Is There Any Humility on Twitter?
The trouble with social media is this common theme: Look how smart we are and how stupid they are
True knowledge, Socrates said, starts with realizing you know nothing. Now on Twitter, everyone claims to know everything.
“It’s like we’re letting the crying baby fly the plane,” HBO comedian Bill Maher laments.
Is there much humility on Twitter? Or any social media platform where so many shout: Look how smart I am and how stupid they are?
Designed to amplify triggers
A lack of humility is wired into the algorithm. As Danah Boyd explains, “they were designed to amplify the content that triggered the most reaction, those emotionally sticky posts. This is why boring but informative content never has a chance against that which prompts fury.”
“Are you still seeing the things that give you pleasure?” Boyd asks. “Or just the stuff that makes you angry? Why can’t you resist looking away from the things that give you pain? That question isn’t a new one… it’s the question that underlies our toxic social media ecology more generally.”
A 60 Minutes report estimates that 90 percent of Tweets getting attention come from 10 percent of users while extreme partisans…
