Which social network is the most toxic one and damages our societies the most?

[noname223]

Maybe I have a too black-white thinking on this topic. I have also expressed negative feelings against instagram and a member here replied she received a lot of support on the platform. A group for people with disfigurements (i hope this is the right word). I did not know such places exist on instagram. I don't spend much time on such platforms. Except youtube. I had fake accounts on some platforms but most of them had a negative impact on my mental health. Or they just blatantly made me unhappy and wasted my time.

First facebook. Mostly old people, a lot of misinformation, data analysis centres use the data to make a lot of money, increases of polarization. Together with whatsapp and instagram it is similar to a monopoly. Fair competition is barely possible. No new innovations come from that. Zuckerberg wants to use the power of meta to buy him success on the metaverse. And I can say when the vision of billionaires like him become true the metaverse gonna suck ass.

Instagram. I really hate instagram. I think it damages the youth so much. The notion of having to look perfect turns many people very unhappy and sad. One envies the lives of famous people but often it is only a facade. They always want to look perfect and they get a lot of money by acting as if life would only consist of beautiful images, consumption, a superifical look on the world. emphasis on how the body looks which turns many young girls anorexic. It can create a very unhealthy image of one's own body. Personally I rate instagram as very damaging. I was a short time on it but damn I am self-aware enough to realize the potential how this shit could fuck up my mind. When I was a teenager I was not this self-aware and it could have hated me even more due to it.

Twitter. Polarization, a lot of trolls, bullying, very toxic political debates. The limitation of words used for a tweets increases the polarization a lot. Nuanced tweets get way less attention than just being provocative and offending. On the other hand the freedom of speech there is more appealing for me than let's say facebook. Of course it also has its limits. I think one could write a whole thread solely on that topic.

Tiktok. I don't know much about it. I read the algorithm can be quite damaging but this also applies to other platforms. The data collection might be even worse than on other platforms because it comes from China. I have the feeling it makes the short attention span of most people on the internet even way shorter. For me it seems to be superificial because the videos are so short.

Maybe I am a little bit biased. It is just my personal opinion I prefer platforms for educational purposes. So I now come to my absolutely favorite plaform. Youtube. One could argue whether it really is a social network. But it has influencers for sure. I admit it there is a lot of shit on the platform. But I would not censor it. I think the censorship on youtube might be a little bit too much. There was a lot of misinformation but I am not sure whether censorship is the right answer for that.
The great thing about youtube is there are so many interesting niches. It is so much superior to TV (linear commmunication). The information on can find is so diverse and you can watch it whenever you want. My life quality was way worse without youtube. I love youtube.

Maybe I just don't have found out why other platforms can be similar beautiful. I think youtube also contributes to a worse society in some sense. Just look who the most favorite influencers are. Teenagers fall for treacherous role models who manipulate them in order to buy their expensive merch.
But the huge amount of valuable content you can find on this platform is astonishing.

What is in your opinion the most toxic platform?

 

[Unhirable]

I think TikTok, it hasn't been around that long at all but the negative effects are already starting to show... a lot.

Although it depends on how broadly you want to define social networks, a site like Pornhub which has social network functions is the absolute worst for society and the individual.

 

[StolenLife]

Honestly? All of them contributed in their own way. But I think the worst ones are Instagram and TikTok.
Instagram started the whole trend of photoshopping yourself until you are not recognizable and lookism. TikTok came at a time when i was already too old for it so I don't know much about it but it seems like it's pretty dumb, I mean what kind of interesting and meaningful content can you provide with less than a minute time? Not to mention how it's hell for the dopamine system.
And there's of course Facebook which started the whole mess but at least it's features were somehow tame compared to the rest.

 

[hamvil]

Yours is actually a very good analysis, I share your view totally. twitter is particularly dangerous for people like me that have troubles handling strong emotions and are quick to escalate things. i think that social are my kriptonite of my addictions, I wish I never touched any of them.

 

[KuriGohan&Kamehameha]

Tiktok from a physical health POV because it's a dopamine pit that damages your attention span and ability to concentrate the more you use it. From a sociocultural standpoint, I'd say Twitter and Instagram for similar reasons as you mentioned.

These platforms are both heavily censored and curated in a way as to appeal to toxic standards of behaviour. The promotion of influencers and separaing the haves from the have nots is one way these platforms divide people socially. You'll constantly be reccomended users who look like supermodels or produce Picasso quality magnum opus artwork. You'll never be reccomended content that isn't extremely popular and polished on Instagram due to how their algorithms work.

Twitter's character limit encourages people to not actually discuss anything in detail and imo helped birth a lot of passive agrressive and malicious forms of communication that you see on the internet today, like people who type in all lowercase, sling ruthless insults at other people, then top it off with a "haha sis look at this fingernail painting emoji" to look edgy and cool.

These platforms also suck in general for the level of harassment they tolerate and their inability to control their massive userbases. It's so easy for a terminally online person to prowl through someone's twitter history so that they can find something stupid a person said 10 years ago and pull a GOTCHA moment on them. You essentially have no privacy unless you completely lock down all of your accounts and only let a few trusted people follow you, anything else is open season for trolls, stalkers, and bad faith individuals.

 

[Celerity]

Just the fact that politicians hash it out there and the massive number of bots has me saying Twitter. Facebook is a close second though. Our political discourse is completely trashed at this point.