Journalists Condemn Social Media, but They Never Condemn Journalism
Tech writer Shubham Agarwal says it’s “Great news — social media is falling apart.” He claims to be a “social media ghost,” which apparently is a growing club; according to Agarwal, “people are spending less and less time on social media.” “Like many young people,” Agarwal says, he has “taken refuge in close-knit private circles such as group chats.” I’m not sure how Agarwal knows so “many young people”; likewise, I question his all-knowingness of the social media universe. I work at a small, private university (about 5,000 students), and in the last 365 days, our social media added nearly 26,000 new followers, a net growth of 47%. So either Agarwal’s young people are different than my young people, or he doesn’t know “young people” like he thinks he does. Regardless, Agarwal has some good observations about social media … about its potential betterment both in terms of use and experience. But, as is typical with social media writing, he equates the cliched experience with everyone’s experience:Social media definitely has its problems — the same with any technology — but technology writers like Agarwal seem to think these problems must be everybody’s problems. This, of course, is wholly untrue. Yes, social media can be a “chaotic mash of shouting and sponsored content,” but that doesn’t mean everyone experiences it this way. And for those who do, they experience it in varying degrees, from the visceral “ugh” to the more passive “meh.” And then there’s this from Agarwal: he says social media is a “round-the-clock avalanche of meticulously curated content, ads, and brand campaigns.” This is a bubble observation, a clean, sharp, no-edges generalization for the sake of his argument. Because not everything in social media is “meticulously curated content, ads, and brand campaigns.” This “round-the-clock avalanche” is pure fiction.
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