this post was submitted on 21 Jan 2025
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Absolutely, but I think that when we're talking to actually smart people in person we at least subconsciously more likely believe the person that actually has to say something (i.e. really knows something we don't). With social media a lot of these communication factors are missing, so if the text sounds smart, we may believe it. Sure you can fake and lie, etc. but I think (going back in time) we have a good instinct for people that may help us in any way i.e. through knowledge where to find food, find secure shelter etc. stuff that helps our survival, which in the end for humans is basically good factual knowledge that helps the survival of the species as a whole.
Today our attention spans are reduced to basically nothing to a large part because of social media promoting emotional (unfortunately mostly negative/anxiety/anger) short messages (and ads of course) that reinforce whatever we believe which likely strengthens bad connections in the brain.
Also the sheer mass of information is very likely not good for us. I.e. mostly nonfactual information, because well, there's way more people that "have heard about something" than actually researched and gone down to the ground to get the truth (or at least a good model of it).
This all mixed, well doesn't give me a positive outlook unfortunately...