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When it comes to social media, I feel like you get what you put into it. If you’re constantly falling for ragebait and engage from a negative emotional space, well…the algorithm is going to keep feeding you emotionally upsetting stuff because you react to it. Yeah, people are mean to each other online, but compared to MOST of human history? Mean tweets are way better than literal witch hunts, tarring & feathering or whatever other brutal stuff humans would do to the ‘other.’
If you ignore the tribalism-coded bullshit, the internet and social media is pretty awesome. No mater how weird, niche or hyper-specific your interest is, there is likely a small community (or multiple) centered around that interest. I wouldn’t personally say there are new social cravings. More so, the Wild West era of the internet has been settled, and now we’re beginning to see community centers, malls, flea markets, movie theaters, arcades, and more pop up.
In some ways, we could compare our current era to a digital form of the Renaissance era. We’re essentially in the middle of a ‘rebirth’ with how humans learn and experience the world.
