Several recent books and articles that probe the troubling aspects of social media have something in common: They focus on the dangers that social media platforms pose for the young. Less explored, however, is the way that they’ve impacted the population at large.
In this regard, Richard Seymour’s The Twittering Machine offers a fresh perspective—something that his chapter titles already make clear.
Chapters like “We Are All Celebrities” and “We Are All Trolls” argue that no one has escaped this shift in communication.
Early on, Seymour takes issue with the phrase “social media”—all media are social, he notes—and suggests that it’s better to think of this development as the rise of a new social industry.
So, if that’s the case, then what does this industry produce?
It hoovers up personal data—lots and lots—and it strives “to objectify and quantify social life in numerical form.” Unlike anything in earlier times, it renders social interactions available for data analytics.
However, as Seymour sees it, this social industry actually “programs” social life.
In a nutshell, in-depth examination of so much data makes it possible for governments, political groups and private firms to manipulate social life in unprecedented ways.
But first things first. Why do so many of us use these sites as much as we do? Why have we invited them so readily into our lives and made them an integral part of our identities?
To some extent, The Twittering Machine contends, it’s because they address legitimate desires. They give us chances to get recognized and appreciated; they let us present ourselves to others in new and original ways; they can liven up the occasional tedium of daily life.
But they only offer these functions because our online posts mean big bucks for the industry. And the online experience is meticulously structured—with “[a]pproval, retweets, shares, likes”—to encourage us to churn out more informational tidbits. The more we post, the bigger their bottom line.
And, as a consequence, our relationships with others and ourselves have changed.
Specifically, our relationships with others are now less often direct and more often mediated through a digital medium—something that alters our attitudes and expectations.
“Online proxies for friendship and affection—‘likes’ and so on—significantly reduce the stakes of interacting, while also making the interactions more volatile.”
Social media accounts also offer us the chance to become “celebrities,” to establish an appealing online persona and cultivate it over time. Users are nudged to seek publicity and thus open themselves up to the potential downsides that come with it.
Seymour cites research by Donna Freitas showing that many young people who are active on these platforms are “tyrannized by their obsession with ‘likes’ and comparison with others.”
More unsettling in The Twittering Machine is its in-depth consideration of trolling—its shocking examples of callous online responses to other people’s trauma and suffering.
In one such account, trolls maliciously make fun of a girl who committed suicide and ridicule those mourning her death.
To show how widespread online attacks like this have become, Seymour cites a Pew Research study which revealed that 25% of women have been sexually harassed on the Internet and another 25% have been stalked online.
But trolling is hardly just a matter of disaffected individuals acting badly.
Seymour, whose book appeared in 2019, reports that 28 countries, including the United States, are known to have “troll armies.” In the United Kingdom, the Joint Threat Research Intelligence Group has operated an extensive trolling program to undermine and smear individuals and firms that the government has found troublesome.
He also believes that the social industry has made its mark on a “post-democratic” world.
In such a society, the trappings of democracy are still in place—political debates, campaign rallies, polls—but these have relatively little effect on actual policy. Data collected about citizens can be evaluated to manage voter attitudes and behavior.
Such post-democratic forces can act “below the intellect, working underneath the surface of persuasion.” Rather than negotiating with people’s political demands, they shape “what we are capable of wanting.”
Is Seymour’s bleak assessment warranted? Or do the benefits of online communication outweigh its less savory aspects?
His suggestion that all of us are trolls without exception doesn’t seem especially credible.
On the other hand, he might well be onto something important when he comments that “[t]here is something about the way in which we interact on the platforms which, whatever else it does, magnifies our mobbishness, our demand for conformity, our sadism, our crankish preoccupation with being right on all subjects.”
One thing is certain: The social industry has left its mark on all of us, not just the young, and its effects deserve far more scrutiny.
