I really strongly recommend his book You Are Not A Gadget. He wrote it like fifteen years ago and it feels like he is describing last year. Like he's telling you about a lot of the problems of social media today, writing before Facebook had ads.
Why it is worth reading is his thinking about the causes and outcomes is so clear. Its still useful today.
Tangentially related, but while we're talking about eerily prescient writings, I nominate "The MADCOM [Machine-Driven Communication] Future: How Artificial Intelligence Will Enhance Computational Propaganda, Reprogram Human Culture, And Threaten Democracy… And What Can Be Done About It (2017)"
"Heterogeneous democracies like the United
States devolve into perpetual conflict as
adversaries use MADCOMs to manipulate the
population, by exacerbating cultural differences
and undermining narratives that unify the
country. The social consensus disintegrates,
and political opponents are labeled traitors and
enemies...
"The US public believes that MADCOM
activities are just a more sophisticated
form of advertising, and reflexively relies
on appeals to free speech. In fact, there are
active manipulation campaigns pushing these
narratives to convince the public it isn’t being
manipulated at all. Any time people interact with
an electronic device—whether a smartphone,
augmented-reality device, or social media—their
data is captured, their behavior is tested and
recorded, and algorithms adapt to make devices
more addictive, advertisements more persuasive,
and propaganda more manipulative...
"Some individuals
flee to private social spaces online, but this
reinforces their filter bubbles, exacerbating
political polarization. A small number of people
flee online social spaces entirely, creating a
minor resurgence in offline, mass-market media.
These information-savvy individuals are the
least likely to be susceptible to disinformation
in the first place, so their absence simply
removes rational voices from the conversation.
The affluent pay for the luxury of privacy, as
brands emerge specifically targeting those who
wish to protect their data and their cognition...
"Agreed-upon facts become a relic of the past.
No one knows what is true anymore, because
expertise has been subsumed to the tyranny
of MADCOM-manipulated public opinion. AI
video- and speech-manipulation tools invent and
revise reality on the fly. The only truth is what
you can convince people to believe. The new
definition of a fact is “information that aligns
with preconceived opinions,” and any contrary
evidence is discarded as likely disinformation.
The story is all that matters. The three-hundred-
year-old Age of Enlightenment, based on reason
and a quest for truth, ends."
> I think social media, in its current ad-infested, addiction-fueled data-harvesting form, is pure poison.
I'm in complete agreement, but I will say that this attitude has left me pretty isolated as I'm getting older. For better or worse, most people use Social Media to stay connected so I have wound up pretty connectionless over time.
I've been thinking about making a new Facebook account just to try and connect with local people playing TTRPGs, because that's apparently still where most of the organizing is. Unfortunately Facebook wants a fucking government ID now so I'm probably not going to do that
even in late March '26, the bookstores and game stores selling TTRPG stuff in my area still have flyers for meetups and I live in ultra unhip/retro Dallas TX. Just go to a place that sells TTRPGs and look around or ask someone.
now that i've posted my flippant remark. Yes, I agree Facebook Groups is a hub for stuff like this and most other hobbies. That is just a fact unfortunately.
It's got to be said that rewarding people who make content on a regular, frequent schedule seems to A: be a way of coercing a fairly high minimum level of labour out of platformed accounts and B: a good way of flooding feeds with content which is largely devoid of novelty as a handful of prolific accounts dominate what people end up seeing.
You can see this happen in real time if you closely follow some youtube channels. You take someone who is genuinely talented and has some interesting, novel insights. And, maybe a couple of their videos makes it big. And they rightly think they should keep making videos because they have other insights. And they're not wrong.
But over time, something happens. No one has a novel, brilliant insight 1-2 times a week. So once they really turn in and decide to make a serious effort with their channel, the quality of their content suffers. Maybe it's not quite click-bait, but it's less genuine and more formulaic than their original work. A bit more sensational. Videos are reaching for reasons to exist, since the author needs to keep pumping them out.
I wouldn't quite call it corruption, but it's a clear degradation. In principle it's not a novel problem, since people have been writing weekly editorials for a long time. But, there seems to be something about the Youtube format that makes it such that the big channels must always play the game and pump out sub-par content.
If you want to be profitable, or widely watched, you have to play to the algorithm.
YouTube seems to strongly boost channels that post regular videos in the 10-20 minute range, and actively incentivizes clickbait through AB Testing tools for titles and thumbnails.
There are channels that post irregularly, with long form videos, but they get buried.
Another issue I've seen from some of the more prolific YouTube channels is they slowly become another mouthpiece for "news coverage". The algorithm very much expects you to continue uploading, because everyone is always looking for the newest content; at least before YouTube removed the Trending section. I admit that I only really check my Subscription page at this point, and after going through a subscription purge I only see maybe a half a dozen to a dozen new videos. Its actually been very useful since it encourages me to not get sucked in to watching hours of videos.
However, given my experience during Digg's v4 attempt this past year, I will say being willing to put yourself out there has served as a pseudo-networking activity and I've gotten the chance to speak with several people and now I'm giving talks "out there".
The advice here is good, and I'm a big believer that the cream (e.g., sincerity and real opinions) rises to the top for writing. Still, think folks dunk on these types of writing automation tools too much when, for many, they can be a gateway drug to consistent posting and finding your online voice.
That is to say, the whole post is a bit of an internet old-head complaint. Reminds me of baby boomers complaining about a "decline" in homeownership and having children without acknowledging the massive shifts in the economic accessibility that support these milestones.
It's easy to write a post like this when you've already built a following because you started when social media was a greenfield experience. It's much harder when you have to compete for signal while being pressured to build a brand and perform at your day job.
The obsession with constant content production combined with algorithmic, feed driven consumption frontends with terrible discoverability and intense bubblification lead to today's screaming contest that ruins our sanity. On average I find it much worse than the old infosphere (TV+print+radio) used to be, for producers and consumers. It's quite tragic, really.
Though I also notice awareness around this issue is rising (e.g. smartphone bans in school, initiatives like bluesky), which is good, I guess. All of this is still a society-wide experiment without control group.
Agreed. Discussions like these always remind me of some great research on how the destruction of the old, more averaged, and less targeted infosphere used to support significantly more political cohesion.
If you want to lose all hope, just read the top selling romance novels on the Kindle app. These people are raking in millions a year and it’s just absolutely awful.
unclear how much its getting them ahead, but its certainly works at making their followers or whatever go up, just quickly going to my linkedin feed and looking for the first two painfully obvious auto generated posts, both of those people had 400+ connections.
I looked through the comments and the vast majority are also painfully obvious AI.
I know for me personally it would do the opposite, and if i saw someone i was following make a post similar, I would unfollow. Not like it matters on a site like linkedin though where they will just attempt to feed people the garbage regardless if they follow or not.
I amsure it was Jaron Lanier, in his book Who Owns The Future, who predicted the inevitable outcome of bots talking to bots on social media.
He said that in 2013, and now we're in 2026, not only is it possible, but it's very likely.
I am glad about it. I think social media, in its current ad-infested, addiction-fueled data-harvesting form, is pure poison.
I really strongly recommend his book You Are Not A Gadget. He wrote it like fifteen years ago and it feels like he is describing last year. Like he's telling you about a lot of the problems of social media today, writing before Facebook had ads.
Why it is worth reading is his thinking about the causes and outcomes is so clear. Its still useful today.
> Why it is worth reading is his thinking about the causes and outcomes is so clear. Its still useful today.
Thank you, ordered :-)
Tangentially related, but while we're talking about eerily prescient writings, I nominate "The MADCOM [Machine-Driven Communication] Future: How Artificial Intelligence Will Enhance Computational Propaganda, Reprogram Human Culture, And Threaten Democracy… And What Can Be Done About It (2017)"
From Part II: The Implications Of A MADCOM World—Three Scenarios For The Future: https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep03728.5?seq=2
"Heterogeneous democracies like the United States devolve into perpetual conflict as adversaries use MADCOMs to manipulate the population, by exacerbating cultural differences and undermining narratives that unify the country. The social consensus disintegrates, and political opponents are labeled traitors and enemies...
"The US public believes that MADCOM activities are just a more sophisticated form of advertising, and reflexively relies on appeals to free speech. In fact, there are active manipulation campaigns pushing these narratives to convince the public it isn’t being manipulated at all. Any time people interact with an electronic device—whether a smartphone, augmented-reality device, or social media—their data is captured, their behavior is tested and recorded, and algorithms adapt to make devices more addictive, advertisements more persuasive, and propaganda more manipulative...
"Some individuals flee to private social spaces online, but this reinforces their filter bubbles, exacerbating political polarization. A small number of people flee online social spaces entirely, creating a minor resurgence in offline, mass-market media. These information-savvy individuals are the least likely to be susceptible to disinformation in the first place, so their absence simply removes rational voices from the conversation. The affluent pay for the luxury of privacy, as brands emerge specifically targeting those who wish to protect their data and their cognition...
"Agreed-upon facts become a relic of the past. No one knows what is true anymore, because expertise has been subsumed to the tyranny of MADCOM-manipulated public opinion. AI video- and speech-manipulation tools invent and revise reality on the fly. The only truth is what you can convince people to believe. The new definition of a fact is “information that aligns with preconceived opinions,” and any contrary evidence is discarded as likely disinformation. The story is all that matters. The three-hundred- year-old Age of Enlightenment, based on reason and a quest for truth, ends."
(Full piece: https://www.jstor.org/stable/resrep03728?searchText=&searchU...)
Thank you, that looks like essential reading.
> I think social media, in its current ad-infested, addiction-fueled data-harvesting form, is pure poison.
I'm in complete agreement, but I will say that this attitude has left me pretty isolated as I'm getting older. For better or worse, most people use Social Media to stay connected so I have wound up pretty connectionless over time.
I've been thinking about making a new Facebook account just to try and connect with local people playing TTRPGs, because that's apparently still where most of the organizing is. Unfortunately Facebook wants a fucking government ID now so I'm probably not going to do that
> connect with local people playing TTRPG
even in late March '26, the bookstores and game stores selling TTRPG stuff in my area still have flyers for meetups and I live in ultra unhip/retro Dallas TX. Just go to a place that sells TTRPGs and look around or ask someone.
now that i've posted my flippant remark. Yes, I agree Facebook Groups is a hub for stuff like this and most other hobbies. That is just a fact unfortunately.
It's got to be said that rewarding people who make content on a regular, frequent schedule seems to A: be a way of coercing a fairly high minimum level of labour out of platformed accounts and B: a good way of flooding feeds with content which is largely devoid of novelty as a handful of prolific accounts dominate what people end up seeing.
You can see this happen in real time if you closely follow some youtube channels. You take someone who is genuinely talented and has some interesting, novel insights. And, maybe a couple of their videos makes it big. And they rightly think they should keep making videos because they have other insights. And they're not wrong.
But over time, something happens. No one has a novel, brilliant insight 1-2 times a week. So once they really turn in and decide to make a serious effort with their channel, the quality of their content suffers. Maybe it's not quite click-bait, but it's less genuine and more formulaic than their original work. A bit more sensational. Videos are reaching for reasons to exist, since the author needs to keep pumping them out.
I wouldn't quite call it corruption, but it's a clear degradation. In principle it's not a novel problem, since people have been writing weekly editorials for a long time. But, there seems to be something about the Youtube format that makes it such that the big channels must always play the game and pump out sub-par content.
Every youtuber eventually becomes a parody of themselves.
It’s just people responding to incentives.
If you want to be profitable, or widely watched, you have to play to the algorithm.
YouTube seems to strongly boost channels that post regular videos in the 10-20 minute range, and actively incentivizes clickbait through AB Testing tools for titles and thumbnails.
There are channels that post irregularly, with long form videos, but they get buried.
Another issue I've seen from some of the more prolific YouTube channels is they slowly become another mouthpiece for "news coverage". The algorithm very much expects you to continue uploading, because everyone is always looking for the newest content; at least before YouTube removed the Trending section. I admit that I only really check my Subscription page at this point, and after going through a subscription purge I only see maybe a half a dozen to a dozen new videos. Its actually been very useful since it encourages me to not get sucked in to watching hours of videos.
However, given my experience during Digg's v4 attempt this past year, I will say being willing to put yourself out there has served as a pseudo-networking activity and I've gotten the chance to speak with several people and now I'm giving talks "out there".
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interpassivity
The advice here is good, and I'm a big believer that the cream (e.g., sincerity and real opinions) rises to the top for writing. Still, think folks dunk on these types of writing automation tools too much when, for many, they can be a gateway drug to consistent posting and finding your online voice.
That is to say, the whole post is a bit of an internet old-head complaint. Reminds me of baby boomers complaining about a "decline" in homeownership and having children without acknowledging the massive shifts in the economic accessibility that support these milestones.
It's easy to write a post like this when you've already built a following because you started when social media was a greenfield experience. It's much harder when you have to compete for signal while being pressured to build a brand and perform at your day job.
The obsession with constant content production combined with algorithmic, feed driven consumption frontends with terrible discoverability and intense bubblification lead to today's screaming contest that ruins our sanity. On average I find it much worse than the old infosphere (TV+print+radio) used to be, for producers and consumers. It's quite tragic, really.
Though I also notice awareness around this issue is rising (e.g. smartphone bans in school, initiatives like bluesky), which is good, I guess. All of this is still a society-wide experiment without control group.
Agreed. Discussions like these always remind me of some great research on how the destruction of the old, more averaged, and less targeted infosphere used to support significantly more political cohesion.
https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/postbroadcast-democracy... - absolute banger
If you want to lose all hope, just read the top selling romance novels on the Kindle app. These people are raking in millions a year and it’s just absolutely awful.
"Sincerity is the key to success. If you can fake it, you've got it made"
-- Groucho Marx (probably)
Now I'm wondering what a 'The Tao of Groucho' book would look like.
Who are these influencers that are getting ahead by dolling out AI slop in their likeness?
unclear how much its getting them ahead, but its certainly works at making their followers or whatever go up, just quickly going to my linkedin feed and looking for the first two painfully obvious auto generated posts, both of those people had 400+ connections.
I looked through the comments and the vast majority are also painfully obvious AI.
I know for me personally it would do the opposite, and if i saw someone i was following make a post similar, I would unfollow. Not like it matters on a site like linkedin though where they will just attempt to feed people the garbage regardless if they follow or not.
Not sure, but by Bradley Cooper's admission even his mom is hooked.
The title is completely opposite to the content of the article.
Who's falling behind? What does falling behind even mean if the OP doesn't care about numbers and really doesn't want to play the social media game?
Social media as it existed is gone, because people got tired of it, just as they got tired of geocities and myspace before that.
The new iteration is really bad, and there's a good chance people will get tired of it just as quickly as they got over the older ones.
Meanwhile, let's try to ignore stupid people doing stupid things with AI as much as we can.
The title is sarcasm.