I'd put it differently. The affirmation we were accustomed to generally had some substance. If someone called, sent you a postcard, or met with you, it probably meant they cared at least to some extent.

Social media strips all that away to the point where affirmation costs no effort to give but also means nothing. Here's a test I like to recommend: don't post anything on HN, X, or Facebook for a month. See how many people notice or reach out and ask if you're OK. The most likely answer is zero. Hundreds or thousands of "friends", zero meaningful return.

This also makes us feel that we constantly need to work for these affirmations. If you don't post, no one likes you. This is not a Facebook problem, but Facebook built its business around it, so they deserve to be singled out.

> No, Meta just amplified it to the nth degree. > [...] > Meta just put a big ol' bright spotlight on the worst aspects that *we* were already amplifying, and *perhaps* sped-run that amplification.

No, pick one. If it's the former, it's essentially the same as saying they warped society.

I agree that these traits are human and were there before social media, but amplifying, gamifying and exploiting addiction is reprehensible.

It is that amplification that is the problem. Everyone has a voice. But if one actor chooses which voices to amplify it is responsible for the results.

This episode will come to an end, only to be replaced by a more subtle - surely AI driven - form of amplification/attenuation.

Social media is manipulation. Period.

Tobacco existed for eons, and then American tobacco companies engineered it to make it a hundred times as addictive with full knowledge of what they were doing. They intentionally created dependencies. I have no sympathy for them. This is too light of a settlement.

> Meta has warped society to think that life is meaningless without affirmation

> No, Meta just amplified it to the nth degree. Humanity has always put

Those statements are the same. Our species was not designed to deal with the pressures of a A/B tested content fairy, designed by the most well paid minds our most advanced societies have trained, running on infrastructure that is more expensive than the GDP of many nations.

There are bounds within which a system functions optimally. When pushed far beyond those bounds, indefinitely, it is absolutely accurate to say the system becomes warped.

> No, Meta just amplified

No. "Just" is understating the effect.

This is the “If I wouldn’t have done it, somebody else would have”. And I personally find it to be a very lame excuse.

Villains have agency, and deserve to get the blame for their malicious actions.

Banning phones from schools only is not enough.

There are of course bigger threats, but have you ever talked to one of these gen Z zombies that have fried their brain on their phone? My nephew is one. He has the thousand yard stare, can barely have a conversation, and has no ability to do anything off his phone. Of course, it's not everyone, but the effects of phone use are beyond obvious and clearly destructive.

No it isn't.

Okay, I don't like capitalism either

Capitalism forces parents to let their kids use their phones and social media all day?

Hm, odd. I didn't know parents didn't have authority or agency. Good to know.