The Death Of Social Media - And Why It Matters

Looks like he's a beginning writer with a fondness for overwrought analogies and overreaching baseless claims.

Oh, you were asking about the content?

Meh.

He's decrying the ability that people have to hurt each other online, and suggesting that it's because the programmers who made the internet and these services don't think about this stuff, and even if they did they couldn't fix it because it's a social problem with no technical solution and then he ends with a bunch of comparisons to great revolutions in the past.

Fortunately, he doesn't sell or provide a solution. It's a basic rant with a lot of words.

I did get a kick out of, "It was a scalpel, sharper than sin, with a razor’s edge. And so the wounds will continue to bleed until they are healed. " just because it so perfectly showcases his fondness for the medium of writing, despite his lack of skill - or perhaps laziness.
 
When I read that, I keep seeing "But if people who agreed with ME ran things, and kept all that bad stuff from happening, wouldn't everything be great?" Over, and over, and over again.

He may be right about the decline, and I'll admit I really don't care, but he is somebody that sees others CHOOSING who they associate with, and how they behave, and see that as a bad thing, over everybody FORCED to associate together, with the arbiters being the ones he/she/whatever approves of.

Chaos vs control really. And Control is whining that it doesn't have it.

I'm VASTLY over-simplifying, but hey, so did the author.
 
Twitter's "problem," and I'm using quotes because it's still hugely successful and holds an importance to the modern web even if it's not what was originally intended, is the noise to value of the platform for the overwhelming majority of it's users when compared against other platforms. Because of it's growth it's become a place for brands, celebrities, and journalists to talk to, not at, their readers. There's no meaningful sense of engagement or community, and if you are not checking constantly you will miss most of what goes through your twitter feed. Compare to Facebook, which because it was built on the idea of networking with your friends and family first, has better engagement tools (you can converse on a friends topic far better than RT and favoriting). You have a stronger connection with what shows up in your feed (especially when you block people and apps), and it's easier not to miss stuff.

I can say as a small business owner that Facebook has a much higher engagement with my customers than Twitter, things I talk about above are why I believe this is the case.

Tech reporters will largely miss this point because of the tech bubble they're absorbed in. The same people who can't fathom why Google Now might not hold much value to a person who works a 9-5 job Monday through Friday with the same commute, and doesn't fly all that often. Really Google, it will take me 20 minutes to get to work today? Wow, that's just like everyday! Sorry for that tangent. Their far larger than average followers puts them out of the average twitter user and into one of the small minority of users that get to have a soapbox they can use to talk to their audience, and more importantly, can talk back to other members of their exclusive club. In their echo chamber they have value in the service, and as they so often do, find themselves seeking answers from within their own experiences rather than those of the common user.
 
The only failure of social media is that you are only allowed to interact with others in the manner and method that the owners/developers believe is appropriate. Unfortunately, the point of human interaction is for humans to choose how to interact, not for others to choose for them, so no social media site will ever be so useful as it wants to be.
 
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