And on the grasping hand, one could think they were right - so instead of defending social media by pointing at the past and saying it's "just the same doom and gloom reaction to more communication, it will pass", or - conversely - instead of claiming social media is a new and uniquely bad thing, we could perhaps consider that their observations were valid then, and are even more valid now; that we've been going down the wrong road for the past 100+ years, and social media is merely an incremental worsening of a mistake made so long ago, we can't even conceptualize correcting it now.
But how exactly would you define the "mistake made so long ago"?
Is it the free circulation of newspapers?
Would you prefer to ban journalism or restrict the exchange of information, and what would that imply for the internet?
If you ask me, it seems like the incentive "money" might be a problem. Maybe commercial journalism and social media are the main issue? Which is closely related to the concept of media as entertainment.
Not a new idea either, and a boring reply without a real answer, I know.
Allowing only state-sponsored journalism would not be any better, right?
Public broadcasting (as independent from the government as possible) is nice, but doesn't solve the issues discussed here.
It seems like a reasonable and common view that being dependent on other's money hurts freedom of thought and expression, which is a basic requirement for free press.
So commercial media always was the default, but being dependent on commercial success and the favor of the public always hurt the mission we ascribe to a free press.
Same goes for the requirement to entertain the readership – it cannot be disregarded, no matter how sophisticated the media we consume might be, it needs to capture our attention in some way. This differntiates writing from data.
So my long answer kind of confirms your observation that "we can't even conceptualize correcting it now". I'm not sure if it's impossible though.
I'd be curious what your own ideas are about how to "fix the mistake". It seems like a political question for sure though.
We have examples on all sides.
China has only strong state sponsored journalism and strict censorship. Outside the Chinese government official, I have not yet met a person who thinks the model is working.
Also we have historical examples in the West. East German etc. Czechoslovakia was squashed by 500,000 Warsaw Pact troops because they liberalised newspaper.
Yes I was thinking about mentioning China, but I have not experienced this kind of blatant censorship and control myself. Hoping ofc to keep it that way.
But at the same time, social media brain rot is definitely real, and its hurtful effects on public discourse.
The comparison to early press is warranted to open up this topic and really take a look at reality. Banning specific platforms seems like symbolism at best, but paper press was not personalized in such a fine-grained way, although the bubble phenomenon is not strictly limited to the web.
And no paper journal ever had access to so much personal data of their readers.
I think many debates about this boil down to the question whether we want to merge private and public discourse.
Coincidentally, this is not just a property of social media but also of totalitarianism.
But it wasn't continuously bad, or at least that's the impression I get. Yellow journalism reached it's heyday in the 1890's but started turning things around towards respectability in the 1900's.
And then returned in the 1990's with the 24 hour news networks.
More the removal of the fairness doctrine.
Even if it was left in place it would have become increasingly a joke as non-broadcast news grew in the form of cable rollouts and the internet.
I don't think this gets mentioned enough. Rush Limbaugh was the result of the doctrine's abolition. You can draw a straight line from Limbaugh to Fox News, et al.
WNYC's "One the Media" have done just this:
"How Rush Limbaugh Paved The Way For Trump" (2021)
<https://www.wnycstudios.org/podcasts/otm/episodes/how-rush-l...>
Audio: <https://chrt.fm/track/53A61E/pdst.fm/e/dts.podtrac.com/pts/r...> (MP3)
But at some point if you’re saying hundreds of years of human history are “the wrong road”, isn’t it like saying gravity is the wrong road? Even if true, what does it matter? I don’t believe prescriptive changes to human nature have ever worked.
You are correct imho, but bear in mind there is a large minority of people who believe in people as "blank slates" that are only formed and influenced by environment. I think it's Quixotic to fix people that way but many would disagree.
A mere hundreds of years of human history have a lot less "gravity" than gravity.
The mistake, IMO is thinking there are any options that are not ‘mistakes’ in one or more ways.