Social media was supposed to be a force for good. What happened?

发生了什么? 社交媒体本该是向善的力量

Apple News In Conversation

新闻

2025-01-31

31 分钟
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The social-media grounds are shifting. In recent weeks, there have been major developments at platforms like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. Meanwhile, more and more experts are raising alarm bells about the harms of social media on society and our mental health. To understand how we got here and what might come next, Apple News In Conversation host Shumita Basu spoke with Nicholas Carr, author of the book Superbloom: How Technologies of Connection Tear Us Apart, who has been writing about the human consequences of technology for decades.
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  • This is in conversation from Apple News.

  • I'm Shamita Basu.

  • Today, how social media is wrecking our brains and what to do about it.

  • The social media grounds are shifting.

  • Just in the past few weeks, Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram,

  • announced it's abandoning third party fact checks and loosening restrictions around topics like gender and immigration.

  • TikTok got banned, went dark and came back when President Trump signed an executive order delaying the ban.

  • So the future of that platform remains unclear.

  • And Elon Musk, the owner of X, is now a serious power broker in the new Trump administration.

  • This is all happening at a time when the alarm bells from politicians,

  • doctors and researchers about social media's harms are louder than ever.

  • For many people, it feels like social media is broken.

  • But technology writer Nicholas Carr argues we need to change the way we're thinking about the problem.

  • The system is not broken.

  • The system is operating exactly as it is meant to operate.

  • Nick has been writing about the human consequences of technology for decades.

  • In 2008, he came out with an Atlantic article that eventually became a book,

  • a Pulitzer Prize finalist, the Shallows what the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains.

  • It was an early warning of how the Internet affects our thoughts and perceptions.

  • Now he's out with a new book all about social media and its impact on society.