Credit: Getty Images.

Nowadays people get their news not from Cronkite-like broadcasts or newspapers but more commonly from the internet, mainly social media, like Facebook. Social media portals are programmed to feed users stuff that gets their juices flowing — outrage! fake news! — driving political polarization and craziness.

But wait. That picture is actually so 2020. The landscape has changed, again.

TikTok has taken over the world. And it turns out that what people really want is not so much all that news-like and political stuff, but rather entertaining short little videos.

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"Banning" TikTok actually won't make much difference, because older, rival platforms have taken notice. Elon Musk now claims X (ex-Twitter) is "video-first." Videos are also taking over Facebook.

Social media began as a means for people to connect and share with each other, a "digital town square,” a gathering place, message wall, soapbox and debate stage. But now, as The Economist reported recently, social interaction comprises a minority of users' viewing time — and Facebook says news now makes up less than 3% of what people see there.

Such platforms are finding that cute little videos not only excel at gaining eyeballs — and thus ad revenue, which after all is the name of the game — but avoid much of the criticism they'd gotten over their handling of politically freighted content. News just isn't worth all the hassle.

Reuters polls find that fewer people say they’re sharing news online, and more people are trying to avoid news altogether.

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And going hand in hand with decreasing coverage of public affairs is less online political engagement. All that sharing, retweeting, commenting, arguing — which drove movements like #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter, wokeism and Trumpism — is greatly diminishing.

One unfortunate fallout is that those who do still engage politically online tend to be the more highly opinionated with extreme views. While more normal people increasingly shun that freak show.

The internet still shapes how many people engage with the world. In fact, the amount of time we spend scrolling on phones continues to rise. Much of it watching videos.

I'm not against entertainment. But isn't at least a little knowledge important? And we're seeing another downward lurch there — a further dumbing-down. If we allow what's going on in the wider world to fade into a dim blur, that leaves the field to the zealots — and leaves other people even less equipped to counter them.

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Indeed, with less news being presented to us overall, the proportion that is crap — distorted, unreliable, biased, fake — rises as the proportion sourced from reliable, responsible mainstream media falls.

Add artificial intelligence into the picture, and, in many markets, local journalism's death spiral, and I cringe to think what our civic culture will look like in another decade or two.

But hey — did you see that hilarious thing with the cat on the high-wire?

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Frank S. Robinson of Albany is the author of “The Case for Rational Optimism.” He blogs at rationaloptimist.wordpress.com.

QOSHE - Commentary: Everything is awful. Let’s watch another video. - Frank S. Robinson

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21.04.2024

Credit: Getty Images.

But wait. That picture is actually so 2020. The landscape has changed, again.

TikTok has taken over the world. And it turns out that what people really want is not so much all that news-like and political stuff, but rather entertaining short little videos.

Article continues below this ad

"Banning" TikTok actually won't make much difference, because older, rival platforms have taken notice. Elon Musk now claims X (ex-Twitter) is "video-first." Videos are........

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Commentary: Everything is awful. Let’s watch another video.

Frank S. Robinson

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