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points by dustfinger 2 hours ago | 0 comments
Computers, whether phones or otherwise, may be a catalyst, but I am not convinced they are the root cause of our inability to get along.
[–] jjulius 1 hour ago
Media illiteracy coupled with the sweet, sweet comfort of a screen. People love screens. Just look at how much awe young children (I say this as a parent of two littles) have when they first see a TV. Now look at how much we all love to look at screens of any kind.

We're absolutely fascinated by them. Gobsmacked.

And many people blindly believe what they see on their screens because they don't know any better. They trust the article they read without thinking too deeply about it or looking for alternative perspectives. They gobble up the reel they just watched and are irate about whatever it told them to be irate about. But this isn't anything new, just look at how easily grandma and grandpa gobbled up whatever Fox News fed them in 1998, or what heavily edited images designed to manipulate their thoughts and opinions they were exposed to in the 70s, the 80s when they turned the television on.

Screens have always, and will always, be used to manipulate people, and that's been incredibly amplified over the past 15-20 years.

Yet if you take the screen away and spend time connecting with people on a deeper level, really spend time getting to know them, life feels a hell of a lot different than what the screens show you. Understanding one another is a hell of a lot easier. Everyone can see exactly the same thing as the other person - the analog, meatspace world around them that isn't being manipulated and twisted in an effort to get them to think a certain way.

It's the screens.

[–] dustfinger 1 hour ago
> I say this as a parent of two littles)

I also raised two children. My eldest is 18 and only now has a phone. When your children are adults you may no longer feel that phones, or screens, are the root cause. But, the whole world will have changed by then, so time will tell.

> Yet if you take the screen away and spend time connecting with people on a deeper level, really spend time getting to know them, life feels a hell of a lot different than what the screens show you.

I am not disagreeing with you here. My point is that the reason society is divided is not fundamentally because of phones or screens and removing them does not magically remove our ideological differences.

[–] jjulius 58 minutes ago
It doesn't remove our ideological differences, no. Nor should it. What it does is make us more likely to understand and communicate better with one another. That's the first step towards getting along and finding a path forward together in spite of our differences.

Differences of opinion are okay, but it's harder to get along when our lives are lived in spaces that silo us off and encourage distrust and anger. Screens do that to us, meatspace doesn't.