8 Responses

1. I did read the link. It’s a great idea. For myself, I opt out of social media. I have 0 FB friends, and when I get on (like for homeschool curriculum groups,) I go directly to the groups tab and rarely scroll through the home screen feed.

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2. I think the problem with passively reading the posts of complete strangers is that they are complete strangers. For example, I know a combat veteran who hunts to feed his family. I know a person who had a family member killed by gunshot. The two have very different views of gun laws. Knowing their background, you can see that their opinion makes sense for them, and not take anything they say as a personal attack. With a stranger, you have no idea what is behind their comment.

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3. I don’t use social media, but I think there may be one good reason to passively consume posts from strangers: you don’t know what you don’t know. Sometimes hearing another person’s perspective introduces you to angles of an issue you would never have considered on your own.
   If you are secure in your principles, but humble enough to look through another person’s lens, then listening to strangers can be valuable. Not because you will agree with everything they say, or because you must constantly question your beliefs, but because there is value in understanding how other people see the world. Listening is one way we love our neighbor. Even when we disagree; maybe especially when we disagree, people want to be heard. I am talking about sincere understanding, not endless doomscrolling.

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   1. PS I did go to thenoiseyroom.com and they are on to something- as long as they can protect it from loopholers and it doesn’t turn back into ‘likes’ or popularity contests.

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   2. Thanks Emily. In a previous post we discussed McLuhan’s “medium is the message” concept, which applies for me here—while listening to opposing points of view and hitting on something true in a serendipitous and random way can happen and is valuable, this post is targeting the kind of unguided and endless scrolling that can needlessly clutter our thinking with the whims of strangers who may not even be sincere, or represent a substantive point of view. But I take your point—we don’t know what we don’t know, and looking for smart people to contradict us and cause us to change our minds or see things from a new angle is a good thing.

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      1. Haha. (sheepish) Yes, I did stray from the topic at hand, sorry. And certainly, I don’t advocate for sponging up everything the algorithms throw up. When so much “information” is at one’s fingertips, it’s more important than ever to be very selective about what one’s processing power is given to.

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4. The Noisy Room’s idea is very interesting, and I think that it could be very beneficial to society in general, showing people what more than one person thinks about a specific thing. I do not use social media at all, but hearing others viewpoints can always be beneficial, and with thenoisyroom.com helping to more accurately represent what others think about posts, not just the poster’s view, there will be less contention(hopefully :P).

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5. This was an interesting read. I suspect social media algorithms tend to show the more extreme opinions more as well because it catches people’s attention. I actually deleted my FB account years ago when a topic dear to me came under fire. Every post I was seeing was either people belittling something I find important or on the flip side, people with my beliefs contentiously defending. I felt very alone and discouraged and decided it wasn’t worth it. I think looking back, most people were more in the middle, just not as vocal and their posts weren’t garnering much attention.

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