Nice piece. My immediate thought when reading the first bit was that I wonder if the bystander effect is a less nefarious explanation of the "everyone's talking about this, nobody is doing anything" phenomenon.
While I think your take that the algorithms incentivize discussion over action, to me, the simpler explanation is that when you see hundreds and thousands of posts on something, it feels like "well, some of those people are probably doing things", as opposed to the pre-social media era where it feels like the only options of seeing wide scale outrage is at events where people are taking action (ie. protests).
I'm not sure that thought was super well articulated, but hopefully that makes sense.
Thank you for writing this, Kathryn. Very concise, clear, and actionable. This is a much more healthy way to use and interact with the internet than just looking at depressing tweets.
This is the right angle of attack, and thank you for all of the links!
A lot of people will be revealing themselves over the coming days, and like the saying says; when they do, believe them. But There will also be new champions and everyday heroes that will come from where you’d least expect. It’s those people that keep me inspired & moving.
Nice piece. My immediate thought when reading the first bit was that I wonder if the bystander effect is a less nefarious explanation of the "everyone's talking about this, nobody is doing anything" phenomenon.
While I think your take that the algorithms incentivize discussion over action, to me, the simpler explanation is that when you see hundreds and thousands of posts on something, it feels like "well, some of those people are probably doing things", as opposed to the pre-social media era where it feels like the only options of seeing wide scale outrage is at events where people are taking action (ie. protests).
I'm not sure that thought was super well articulated, but hopefully that makes sense.
Thank you for writing this, Kathryn. Very concise, clear, and actionable. This is a much more healthy way to use and interact with the internet than just looking at depressing tweets.
This is the right angle of attack, and thank you for all of the links!
A lot of people will be revealing themselves over the coming days, and like the saying says; when they do, believe them. But There will also be new champions and everyday heroes that will come from where you’d least expect. It’s those people that keep me inspired & moving.