Selfie, tik tok, instagam culture making people dumber?

To be fair the recommendation when facing a black bear is to stand your ground. Black bears aren't very aggressive, are usually just curious as the one in the video.

The fact that the girl was calm enough to get off a selfie is pretty bad ass.

 

i voted yes...

The Internet is like a weapon. I say internet and not social media, because i think the Internet has made the world a less compassionate, less patience and to easy to pollute a young inexperience mind without the right guidance.

In the right hands, it's powerful
In the wrong hands, it makes people do some dumb things

 

To answer the thread title question, dumber I don't think so, more lonely and socially awkward? Yes, some people aren't developing the same social skills they would have in the past due to technology.

That being said, again, the people in the video actually handled that situation fairly well. Many, many people would freak out and run which is the wrong thing to do with black bears.

 

BBC had a 2018 article about selfie deaths. It's something like 259 deaths between 2011 and 2017. The number, while not super high, is still very unnecessary. Imagine going to that funeral and listening to the eulogy... awkward.

 

Young people cannot watch their own favorite movie without stopping to check their phone 20 times: their comprehension is chopped and lower than previous generations.

 

entertaining essay:

"Social Media Is the Problem: No social media, no collapse of American public life."

https://thebulwark.com/social-media-is-the-problem/

excerpt:

Let’s take a short walk down memory lane.

It’s 1995. A man stands on a busy street corner yelling vaguely incoherent things at the passersby. He’s holding a placard that says “THE END IS NIGH. REPENT.”

You come upon this guy while out getting the paper. How do you feel about him? You might feel some flavor of annoyance. Most people would also feel compassion for him as he is clearly suffering from something.

No reasonable person would think of convincing this man that his point of view is incorrect. This isn’t an opportunity for an engaging debate. This guy doesn’t kill at parties. This guy doesn’t go to parties. He’s only out here because he’s not violent and there’s no room for him at Bellevue.

Now fast forward to 2020.

In terms of who this guy is and who you are absolutely nothing has changed. And yet here you are—arguing with him on Twitter or Facebook. And you, yourself, are being brought to the brink of insanity. But you can’t seem to stop. You have to respond or read the comments of the other people responding and your cortisol and adrenaline levels are spiking and your blood pressure is rising and you’re suddenly at risk of a heart attack.

And the ugly truth is that you’ve become addicted to arguing with the “End Is Nigh” sandwich board guy. The guy you used to quietly skirt, you now seek him out and you bring your friends and for some idiotic reason you think that if you just post a little bit more you’re going to get him to see reason. Or put him in his place.

Or maybe you don’t even know why you’re doing it. But you can’t stop, won’t stop.
​

more at the link

 

Ya but...also... someone elected the guy holding the sign President.

The end is nigh is far more plausible than the stuff the President says and does.

So... lulz (at my expense. And the expense of America).

 

Going to have to agree with you on this one.

Up until six months ago, when one could go to a movie theater, you couldn't see a movie without someone seemingly turning on a small TV screen in the darkness---in the corner of your eye, someone constantly checking their god**mned phone. Talking through a movie was bad enough. I was always like, You couldn't just watch the movie for which you paid up to $15 or whatever? You can't live without your phone that long?

Good luck getting such individuals to sit through a presidential debate. Or read a book: "If I can't finish reading something during my four-minute dump, I don't bother." Could be an ad slogan.

 

You know what makes people dumber?

NOT HAVING SCHOOLS BECAUSE OF OUR DISASTROUS PANDEMIC RESPONSE

 

in some ways we have it better then ever with more automation and easier access to almost anything readily available at our fingertips. The technology itself is impressive, addictive, and like anything theres a cost to it. The attentions spans are going to go down and just like when we stopped driving stick or had cell phones people loose to skill/use/comfort and are more distracted then ever.
More alarming is that our politics is now done to a format limited to 13 words, imagine how easy it is to ignore amendments made to the bills and anything outside the headlines.

These techs have done incredible things. LEts not forget the ughiurs, palestenians, saudi, or burmese or hell anywhere be it against cops, for cops, the idea that we have ability to record things right away changes the way the world works and how we hold things accountable. Stupid has never been cured so its geared and driven to the kardashians,trumps, and paul brothers or what not.

Ultimately I think its a force for good and having the capability to connect will be harder to sell wars. Those weird afghani people we could make peopel afriad o are now moving towards just being another like on a britney spears video fan club on facebook, you get to humanize people and at the same time the new generations of americans are going to be experts or victims of massive culture of brand building right from the very start.
I'm glad I missed the boat and didn't have to grow up with this.

 

Is it tik tok and other things that cause folks to try and label a whole generation based on extremely rare outlier types of incidents?

 

People are not getting dumber. Social media is just making it easy for others to discern.

 

Never used it. Tinman taking bullets for us y'all