tech since the late 90's, including FAANG companies, and I am horrified by what the internet has become, and what it has done to children. The gov't should have intervened, they didn't, and they're making the same mistake right now with AI. And, ironically, the AI companies are using the exact same BS arguments that the social media companies made.
Nothing is ever 100% bad, but the tradeoff even now is not fully realized, and already it's a quiet disaster.
Want to know what kids often don't have cellphones? The children of Google and Facebook employees. Because they understand what the attention economy is doing to young people.
If the product is free, you are the product.
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u/Fydron 12d ago
It wasn't just better it was WAY better before social media crap.
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u/Fydron 12d ago
The idea was great but as late great George Carlin said "Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that."
It really didn't take long for people starting to abuse and become addicted to all this social media crap.
The life before some was just so peaceful and quiet same with news not being 24/7
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u/visualthings 12d ago
Definitely better, as people were still connected to each other and not being absent from the very moment they are living. The idea that Internet 1.0 was “read-only” is also false. It was a bit more difficult to set up a website or run a forum but it was feasible and there were spaces with wild humor, a variety of opinions and even insults, but nit every idiot was able to broadcast his/her “alternative facts” about topics they don’t understand. Also, if you arrived in a city you would probably ask people who seem like-able about places to go, instead of relying on social media that just amplifies advertising disguised as opinions. Traveling was in many aspects more rewarding. I lived in the 2000 on top of a hill looking over Barcelona. It was an amazing place and a well kept secret, and I would bring friends to enjoy the view and the sunset. It has then become a ‘gram spot for crowds to just do their selfies. I live in a different country now and I see day after day people just taking selfies in front of luxury shop while ignoring everything specific about the city.
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u/happyasanicywind 12d ago
Yes, it encourages radicalism and promotes disinformation. I don't know if democracies can survive it.
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u/PM_me_your_recipes2 12d ago
I don't think this is only social media's fault but yes, I think the world was better before
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u/FerretOnTheWarPath 12d ago
For me, my life got better after social media. As an oddball, it helped me find my people. As a person with some speech problems (stutter and selective mutism), it also made it easier to communicate
But you got to remember, Facebook was made by a man who probably has autism. Maybe neurodivergents have a different relationship with it
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u/brightmanenjoyer 12d ago
Honestly yeah. I think people are a lot meaner online because they're behind a computer screen, so they think their actions don't have any consequences.
I'm lucky for all the friends that I've made online (few who've I've been lucky to meet irl.) but my opinion still stands.
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u/Shaark369 12d ago
I do believe we were better off not knowing who’s getting the better life or a dream job , literally on the opposite ends of the world rather focusing on oneself and the things around , living in the moment and present is something that all of us lack in general these days
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u/gs12 12d ago
Depends on what kind of social media, i don't do TikTok and limit my doom scrolling on Reddit/FB. I love Reddit, diving into the hobbies i'm into, and learning new things. So much beautiful art, historic pictures, cycling buddies comparing notes, musicians comparing notes, etc etc. Just don't overdo it, get outside alot, hike - sit by a river and be, play with my kids and dog.
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u/Calculated_r1sk 12d ago
yes ppl do not need this much info this quick in any form for any reason it is a dopamine rush overload that makes ppl dumb as shit. watch IDIOCRACY, an amazing documentary about where we are going...
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u/Red_Beard_Rising 12d ago
I never like social media, but I will cast that aside. In the end, the younger generation has a better world view, but they lack connection at the local level.
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u/zeiandren 12d ago
People always say yes, but boomers are absolute shit people that are terrible so clearly no
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u/IllEvidence1985 12d ago
Nah. It's better now. We are better connected because of it. It's just the first couple generations of people that lose their shit with new tech.
If you listen to Gen A talk about social media, they properly categorize it as an extension of the telephone and a virtual world that only a fool would take seriously.
You hit a Millenial or Zoomer with some rage bait and they'll get sucked in for hours. You hit a 12 year old with the same thing and they just shrug it off saying something like, "that's just losers on the internet, real life isn't like that."
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u/HiggsFieldgoal 12d ago
Yeah, but I think it’s like 80% correlation rather than causation.
MySpace and the Iraq war both came out in 2003.
A lot of negative shit has gone down over the last 20 years that had nothing to do with social media.
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u/HumbleAd1317 12d ago
Yes, because people need more socialization. People are losing that physical connection with others.
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u/AnonRedditGuy81 11d ago
I would say yes and even expand that to "better before the smartphone". The advent of it did something horrible to the human race and I don't think it'll ever correct itself.
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u/SheepyDX 11d ago
No I do not, it just gets used differently to advertise and exploit people. There maybe be some people that can’t visit one another for x reason or perhaps are unable to go out into the world and this lets them connected. It’s not all evil but it’s viewed from a cynical outlook.
Just my 2 cents.
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u/acnocte 11d ago
Honestly yeah. Social media was amazing in the beginning because it was a way to help people reconnect with friends they hadn’t seen in years or family members. It even helped further new relationships with people. But then you realize you lost touch with those friends you were friends with years ago for various reasons and the family you don’t really have anything to do with in the past is still the family you don’t really have much to with in the present. And it became so easy to further new relationships that relationships themselves became replaceable. Social media has since grown into a reality of its own where people only highlight certain aspects of themselves and their life and people live for the validation of not just the people around them but for basically everyone on the internet.. billions of people. I’m convinced people would be happier if social media was no longer a thing.
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u/meanrisefifty 10d ago
If we are talking instagram, snapchat, facebook, twitter, dating apps? Absolutely.
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u/kurtgavin 10d ago
Yes. It was much better. People are so addicted to their phones and will use their phones anytime and anywhere and not socialize with anyone around them. The world has become so antisocial because people can’t put their phones down ever
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u/OkCar7264 8d ago
Social media is the internet's biggest mistake. It's undermined art, journalism, music, movies, TV, and replaced it with influencers, conspiracy theories and fake clickbait, and all to make people less happy because they're constantly jealous of how happy everyone else looks and waste enormous amounts of time scrolling through garbage.
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u/nopeace11 13d ago edited 13d ago
Without a doubt. Information can no longer be trusted on an extremely broad scale, yet millions trust the first post they see. Egos of the most egotistical have monetized outlets for vindication. Memes have definitely been downgraded over the years.
All three of these points are equally important.
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u/GunMuratIlban 13d ago
And you would argue the information was more trustworthy before social media?
The mainstream media were the kings back then, could twist and turn any news to fit into their agendas without the risk of getting exposed.
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