imo a big part of it was that the zoomer/millennial divide basically remember pre-internet times + info while the info diet for younger zoomers has basically no overlap
tbh my take is that we went from text-based social media, which we have been trained our entire life to be skeptical of, to image and then video-based media, which seems to creates parasocial trust that shuts off critical thinking, especially when the person talking to us is hot
Text vs image/video really is an underrated cleavage in the information environment. Most studies of media trust find that liberals are more likely to trust conservative print media like the WSJ and the NYP than conservatives!
YouTube didn’t seem to present as much of an issue. YouTube has been around forever and the right-wing shift was minimal. So I am wondering if there is something about short form video specifically that short circuits brains.
Youtube absolutely presented an issue; gamergate would not have taken off nearly as hard as it did if it had been primarily driven by reddit, which leads directly to 2016
social media systems used to determine "match" by social networks, i.e., people who like the videos you like have also seen this. Now, the tech has gotten good enough to "watch" the videos itself and make recommendations, which is why Tiktok succeeded when Vine couldn't.
also the internet went from being an active thing--you had to go and find content you want--to a passive thing where you only see whatever the algorithm serves you and you have no agency at all
Also, for younger zoomers, any unemployed man with a violent sense of humor and resting Dreamworks face is intrinsically trusted as a genius rebel rejected by woke society.
tiktok or short style vids feels a lot more -real- than a Usenet post sent from Langley. That one Communist guy who works for a publicity company in SV or whatever does exceptional agitprop that makes me feel like the Bolsheviks have already won.
The big issue of internet in past ten years was switching from self-curated sources to “Soviet channel one” of tiktok, with all the platforms from youtube, to twitter, to instagram embracing this notion. If one watches one conspiracy video (suggested bcs. popular) the feed would be only them.
You do not do the curation, you consume what is given, you do not get alternative sources, or if you do it is something vastly different in substance (like you can watch TV or listen to some records, sure, but it’s different media)
The main advantage of internets is that you can curate your own information input, and sure, you can fill it with communist-nazis, but it has to be your deliberate choice, and not a community’s suggestion promoted to you as a viral good.
Honestly I think the dividing point was smartphones + social media.
Before that you would actually disconnect from the internet and you were taught not to divulge personal information on the internet.
They made the internet part of real life 24/7 and ended privacy and skepticism.
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Also how much they trust CNN.
It could also just be the changes in how algorithms have worked over the years.
what's the link between them
Before that you would actually disconnect from the internet and you were taught not to divulge personal information on the internet.
They made the internet part of real life 24/7 and ended privacy and skepticism.