In the late 1990s, AOL instant messenger (AIM) was the first social network I used, and it is still my favorite form of social media. What was different about AIM is that it was more social, whereas modern social media is more parasocial.
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In “E Unibus Pluram: Television and US Fiction,” David Foster Wallace’s brilliant 1990 essay1, he hypothesized that fiction writers (like himself and myself) are natural oglers or people-watchers. Writers used to have to observe people in the real world, in public, to get the material for their fiction. But fiction writers (like him and me) are often self-conscious types with social anxiety, which was why television was such a godsend for people like him. With TV, self-conscious writers could ogle and people-watch from the comfort of their own homes without the other people seeing them. In this sense, DFW argued, television is a form of voyeurism.
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There is a growing debate between free speech and censorship on the internet. Many believe certain controversial figures with large followings should be banned from their platforms. But why would a tech company ban any single user entirely from its platform, so long as they aren’t breaking the law, no matter how controversial they are deemed to be? After all, “controversial” doesn’t mean “bad” or “wrong,” it just means provoking disagreement—meaning many agree. Though some users will indeed want a controversial user banned, many others will not—and most won’t care at all. Therefore, let the choice be up to each individual user for who they do and do not want to ban. If you don’t like what someone is saying, personally block them, and you’ll never have to hear from them again—but those who do like that user will still get to hear them. This way, everyone wins.
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Many people today claim they don’t have the attention span, patience, or self-discipline to read dense books and long-form content. That is because they have become too accustomed to the quick short-form hyperactive content on the internet like tweets, Instagram stories, YouTube videos, memes, and TikToks. In this post, I wrote about breaking my Twitter addiction and focusing my efforts and time on reading books. I suggested Twitter and social media are like drugs in that they change your brain chemistry. That is not hyperbole. Social media changes your brain by shortening your attention span.
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I am a recovering Twitter junkie. I used to be addicted to the social media network—that is addicted to reading others’ tweets as opposed to tweeting myself. When I first joined Twitter in 2009 I would only read my timeline. I didn’t tweet anything myself until much later. At first I only followed a couple dozen people, but over time the number of people I followed grew and grew. I don’t know if it was some kind of obsessive compulsive trait of mine, but I felt a need to read every tweet in my timeline. When I woke up in the morning I’d scroll back through all the tweets I missed the previous night. Such a practice was manageable then because I wasn’t following too many people (in the dozens), and those I followed didn’t tweet too often.
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Cultural critics used to be essential curators of music, movies, books, and art. When there were only a couple of newspapers or radio stations or TV stations, the select few professional critics had enormous power in telling the public which art they should pay attention to. Then came the internet and everything changed. With blogs, message boards, and podcasts, anybody could become a critic. Both the creation and critique of art became more democratic. Traditional critics became less important. People preferred to take recommendations from like-minded people in their specific cultural niche. This gave real cultural power to bloggers and amateur critics on the internet who developed a following. Continue reading
T.Z. Barry 