The Social Dilemma of Social Media

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We watched The Social Dilemma on Netflix and it brought up all kinds of thoughts and feelings for us about social media. We tease apart some of those thoughts and what the government's role should or shouldn't be when it comes to social media.

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Episode Resources

Transcript

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:00:00] Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Pantsuit Politics. We as always are thrilled to be here with this community during what is a complicated time in America. Let's be honest with ourselves. We're going to get to that. And we're going to get to particularly the complicated reality that is social media and what role it's playing in this particular moment in American history.

Before we get started, we want to welcome Shari and another new producer who wishes to remain anonymous to our executive producing team. Like you all support, especially our executive producers support, on Patrion makes this podcast possible and thank you. Seems like such a small thing to say, and it's certainly not something we can say enough. So thank you so much for your support of the show. 

Beth Silvers: [00:00:44] One way that that support makes a big difference. That's new for us here is that we're offering transcripts of our episodes. You can go to pantsuit politics, show.com. And as you click on the latest podcast test, you will see the transcript for that podcast right there.

And we're so glad to be able to offer that for many reasons. We are also in the process of having every aspect of our website looked at to make sure that it's fully accessible. Thank you to Kelly and the June mango team for that, that, and we just appreciate everyone who enables us to do this work as well as we possibly can.

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:01:13] Before we get started with the social media conversation. We also wanted to update a few more in person, early voting details. So we said Oregon doesn't have in-person early voting, but a lovely Oregonian reached out and said, don't call your legislators because we only do mail and ballots, which I knew.

I do wonder if they let give you a place to drop them off if they only have. Malin voting and Alabama we learned is even better than we corrected. Last time you can go to your like absentee ballot manager, which is usually the circuit court clerk and just request your absentee ballot right there, fill it out and hand it back to them, which is basically in-person early voting.

We're just calling it something different. So that's good news. Good job, Alabama. I'm very. I'm very impressed. 

Beth Silvers: [00:02:03] We also got a question from Kimberly that I truly don't know the answer to you, but I think it's really interesting and a good one to put out to this community of listeners because she and her daughter thinking through the best way for her daughter, who's off at college to vote her daughter's at school in a different state, and they're thinking.

Okay. We could get the absentee ballot mailed to her at school, but what if school shuts down down because of COVID, which is not an out of the realm possibility. And she said, you know, depending on when that happened, it could happen too late to request a new ballot. So we think we're going to have her absentee ballot mailed to our home address.

Just in case. And she said, this is happening all over the country and no one is talking about it. I would hate to think that sending students home right before election day would be done intentionally to suppress their votes. But this year nothing would surprise me. I'm not sure how to get the word out of this.

So we're gonna. Put the word out about this. And if you are someone who has like really good knowledge of state election procedures and have an idea for us, let us know. But I think Kimberly's solution of having the absentee Vic salad mailed to the home address is probably the best way to go. 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:03:08] Agreed. Agreed. I think that's a really safe thing because you know, you're going to be aware of like the situation in the campus and how close if they are going to shut down, they're getting to, and you just have more options as far as overnighting it and tracking it and making sure she gets it. I agree. 

Beth Silvers: [00:03:22] Okay, please go vote.

Everybody. It's really important, Sarah. And I actually did a bunch of events this week and in the course of one of those all on zoom, someone said, Hey, like, It, does it even make a difference for us to vote? I know you're listening to a political podcast and that question might not be on your mind, but I have a feeling that this person was also a relatively informed person, just from the way the question was put to us.

And there are so many people who have that posture of like, well, what's one vote at the end of the day. So I don't want to gloss over. Please go vote, please cast your one vote. It means a lot. It is really important. It is part of, it's just the foundation of your acts as a citizen. So don't put it off and don't put it aside.

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:04:10] All right, everybody settle in. We we're talking about social media. Whew. We decided, yeah. After tackling election interference, because social media is such an essential component of what's going on right now. And because everybody can't stop talking about the social dilemma on Netflix, that we would watch that and use the documentary as a starting point for discussing the particular role that social media plays in our election.

Beth, did you watch social dilemma? 

Beth Silvers: [00:04:36] I did watch it with my husband. Yeah. Provoked some very interesting conversations between the two of us. The thing expect to learn much new information from it. And I don't think that I did, but I really valued the succinct way. One of the experts talked about how we always say, like, if you're not paying for it, you're the product.

But he said what's more accurate is to say that the subtle, almost imperceptible shifts in your behavior are the product. 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:05:05] Oh, my mailed. Mine meld. That was the exact moment where they were like doing like your attentions for sale. And I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, guys, I got it. I got it. And then he said that and I was like, Oh, he's right.

Beth Silvers: [00:05:19] Like so good. Yeah. 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:05:20] Yeah. That took like, that took it to a whole nother level. And I was like, I'm going to debrief her that this is also around the moment. Oh, our audio producers get their bleepy machine ready because. We were watching it. And my husband and I have had lots of conversations. I've read lots of books about this, and especially like how the D the addiction is built into the design.

And they say that point about, Oh, we'll use the dots so he can see that she's typing to keep him engaged. And we both went mother -  ers the dots!

Simultaneously we had this reaction like, Oh,. You want, you know, it's always this, like, you think they're doing it for you, right. Like you feel like, Oh, these dogs are great. I know they're responding. And then they, they, you know, they. Rotate it ever so slightly. And you're like, Oh, the dots are to keep me watching the three dots, waiting for somebody to respond.

Like we both had a like, Oh, like we were kind of mad. Like we felt super manipulative that moment from people who like already knew they were manipulating us. But I agree. I think that they. They started out basic and I was kind of like, you don't know. And then when he said that it was Jaron Lanier, and honestly, a lot of times he talked, I felt like he was like taking it to the next level.

I'm going to have to read his book 10 arguments for deleting your social media accounts. Right now. I thought that he was very, very insightful. Now, what did you think, even though the dots was different, the dramatization, what did you think about the drama to station? 

Beth Silvers: [00:06:52] It really got on my nerves, watching it.

I also thought that it was clever. The part that I appreciate, it was the three guys showing you what an algorithm does. The rest of it, I could have done way without, but I also understand that they were trying to build something. It's kind of like. The the same thing, the dots do, they were trying to hold people's attention and people have different appetites for sitting and listening to experts be expert.

So I understand why they put it in there. I did find myself, especially toward the end thinking. Yeah, yeah, I get it. Like, get me back. I want to see dr. Zuboff again, Shoshana Zuboff who wrote the age of surveillance capitalism. I want to be personal friends with her. I thought she was so smart the way, and this was the same thing that sort of taking it to the next level.

Cause I could have. Talked about microtargeting on Facebook, but the way that she put it, that what Facebook has to sell to advertisers is certainty on conversion because of all this data that it's not just that they can get you in front of the right people, it's that they can get you in front of the people who they know will buy.

And that just links to that point about it's the behavior that's for sale, not just the attention. And I thought it was brilliantly done and conveyed. 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:08:07] I also loved her hair. I don't 

Beth Silvers: [00:08:10] everything about her 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:08:11] shallow and not related, but when she rolled in, I was like, Oh, we need to be best friends immediately.

Yes. And you know, here's what I, I was talking to, uh, Jamie Gildan from the one and only podcast. And I was saying like, you know, I feel like that was not for me. That was for people who watched like a lot of Dateline, a lot of true crime and are used to the drama and who have not tackled this topic before.

This was not for me, who's read 16 books about this kind of stuff, you know, like I liked it. And I thought they did a really good job of conveying that. And they did add to my understanding, but you know, like, My mom who I've been trying to get to read these books immediately reached out to me. He was like, you have to watch this, you know?

Beth Silvers: [00:08:54] Oh, interesting. 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:08:56] So glad she did. Like, I just think that it's just, you know, The percentage of the American public who reads nonfiction and or long reads about what social media can do to us is small. The percentage of the American public that watches Netflix and attention span needs to be captured, no judgment or moralizing have an exceptionally short attention span.

But I think it did that. Like I thought it parts of it was silly too, but I don't care if it works, if it works and gets people's attention. Great. Great. 

Beth Silvers: [00:09:24] Yeah, I agree with that. So I've been thinking about the social dilemma in combination with all the research that we've been doing on election interference and really struggling through this question of where the line gets crossed into something that makes me really uncomfortable.

This is where Chad really pushes me because as we're watching it, he said, right, they're trying to influence your behavior, but TV's been doing that forever too. 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:09:51] Yeah, I did not like that part where he was like, nobody was mad about bicycles. That's not true. Like, that's just not true. People were freaked out by bicycles.

They were particularly freaked out by women, riding bicycles. Like the idea that we don't react with alarm to every it's something that's just a tool. I felt like that was not convincing. There are lots of tools. People freak the hell out about and throughout history. Rock music, radio, television, bicycles.

Like I thought that was like, I'm like me. I don't know. I don't buy a gas. So, 

Beth Silvers: [00:10:18] and to some extent, I mean, that kind of makes the point to some extent, there are not many tools that are just tools. We tend to develop an ethos and a set of behaviors and a culture around almost everything that is new to us as human beings.

And so I'm trying to put my finger on. Where is it that this becomes such a concerning problem that creates such a sense of powerlessness. And I also have been stuck on the question posed by the guy that's featured. So prominently in the social dilemma who's talked about is like the closest thing Silicon Valley has to a conscience.

Because, you know, his thesis is Silicon Valley has an obligation to, to fix this or to grapple with it more seriously, and to do their best, to change what's happening on social media. And I agree to an extent, and it also feels a little bit like mopping with dirty water to me. And so I am just sitting with big questions about.

How do we use these tools in a responsible way? And am I, am I overly worried about them? I don't know. 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:11:25] Well, you know, this morning, my eyes and I were talking about it and I said, what I think they miss is, you know, some of the, the threat, particularly towards the end of the democracy. When we talk about election interference and white supremacist groups organizing and all that, like some of that's like the internet, not just social media, like they're going to.

Organize on and recruit through the internet. And we're obviously not going to shut down the internet. And I said, you know, to me, it's like, they're missing the underlying reason. People need to numb, which is. Income inequality. They can't pay their bills. They're stressed. Like, did you see the Rand study that said the meeting income should be a hundred thousand dollars and it's $50,000.

That's the problem. Like people have to numb out because they're overworked and overextended and stressed and traumatized and they're, or addicted to drugs. And there's not enough drug addiction treatment. And like all these, like all this stuff to me, like the undercurrent and I sound like Bernie Sanders is income inequality, and Nicholas was like, yeah, but they get to that.

They basically make the argument that. We've lived on the theory that corporate profits leads to public good. And this more than almost anything even, and all these previous explorations, we've had that tools that we never quite used as tools has either, you know, been leading us here for sure. But this is like the fullest darkest manifestation of evil and with the best intentions, like the idea that.

Profit will somehow benefit all like just aiming for profit will somehow benefit. All of us is not true. Not. True. Like the ethic when he came in, when the one guy that used to work at Facebook came in and was like, you know, we had to monetize and I thought, well, you picked wrong, you picked wrong. And also, you know, I think there's a sense in silicone Valley that we were going to make money, but because we said, Oh my God, you know what it is.

It's exactly what we were just talking about on Patriana nightly nuance. The undercurrent of our government, which is just trust us like this, there's all these norms just trust us. We want to do the right thing. And there was this undercurrent in Silicon Valley of like, but we can make money and really just do the right thing.

Cause it's just the internet. What could happen? You know, we're not polluting except you are what with love it, just all these things. It's like, just trust us because we're good guys. We can make as much money as possible, but because Facebook really just wants to connect people, uh, let us make as much money as humanly possible.

It'll turn out fine. 

Beth Silvers: [00:13:50] I, I struggled with this team because I think that in a lot of ways they have created tools that have changed the world in profound, wonderful ways. They have done a lot of what they set out to do. It's just that they've done a lot of other stuff at the same time. And I understand that when you start out something and you invest in it enormously.

Then you think, how do we make this sustainable? And the only way you make it sustainable is profit. And then once it gets big enough to be making a profit, you got a lot of people involved. And the pressure becomes huge to keep that profit growing because everybody in business believes that if you aren't growing, you're dying and I can see where that mindset would be exemplified even more in the tech space.

And at some point I think just the volume of what's happening on these tools. Is just completely unmanageable. I was just reading that Buzzfeed piece from a Facebook. Employee who had been terminated, turned down a very significant step package so that she could speak publicly. And she wrote a long memo to the company about her work there.

And she was talking about. How she was making all these decisions about countries all over the world, where to combat inauthentic activity, where to shut down mom bots and election interference. And it was just all sitting on her shoulders and she had this great success in shutting down all of these accounts.

And two weeks later, they were all back. And so it's not that I think the people in Silicon Valley or anybody connected to tech is just evil. I think people are in way over their heads. That's what I think every time I listen to Mark Zuckerberg, you're just in so far over your head and, and now unwilling to admit that, which I think is an enormous problem, but they have made these tools that are just.

I don't know how you begin to regulate them. Now. I'm sure that smarter people than me can figure that out. And that a lot of good work is being done about that. And I'm encouraged by the social dilemma showing us some of the people doing that good work. But again, I just, as I start to think about, okay, what could rules look like?

What could we be. Interested in doing to try to change this culture. It does feel like an, a really unmanageable problem to me because of the scale that this has reached so rapidly. 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:16:24] You know, I read another piece that seemingly isn't related to social media, it's called why everything is sold out. Have you read it in the Atlantic?

It was really good. And it's just about our economy. And you know why things were sold out. A lot of reasons, obviously international manufacturing chains were massively disrupted by the pandemic, but I thought this insight was so smart. She says, Amanda mole wrote it and she says, As this was the case with America's larger pandemic failures.

The consumer system has began to rot long before the coronavirus made its brittleness. Obvious American corporations have spent decades squeezing every last dollar out of the market, largely at the expense of its flexibility and resilience. The worst of it started 30 years ago. Rowan said when Walmart crushed local competition across the country and popularized.

The just in time inventory model costs are kept low by keeping very little on hand and shelves are restocked with freshly delivered products. There are no paper towels or sweatpants waiting to be called into duty. It's like this cost low cost, low cost, low model is in Facebook. Two. It's built into those products too.

Right? Why did they go to advertising? Because I thought nobody would want to pay for it because we're so obsessed with keeping costs low. And we talked about this on the podcast before, and we could get into a space where I think we could talk about America and how these are American's individual problems, but I'm done with individualism and I'm even done with the cultural conversation about how we, how we have to be willing to pay for things.

Even though I believe that I believe that about media, you and I have talked about how. People ask us for recommendations all the time. And we don't spend enough talking about here that time. Talking about here are the sources we read and here are the sources we pay for do the Atlantic. I pay the Atlantic, we pay for subscriptions, New York times the Washington post.

We pay for our media and I would have been happy to pay for our social media, but here's the thing, you know why we have to be. Motivated to keep costs low because nobody has any damage money come in a quality. Like that's why they want profits. They don't want to pay people more. And because they don't want to pay people more, they have to figure out a way to sell us all this without us paying more for it, because we can't afford it.

We can't afford to pay more for it. We can't have pet for, to pay for our news because the meeting income is supposed to be a hundred thousand dollars. And it's 50. This is all on the bedrock of. This little, a social experiment we have going here called democracy where we're all equal and we're all equally empowered does not work.

If wealth is so drastically distributed. In unequal ways as it is right now. Like we just, it's not sustainable, like, because we're just going to keep in this cycle. Right. Well, we have to market it to more and more people, but the more and more people got less and less money. So we have to cut the costs because we want to keep making more money, but they want to keep spending less money.

And that's how we got here. That's how we got there with manufacturing that we sent overseas. That's how we got here with social media, because we'd rather pay advertisers and then have the users quote, unquote. Pay for the services. Whereas, you know, like I just think that, that we can say like, Oh, we all need to just decide to value that.

But you know, what's easy to value. Everything's easy to value when you have money. When you have a little expendable, it's easier to have a more open philosophy about what's valuable to you. I just think like that's like, I don't, and I don't think that's so hard. Like, I don't think it's hard to say. You know, it would be pretty dramatic, but like, okay, we're going to shut down advertising, have your users pay?

I mean, that's radical. I acknowledge that. I also liked the dude suggestion about taxing data. I'm here for that as well, but like, this is not sustainable. 

Beth Silvers: [00:20:13] So first I think I agree we should probably have to pay for our social media use some amount. I think that that would also lead to greater verification of identity.

Now will people work around that? Absolutely. These troll farms, aren't free, they're spending a lot of money here. And so the modest amount that could be charged to gain admission to social media is not going to be a barrier for people who want to get in badly enough. And so that's not. That's not 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:20:40] an ironclad security approach.

I don't think that's a security project, 

Beth Silvers: [00:20:44] but I think that there is something important to that. I also think that that would encourage greater competition in this area because to me, one of the common denominators to problems that plague us right now is bigness. I keep thinking about. Very early in the life of this podcast.

I had the real honor of moderating a debate between the libertarian and green party candidates for a Senate seat in New York. And it was so interesting because they were coming from such different angles, but they both really agreed on. Bigness as the problem and on smallness as a solution on how so many more things need to become more localized in order to work better.

And I am persuaded by those arguments. And so I think that the expectation that we pay for social media would allow new players in that space as well. And I think that's important. What I add to the income inequality analysis that you laid out, which I don't really disagree with is the factor that that has to be addressed again, not on an individual level, because it's not like the person who has that hundred thousand dollar household income is less addicted to their phones than people in that $50,000 range and below they're not.

And I think it's. In part due to that precariousness that Anne Helen Petersen describes so well in her new book, which we're going to talk about now next week, um, that even people who have a mass for themselves really comfortable living live with the knowledge that it's precarious, because they're not sitting on generational wealth and they're not sitting on the kind of security in the form of a pension or something that people in our country used to feel.

And so I think that that's a piece of it that we all kind of have this fear, whether it is well founded or not around money. And the other piece is something that I was reading about in a great article called a psychoanalytic reading of social media and the death drive. Go with me. This article talks about how, what social media really exhibits is scripturey event, which it describes as a violent desire to write incessantly.

Our addiction to social media is at its core, a compulsion to write. That's a quote from the article and we'll link it here. And what we're writing is so numbing. And so predictable in many ways and so destructive to, and we know that and we keep coming back for greater and greater doses of our time being wasted and our minds being doled out and our spirits being dampened by it, that it almost reflects like a Freudian desire to be dead the way that we're choosing to numb out.

Through these tools. And I don't know that I'm there, but I think there's an interesting question. I think we need to be looking at both sides of the equation. What's wrong with the technology and what's wrong with us. What needs are not being met that make us so susceptible to this addiction? 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:23:48] Well, here's two things.

One. I love the smallness idea, but the problem is social media is appealing because of the big connected, 

Beth Silvers: [00:23:56] the 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:23:56] strength is that it's big. And I think that's, what's so hard. Here's my. Aha moment I had, because I realized there were some real inconsistencies, right. I'm here for laying down a gospel about income inequality.

I believe. In my heart of hearts, that that is the source of so many of our problems. And also I'm moralized and roll my eyes and judge people who talk about voting for Trump because they feel like the economy is going well. And I thought that is inconsistent. If you believe that that's at the heart of what motivates people, then when people voice that and say economic concerns are more important to them than human rights, then you can not judge them.

They are articulating what you know to be true, which is, this is a foundation upon which a lot of the problems in our society sit. And I don't know if you saw there was like some interesting work and study around actually persuading people not to vote for Trump. And the most consistently successful attempts were persuading people to see their own economic outcomes.

Through the lens of Trump policy. So instead of just saying, yeah, I want tax cuts and he did tax cuts saying, what did you see as the result of the tax cuts in your own life? And then, you know, people are like, well, I still can't afford student loans. Okay. Well then let's talk about that. You know, like really articulating, I see you want less taxes, you know, I can see why that would be motivating to you instead of just being.

Sort of moralizing about how short-sided that is, which is easy for me to do, because I believe that to be true. Um, but like, I just thought, like you can't have it both ways. You can't say income inequality. Is such a source for what we're numbing and the discontent and the just so that precarious financial situation and why we're so burned out as Anne Helen.

So eloquently articulate is, and then be turned around. And S and sit in judgment when someone says the economy is why they're voting for Trump, even though they don't like his personality on Twitter, like, I feel like I'm just really going to lean into that. I'm really just going to lean into if economy is what motivates people and why they, and what they're voting about fine.

Then let's, then I'm all my messages are going to be through the prism of people's financial precariousness. And is it actually better after four years of Donald 

Beth Silvers: [00:26:24] Trump? I think that's really good. There are lots of places where I'm trying to do more of that. Try to see us as part of a whole and understand, and that we're not choosing as much as we think we're choosing.

I mean, when we're watching the social dilemma, Chad said, do you think that you're being subtly influenced and pulled leftward by your social media consumption? And I said, I'm sure I am in a variety of ways. Let me put those to you. You know, one, this isn't social media, but it's digital media. I mean, our emails.

Convict me in a lot of ways. I hear from people who have life experience. So it's quite different than mine. It's it is important to me. Number two, I take in a lot of conservative media and a lot of very progressive media. And I see such an imbalance in the number of ideas being created on those sides of the aisle.

And I am drawn to ideas I always have been. So the fact that most of the conservative media that I take in is just critique. That's what it is. It's critique and a lot, a lot, a lot. A lot of the pervasive media that I take in is critique too. I am not going to say that it isn't. It is, it's a lot of critique on both sides, but I get more ideas from that sort of center left sphere.

And even the progressive left sphere than I get from the conservative side. And so for me, even if I don't love those ideas, I like the generation of ideas. There's something inherently hopeful there to me that compels me and maybe somewhere in the bowels of all those wires sitting in basement, that is just a known about my personality type and my behavior.

And so I'm fed more of that content. I don't know, but. It's fair to step back and question like, am I even deciding things in an atmosphere when we're all well, you know, manipulated by strings B, those strings things, financial technological. We're cultural and it's, it's all at once, all the time for all of us.

And it can get very mind bendy. 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:28:36] This is why I don't think free will is a thing. People don't like it. I kind of really disrupted my book club one time. Cause I wrote in there, I was like, Oh, I don't think free will is a thing because I just think, and this is why I'm so hyped up about individualism. The idea that we are like, I think you make choices, but free will free that free will.

Part of that implies to me that you are uninfluenced and that is out. Rages. That was outrageous when we were cavemen. That is outrageous. And now in the age of Facebook, you're never on influenced, like we are social creatures. We're always influenced by each other. We're influenced by our own bodies and our hormones we're influenced by our stress, our mental capacity, our education, like it just, I could.

Make a list three miles long, like the idea that like we are uninfluenced or LA that's, what will really set me off in a conversation is this, you know, you'll hear people talk in a way that's like, well, I'm just, you know, really cool. Headedly taking this in objectively. Right. I just don't think that's a thing.

I just don't think that's a thing. And so, you know, of course you're being influenced. We're all being influenced. I think the question is. Are we comfortable with which in which certain things are influencing us, you know, I've been on a long journey with social media. I am uncomfortable with the way social media influences me.

I mean, I came on this podcast and articulated a vision that they put into that movie. Do you remember when I said, I feel like there's another me online. I feel like there's another Sarah. And I don't like that. I mean, had I like sketch it out? It wouldn't have looked that different Pete from Madmen wouldn't have been there, but it wouldn't have looked at different.

Like that's how I felt. I don't like. Feeling like that. And I, you know, I've, I've dialed back my social media tremendously. I had a lot of successes with my tech Shabbat, and I'm going to go back to that after watching social dilemmas, very convicted about that, I would love to really step off Facebook totally and completely download the pictures that I love and move on with my life.

I also, there's this part of me that really. Rebels when I get in that space a lot because of how to do nothing that we read by Jenny O'Dell. And I just think like, and even in Helensburgh like, it shouldn't be me. I shouldn't have to individually manage this. That's what pisses me off. Like I shouldn't have to come up with a different million different habits and apps and social hacks and all this stuff to tackle a problem.

We all acknowledge is society-wide like, that's why we have a government. And so they step in and help us manage these problems that are truly not individual pursuits. That's what bothers me about it.

Beth Silvers: [00:31:36] I also think that the answer here is not the end of social media one. I don't think that's available any, I just think that's a genie that doesn't go back in the bottle, but also. I don't think that's desirable. There are wonderful things about social media. I'm not mad at people buying and selling things on social media.

I'm not mad at good targeted advertising. I think there is a range. I think it's like, I think it's important to. Pinpoint that ethical range. I do want to read several of the books referenced in the social dilemma because I think it might give me better language for that. I want to list some ethical guideposts, not me personally, but what I would like to see happen is a sense of how do we ethically do this?

Because I think there has to be a way. To me, this is like everything else. The answer is not on or off, we have it, or we don't, it is figuring out what the place of things is. And I think we can do that. I'm becoming such a nihilist about everything except connection. And I do think that these tools provide a sense of connection.

That is important. They've been particularly important during the pandemic. They've also been particularly destructive. During the pandemic. And so how do we find the right range? I don't know, but I believe we can do that. I just want us to intend to do that instead of taking the problem that we have right now to an even further degree of manipulation and control.

And almost giving up on seeing something that makes sense to you from your friends and your newsfeed. I think a lot of us are just going well. I, you know, I just expect to see bile when I log in and I don't want to be there, 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:33:33] but you know why we're here. Why we're exactly in this place is because we don't ever ask those questions.

You know, one of the. Things, I can never stop talking, thinking about it. Someone who has read and watched and thought and lived. Reproduction three times, four times is how Europe. They have commissions ethical commission. They came together and said, we're facing these new technologies. We're facing surrogacy and IUF and sperm donation.

And we need to get together with the medical ethicists and religious leaders and policy experts and figure out how's this going to play on human psychology and human spirits. And what do we want to be? Be careful for, but we don't ever do that in America because we have this narrative, that individual Liberty means everybody can figure that out for themselves.

And I don't know, weirdly living that right now. How's everybody liked figuring out the pain for themselves. I don't love it. I'm going to be honest. That's why I love Hemley Austrian people like that. Cause they'll just step in and say, okay, here's my expertise. Here's how I see this playing out in human psychology, but we still live.

In so much of this culture in this lie, that everybody's an expert in their own, all in life and every single topic. And I'm sorry, I don't believe that. I don't believe I'm an expert in my own kids. Felix has hemiplegia. I'm not a neuroscience test. Like give me a break. Like I just, I think that's, we can't get to that spot where we'll go well, ethical considerations because in America, in particular, you hear it.

When soda taxes come up, you hear it about seatbelts and God save us masks. We're all Liberty means. Everybody gets to decide for themselves when, and like, everybody can really just do the right thing when it comes down to it. And that's just not true. We see it with people's relationship with COVID and the choices they're making.

Like. Well, I think we have to let go of that lie. Not because those people are bad, but because human psychology is complicated, it is complicated. And like the analysis of how this stuff is going to act on us is located. Like we just trusted them to go the like button. I think it'll make people feel happy.

Like, Oh, I don't, I didn't see that it could be the downfall of democracy. And I think so much of that is rest on this narrative of we'll just leave it up to the citizen. That's what true Liberty means. And I'm. I'm done with that. I'm done with that. 

Beth Silvers: [00:35:49] We also just are not good at an individual or a societal level of holding things within a range or understanding things existing on a spectrum.

I mean, the attorney General's comments. Comparing a national lockdown to slavery, um, problematic as they are in so many ways, offensive, gross, insensitive the whole nine yards. But that is a thing that he said and missed in the reporting about that, because it is so offensive is the fact that we've not had a national lockdown around COVID.

He's talking in hyperbolic terms about something that has not come to him

matters because it is different to have the entire country. Regardless of what's going on in that country's territory, staying at home, then state governments or local governments, making those decisions that is different. Now, do I think it is a massive deprivation of Liberty? I do not under certain circumstances.

I am not with him on many parts of this argument, but I think it matters that the attorney general is speaking as though we either. Treat COVID-19 like it's the common cold, or we deprive everyone of every choice in their lives. That's those are not our two options. And this is another place go with me again, where I think learning from nature is important because we see this in the fires too.

That sense of. We have to have some fires and some of those fires, we have to let burn for a little bit, instead of adopting the mentality that when they start, we must have them out immediately. Part of the reason that we're running out of money and resources to fight the fires is because we fought some of them too early.

I'm not mad at anybody about that. I'm saying, look at what nature has to teach us there. Right. Everything exists in our range and everything exists in an ecosystem and it's all connected. And that means that we have to tolerate some things that scare us for the greater good sometimes. And we have to get in front of some things that don't look scary immediately because they're going to get scary over time.

If we don't. And that's how I am just looking at social media. Like what place should this have in the ecosystem that we all share right now? And how can we find that place? 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:38:18] Well, and let me just walk the talk right now, because I just went off on how we shouldn't prop everything up on this altar of individual choice.

And I am certainly pro choice. And we'll tell you. With a straight face and with no sense of hypocrisy that I believe that every individual woman is an expert in her own story in her own body. And also, I believe there are many, many, many psychological factors, societal interventions, cultural conversations that play on that.

Woman's. Decision. And I am really, really happy to talk about what we can do to prevent that up until that point. But I am not happy with, Oh, well, let's just come in at the end and force the choice on her. Like to me, like there's always that spectrum of individual Liberty and being open and honest about.

The circumstances in which someone is exercising that quote unquote individual Liberty. Right? I just think that that is exactly like you said, like nature gives us a good example of how there's always a spectrum and that we always, that there's, this there's even a spectrum between this conversation about individual, Liberty and government intervention.

I just think that we start way too far in the spectrum. With individual Liberty, like we just start there as an assumption and you have to dig and kick and scream and fight to pull back at all from the idea that everybody's just an expert and should be left to their own devices, you know, and you should just be able to pay taxes and the government should leave you alone.

Cause clearly, you know what you're doing? And I'm like, I don't know, guys, I'm looking around me to seem like a lot of us know what we're doing. 

Beth Silvers: [00:40:10] We get a lot of questions about how, how we teach kids this and Matt and my new answer to those is always, I think the kids are okay. I think it's us that we've got to be working on right now.

And the more we work on ourselves, the better example that will be for the kids. But for the most part, I do trust the instincts of my children more than most adults right now, because my children are more rooted in values than most adults that I see walking around. You know, we had a long conversation in our house here this week about making noise while I am working.

And we talked about that in the content text of what our family values are. Let's name them, let's say again and again, that when I tell you that you need to eat your dinner, it's because of our value that our bodies are special and sacred and we take care of them. And so to me, The more we can drive adults to that conversation.

The better off we're going to be. I'm just not super worried about the children around political conversations or media consumption. Then something that I am noticing I want to speak to you for a second is how we are getting so many more requests. There's a real upswing in this right now of like, can you help me figure out how to respond to this thing?

That's going around on social media. And I ask people in our Instagram stories to tell me how they're deciding to pay attention to. And many, many of those answers, I would say there were a couple of different buckets of answers. So some people were just like, I'm overwhelmed. So I'm not paying attention to any of it right now.

I see you and honor you. I get that. This is an overwhelmed time. So feel your feelings. We'll see you back here when you can do it. There was a group that I would classify as like trusted sources. So they're letting other people curate for them. And that's a really good place to be too. We had a level, you have answers that were about individual effect or responsibility.

So I pay attention to what impacts me and my family or people I care about within a range of different groups. And I pay attention to places where I think I can have an impact. And I don't think there's anything wrong with that. But just want to share is that I don't think that gives us a very healthy or successful rubric to filter through social media.

There are too many forces at work on social media. And there will always be too many things circulating on social media to care about Sarah. And I could never make this podcast or sleep or eat if we responded thoughtfully to every single social media meme that is sent our way. And that's a good lesson for us, because that means that's what you're facing too.

So my perspective right now is that the best way to handle those memes that are really getting your relatives and friends and neighbors dub is to step back and ask, where do I think that's coming from? And what about it is connecting with this person? Because we just have to keep looking under the hood on this stuff.

People are acting out of fear and distrust. And where is that fear and distrust being bred and how can I, and my relationship with this person work toward greater security interest. And I think that's all we got right now. If I'm being honest. 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:43:35] Well, I thought in particular, there was a great New York times article.

We're going to put it in the show notes about a woman who got consumed with fact checking that long list of legislative achievements from the Trump administration that keeps going around as a meme. Um, I saw an Instagram or turn it into a pretty graphic where she said she was voting for the marginal sad.

I okay. Anyway. And I thought the best thing she said is like, I kind of fell down this rabbit hole of fact, checking them, but I realized like the problem is not that they're all lies. The problem is that they complete and totally lack context. Right? Like, there's just no question context. When you say I'm voting for Trump because he I'm voting for the marginalized and you pick one piece of sex trafficking legislation as if sex traffic to people are the only marginalized group affected by the president of the United States.

Right. There's just this lack of context. Always true of the stupid means. So what I told my father this week, I said, I don't want to talk about memes anymore. They lack information. They lack sources, they lack context. Like I don't want to do that. And I, you know, when I hear, when you say like, what are they trying to convey?

What are you hear when I'm hearing and why? I think that particular meme is so excited is there is an almost, do you be lent response when someone. Is given the opportunity to feel proud about voting for Donald Trump, because the narrative that you should feel ashamed because he is racist and he is sexist and he is a sex predator.

And I could keep going is strong. It is strong deservedly. So, and so when anything bubbles up, that's like, you know what? You should feel proud of yourself. It's the same reason that people do the save the children. They felt like they were on the side of racism. And they didn't like that. And they felt the shame.

And then somebody said, Oh, well, you're really fighting the real slavery right now because you're fighting sex trafficking. And so it's that you were telling me, I should feel ashamed and people react. Very strongly to that sensation. Anybody reads Brenner Brown, we know how, what shame can do to people.

And so the second they can join caravan or a flotilla or share a long list of Trump, legislative achievements and say, see, I'm a good person for voting for him. Oh, they going to do it. They going to do it and they're going to keep doing it. And they're going to praise each other and say, thank you for saying that because they don't want to feel ashamed about it anymore.

Beth Silvers: [00:45:53] I think that is so much more useful, understanding that emotion than trying to deal with all of the misleading, contradictory, just other worldly facts presented. Cause N people, this is not about the facts. It hasn't been for the last, last four years. I hate that. I love facts, but that's just not where anyone's been for the last four years.

And so. How do I decide what's important. I just try to think about how to be a citizen. And right now for me, this election is not about Donald Trump versus Joe Biden. The presidency really never is just about two guys, as much as we frame it up that way. But especially this year, I think it is about whether I want to continue to live in a democratic Republic or not.

So when people say to me, like, I don't really like one of them, I'm just trying to come back lovingly and saying, that's really not the question. And that's the conversation that I want to have, but I hope that we can leave you going into your weekend with maybe some pressure released. Don't try to fight this machine by yourself.

Don't try to speak to everyone of those posts and those memes. And when you decide to engage with your people, do it over something more real than a post that some Russian troll farm planted on Facebook that got shared 10,000 times and made its way into your feed. Talk about why this appeals to them instead of what it says.

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:47:28] I put this quote in our show notes. Cause I thought it would be a nice way to end it's from 'Crossing to Safety' by Wallace Stegner. It's one of my most favorite novels of all time. And I have this really cool service see! Mad credit to the internet that Read Wise, which will send me my Kindle highlights.

And this one pops up and I thought, Oh man, this is it. This is so true of the questions we're asking about our democracy and particularly the struggle and reflection many of us are going through with regards to social media. It says "the only questions remaining to be asked were those whose answers we already knew and did not want to hear."

Beth Silvers: [00:48:08] We hope that you all have the best weekend that you can, we'll be back with you next week. We're really excited about the conversation that we're going to have next week. We're going to talk on Tuesday about the gender gap widening because of COVID-19 followed up 

Sarah Stewart Holland: [00:48:21] with, are you excited about that conversation?

Beth Silvers: [00:48.24]I'm concerned and nervous and also I do think... look, it is the most important conversation unfolding in my head all the time right now so, there we go. And then on Friday we're going to hear from Anne Helen Petersen, which we cannot wait to share that conversation about her new book "Can't Even "with you, until then keep it nuanced ya'll.

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