You're moving the conversation to unhappiness. My claim wasn't about that. I was just claiming that many Americans think that they are materially less well off, even though objectively most Americans aren't. (Social) Media is a pretty plausible explanation for that. - ThreadSky

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wietse111.bsky.social • 6 days ago

You're moving the conversation to unhappiness. My claim wasn't about that. I was just claiming that many Americans think that they are materially less well off, even though objectively most Americans aren't. (Social) Media is a pretty plausible explanation for that.

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dave12352432.bsky.social•6 days ago

Fair comment. Change unhappiness to "feel worse off" in my comment and I stand by it.

wietse111.bsky.social•6 days ago

In that case: I think most facts show that most Americans are not doing significantly worse. The material reality is nowhere near as bad as lots of people seem to believe. That alone doesn't prove that (social) media is a causal factor here, but that seems like a very plausible theory to me.

wietse111.bsky.social•6 days ago

I can't definitively prove it, but I haven't really seen any other hypothesis that is even remotely close in likelihood. But again, I realize this is maybe not a particularly convincing argument 😉

dave12352432.bsky.social•6 days ago

Its plausible. To contradict myself it's maybe even probable social media has an impact. I find it unlikely that it is able to do so except by highlighting or playing on real issues. You're the wealthiest country in the world yet 13% live in poverty, theres massive wealth inequality etc.

wietse111.bsky.social•6 days ago

My theory of the case is basically that social media reinforces things that make people angry, while being so decentralized that there are very few moderating (or factchecking) forces. What's happening now is that there are real issues which were always there, which are being (ab)used.

dave12352432.bsky.social•6 days ago

So I remain unconvinced of how much of this affect is due to social media and how much is due to people real life situations. But I don't particularly object to this framing, what I object to about Stancils posts is the "you've never had it so good, there's nothing to complain about" framing.

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