Please join us at 9:00 am (CDT) on Thursday, August 28 on Zoom for a round table plunge into the emotive cacophony and the chaotic disarrangement of our personas brought to us by social media.
In the U.S., social media is being given culprit status for increasing depression among girls and young women and for driving young men into isolation and solitude.
Now what if social media posts become generated by AI to use images of exceptional emotional power and displacement and send us fixating stories supported by data on what best triggers depression?
A movement is emerging in the U.S. to ban the use of smartphones by students in public schools out of a belief that the companies that sell them and those that make money from their use are not able to minimize the negative externalities attached to social media products.
One reads that the cell phone/social media platform will be far more determinative of human life than was Gutenberg’s invention of the printing press – but not in a good way. Printed books mostly increased knowledge and reasoned debate and made modern science and modern civilization possible – increasing human capitals and social capitals. If social media is destructive of these capitals and contributes to atomization of communities, anomie, prejudices and antagonisms in politics and short-sightedness in personal decision-making, what great good can come of it?
Join us to share your stories about social media, your best experiences, your worries and your recommendations for throwing out the bath water, while keeping the baby hearty and healthy.
To register, please email jed@cauxroundtable.net.
The event will last about an hour.