Any citizen of the social internet knows the feeling: that irritable contentiousness, that desire to get into it that seems almost impossible to resist, even though you know you’ve already squandered too many hours and too much emotional energy on pointless internet disputes. If you use Twitter, you may have noticed that at least half the posts seemed intent on making someone—especially you—mad. In his new book, Outrage Machine, the technology researcher Tobias Rose-Stockwell explains that the underlying architecture of the biggest social media platforms is essentially (although, he argues, unintentionally) designed to get under your skin in just this way. The results, unsurprisingly, have been bad for our sanity, our culture, and our politics.

On this topic, an increasingly popular one as the social media economy convulses in response to Twitter’s Elonification, the preferred tone is either stern jeremiad or, for the well and truly addicted commentator (usually a journalist), a sort of punch-drunk nihilism much like that of someone who declares he’ll never quit smoking even though it’s going to kill him. Rose-Stockwell, by contrast, keeps his cool, pointing out that social media is full of “angry, terrible content” that makes our lives worse, while carefully avoiding any sign of partisanship or panic.

  • yads
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    1 year ago

    Yep same thing with all those ads like 90% fail this. They’re designed to drive engagement. Best thing you can do is stop doom scrolling. Failing that, ignoring those obvious attempts to get you to respond.

    • TwilightVulpine@kbin.social
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      1 year ago

      I would like to ignore it but after seeing internet stupidity manifesting into real world political lunacy, it would be nice to have an option that addresses the root of the problem better than just individualy disengaging.

      Responding to manufactured outrage is a mistake, but ignoring it would only work if everyone did that. When does that ever happen? Ultimately, that only preserves your own peace of mind. That is, assuming you won’t be the target of the political nonsense brewing.

      • upstream@beehaw.org
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        1 year ago

        The problem is that social media is leaking into the real world.

        I suppose the best we could do is more misinformation?

        Get the lunatics to believe the election is a week later, or something.