6 Scientific Reasons Social Networks Are Bad for Society
We've always known that computer networks would destroy the world. We just thought they'd get super-intelligent first. Instead, we got social networks, which act as a stupidity X-ray: You suddenly see through the intelligent people your friends pretend to be to the LOLing Farmville players underneath. Some smart people decided to study these networks, and found that they're a bigger threat to society than Skynet. At least the rise of those machines forced us to band together and do things.
More real social interaction than all of MySpace.
Everyone (Correctly) Assumes You're an Egocentric Asshole
PDF: "Narcissism and Social Networking Web Sites"Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 34 (10), 2008, p 1303-1314 Narcissism is excessive self-love, inflated self-importance and unjustified feelings of entitlement. Along with electrons, it is the primary active ingredient in the Internet. Three years ago, psychologists decided to publish a research paper on its prevalence on social networking sites, presumably because they didn't think anyone would read the entire set of encyclopedias they could have filled, and simply publishing the words "Everything on all of them" felt too glib. Researchers had 156 students fill out a survey called the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI) that forces subjects to choose between options like, "My body is nothing special" versus "I like to look at my body," and "I can learn from other people" versus "I can solve most global problems by spitting on them." Researchers then monitored the student's Facebook activity for what they called objective and subjective factors, and compared that with how they scored on the NPI. The scientists' goal was to see if they could isolate social networking behaviors that were more narcissistic, and to boil down complex human emotions into numbers, because that's like oxygen to them.
An 8.7 on the It-normalized Birthday Trauma scale according to Science.
Quantum communications will revolutionize streaming of our GILF threesomes!
Omigawd, nearly forgot to set the webcam before "accidentally" leaning forward too far!
Thousands of Friends Means None
"The relationship between number of friends and interpersonal impressions on Facebook"Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication 13 (2008) 531-549If someone tells you they have 4,000 friends, chances are they're including you as one of them despite having just made sure it's not the case. When you hit four digits, you have a worse definition of friends than Boo Radley, and he still spent time interacting with his friends. Michigan State University researchers studied the relationship between number of friends and actual popularity, and found that the fourth digit of friends means you're likely getting the two longest digits on the hand from a good portion of them. We not only know you don't have three thousand friends, which is stupid, but we automatically know you don't even have three or you wouldn't have time to sit clicking "Add Friend" every night.
God, I wish my son would go out and take drugs. Maybe get some girls pregnant.
This is what it looks like when a scientist calls you NEEEERRRRRRD!
They also confirmed Tila Tequila as the most unpopular person on the planet.
They're Reinstalling Sexism
"The Role of Friends' Appearance and Behavior on Evaluations of Individuals on Facebook: Are We Known by the Company We Keep?"Human Communication Research 34 (2008) 28-49Obviously, negative gender stereotypes exist on the Internet, because it's 90 percent porn. But at least they're getting paid for it. Every other woman gets it for free. Judging others by a picture is apparently a recipe for turning people into assholes -- interacting with a monitor and keyboard means people feel less empathy. They also don't bother pretending to be nice, which is a pity, because "pretending to be nice" is pretty much what made the nonwarring part of human history possible.
Reversing the polarity of "civil."
If you sit on me we use less sofa material, saving the environment.
My 20 percent higher wages!
They're Full of Psychos
"Who interacts on the Web?: The intersection of users' personality and social media use"Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 247-253 Researchers asked, "Who interacts on the Web?" and the answer was "psychos."
We could have told them that.
The only user with a "Subtract Friend" button.
Social Networks Are Full of Whiners
"Distress, coping, and blogging: Comparing new Myspace users by their intention to blog"Cyberpsychol Behav. 2008 Feb;11(1):81-5A study of 134 new MySpace users from around the world found that those intending to blog were basically fucked up compared to those who weren't. "Intending bloggers scored higher on psychological distress, self-blame and venting and scored lower on social integration and satisfaction with number of online and face-to-face friends." They also scored higher on Depression, Anxiety and Stress, the worst combo high-score in history. You're more likely to find well-balanced journal entries written in human blood than on a MySpace blog.
Time for a few pints of poetry!
Social Networks Prevent People From Being Social and Networking
"The Influence of Shyness on the Use of Facebook in an Undergraduate Sample" Cyberpsychol Behav. 2009 Jun;12(3):337-40 One's first year of college is informally agreed upon to be the time when people who aren't good at meeting people learn how to do that. The whole point of leaving home is to develop a real personality by making as many nonlethal mistakes as your body can handle as quickly as possible. But a 2009 study found that the meek are settling for not-even-fake online relationships, further tipping the balance of society's longstanding philosophy of "Screw the meek. They don't mind."
The only reason we go see romantic movies.
A bit.
But if society can be defeated by that it deserves everything it gets.