Social media is a symptom, not a cause. If you followed the congressional interrogation of Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg yesterday, you will know what I mean.
Social media users are in pain. And I am not only referring to users at the bottom of the income hierarchy. Or consumers of social media. Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg are in pain. Social media investors are in pain. And, of course, users at the bottom of the income hierarchy are in pain. They are turning to social media — all of them — to solve a range of problems that social media cannot solve. Social media can solve one problem: it can win returns for investors. And were the absence of returns the cause for the pathology investors suffer then social media would offer an appropriate treatment. But this is not the pathology from which investors suffer.Social media reinforces what we already (think we) know. It reassures us that we are members of a much larger community whose members are plagued by the same pains, the same pathologies, we are. Social media might also inform. But information falls far down on the list of reasons we turn to social media. I still wake up every morning and read the New York Times, The Guardian, and Le Monde. I still listen to the BBC and NPR. These are my daily sources for information. I still read the Economist, Financial Times, and Wall Street Journal for information. Next to these outlets, Twitter and Facebook have nothing new to say.This is because when they are not consoling me with empty feel good aphorisms or funny pet videos, Facebook and Twitter are simply aggregating pathological communities, communities of shared pain. But unlike the synagogue’s or mosque’s or church’s grieving circles, Facebook and Twitter do not actually console. Instead, they heighten my sense of pain.That is because this pain is caused by the very social media to which I am turning for consolation; it is caused by my acting on the belief that my pain is caused by a lack of information or a lack of community, which I am now seeking on social media, which is incapable of providing either. Moreover, by validating my belief that it will solve these problems, social media deters me from exploring the social and economic and political dimensions of my pain. It tells me that what I need are more friends and better information.How do Twitter and Facebook make money? Why would investors choose to invest in them? Is it because investors want me to be better informed or cared for? Really? Were this the cause for investors’ interest in Facebook and Twitter, they would do better to lobby for strict limits on campaign spending, strict enforcement of the emoluments clause of the Constitution, forgiveness of student loan debt, universal single-payer healthcare, strong independent institutions of public learning, and strong independent public outlets for media. Instead, Twitter and Facebook have managed to make money both out of my interest in these causes and out of the interest of others in opposing them. Heads they win; tails I lose.In case you need a name for this pathology, its called capitalism; and Twitter and Facebook perfectly illustrate how it works, not to eliminate pathologies, but to reproduce them.Time for me to go post this on social media.