"Geriatric Social Media"

[JoeWras]

I first got on the internet in 1995, and was amazed at the quality of information that was out there. I knew it had to do with the fact that not everyone was on the internet, and the people who were were sort of in a club. And then someone pointed out that the people who contribute do so at a personal cost to them (time) with no tangible reward. It all made sense.

Great observation! I think you are spot on.

The cost was more than time, it was also costly in dollars to participate.

When cost went to essentially zero, and personal time cost went down (just forward this meme), and rewards (influencers) came into being, that's when things changed profoundly.

 

[Music Lover]

I have also noticed that as it has become more accessible to the masses, while the quantity of what is available has exponentially increased, the overall quality has dipped due to that accessibility meaning that just about everyone can participate. And with rare exception, that does mean everyone.

Letting in everyone certainly does increase the amount of poor information. But not long ago the US had just 3 main networks that decided what was news, and they all basically said the same thing.

Now everyone gets to participate and people are starting to get information that was never available before. And many of them wonder why it was never available before.

 

[ls99]

Old Walt Crankcase [-]Cronkite[/-] used to finish up reading the news with, and that's the way it is. Well, nowadays we know it wasn't.