Why Does Social Media Software Make People so Mean and Nasty?

It Doesn't. People have always been mean and nasty.

All of human history can certainly attest to that. Social media software just brings that fact to light. But it seems that in recent years, we have all collectively come to the profound conclusion that most of the meanness and nastiness in the real world of human affairs stems from the social media software that now surrounds us all. We can now all simply blame the mindless software algorithms for all of our woes and thus divorce ourselves from all personal responsibility. The algorithms made me do it. But is that really fair? As I pointed out in The QAnon Phenomenon - Why Does Social Media Software Make People So Nutty? we are all by nature a little bit nutty. Most likely, we are also all by nature a little bit mean and nasty. So why blame software for all of the meanness and nastiness in the world? Certainly, our ancestors of years long gone by did not have the luxury of blaming it all on software.

Many are now very worried about the negative effects of social media software on our young. Being born in 1951, I went to middle school and high school during the 1960s without the benefit of any software at all. I did not have the advantages of having the entire world and most of our Universe at my very fingertips. But still, I did have lots of very nasty bullies and social snobs to deal with. The world has never been for want of bullies and social snobs because we always have managed to keep making more of them. The only difference was that back in the good old days of the 1950s and 1960s, there was no social media software to record it. Today, social media software records all of the very nasty thoughts of the racists, bullies and social snobs that in the past were well hidden. All of that meanness and nastiness were safely buried so that we could all go on living happily in a highly-censored Disney-like world. In fact, bringing forth nastiness was highly frowned upon in the 1950s and early 1960s. Polite people simply did not disturb societal tranquility with such things. That is one of the reasons why the racism, segregation, homophobia, misogyny and other social ills of the 1950s and early 1960s were able to safely hide in the background. Part of that stemmed from the 1950s' attitude that one should not "snitch" on wrongdoing by others.

For example, when I was a freshman in high school back in 1965, I rode to school on a school bus with my best friend. Now on that same bus, a mentally challenged freshman rode along with us. There were some pretty mean and nasty names for people like that back then. We also had a senior bully on the bus who tormented us all, but especially that mentally challenged freshman. I am ashamed to admit that we all just ignored what was going on between that senior bully and the mentally challenged freshman for many weeks. But finally, my friend and I decided that something had to be done, so one morning we built up enough courage to pay a visit to the dean's office to "squeal" on the bully. This was breaking the social norms of the day because both students and faculty were supposed to just ignore bullying as a normal part of growing up. However, the bully was kicked off the bus to the relief of all, and nobody ever found out why. So that was how things were before social media software came about. All of the nastiness of life was still there but was well hidden from all. The value of social media software is that all of the nastiness of racists, bullies and social snobs is now out in the open for all to see and take action. Censoring the nastiness just hides it away.

Comments are welcome at scj333@sbcglobal.net

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Regards,
Steve Johnston