Web Miscellany: Compilation #107

Hello friends!

Happy Friday! I hope the week has been good to you. If you haven’t had the chance, I invite you to check out my latest post on The Heart of The Matter.

I’ll be attending a board game day on Saturday, and then my book club meeting on Sunday. We’ll be discussing Yaa Gyasi’s Homegoing and finalizing our book choices for 2023. There are some great options, so I can’t to see what we choose!

Hope your week to come is a good one!

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Food for thought

“The more credible threat posed by dramageddon is much simpler than civil war: it is, to put it frankly, turning our brains to shit. By presenting us with a pantomime of reality performed by trolls and narcissists, and by convincing us that this pantomime is based on a true story, social media is afflicting us with a chronic paranoia that dements logic, destroys goodwill, and obstructs dialogue.”

Gurwinder

I don’t use social media. Wait, does WordPress count? Anyways. I don’t use social media, I don’t watch television, I don’t read newly-released books, and I don’t follow the news. I generally find myself looking inward, rather than outward, for my entertainment. I’m far more interested in creating than consuming. And, as I become further and further removed from my past (already minimal) media consumption habits, the crazier the constant-consumers look.

Per the article, a 2021 Pew survey of 10,000 US social media users found that only 9% of people shared or posted political content online. Furthermore, research suggests narcissists are more likely to be political activists. On top of that research suggests that people with narcissistic traits are more likely to use social media, and more likely to have social media clout. So, it appears that a small and vocal group of needy narcissists drive the majority of toxicity online.

But there’s more. A 2021 study analyzed 2.7 million tweets and Facebook posts, and found that social media posts that attack the opposing political group receive twice as many shares as posts that champion one’s own group. The high engagement that online belligerence receives has a double effect: it means that toxic posts are more widely circulated, but it also means that people who attack others online are rewarded.

Social media both attracts and amplifies dramatic, narcissistic people, making them seem far more representative of humanity than they really are. Then, the consequence of believing that people are extremer than they are is that it makes you extreme. In a longitudinal study incorporating over 16 million comments on CNN.com, researchers found that people who saw antisocial posts from others became embittered and were then more likely to act antisocially themselves.

The solution? The author proposes careful curation. Utilize Twitter, but don’t hesitate to block and mute those peddling lies and amplifying fear. That may work. For me, abstaining all together has been the right call. I’ve bookmarked a few Twitter accounts that I check it on occasion, but it seems the social media has become a swampy whirlpool that is sending everyone into downward spiral of pessimism, hatred and, as the author so eloquently puts it, “turning our brains to shit.”

Something actionable

“When you go out into the woods and you look at trees, you see all these different trees. And some of them are bent, and some of them are straight, and some of them are evergreens, and some of them are whatever. And you look at the tree and you allow it. You see why it is the way it is. You sort of understand that it didn’t get enough light, and so it turned that way. And you don’t get all emotional about it. You just allow it. You appreciate the tree. The minute you get near humans, you lose all that. And you are constantly saying, ‘You’re too this, or I’m too this.’ That judging mind comes in. And so I practice turning people into trees. Which means appreciating them just the way they are.”

Ram Dass

We have a tendency to judge other people, while we allow nature to be her wild and imperfect self. The next time you find yourself criticizing another, try to view the person as a tree–uniquely shaped by environment and experiences, and doing their best to thrive where they have been planted.

Just for fun

In the fourth grade, we had an assignment to use CAD software to design a bridge withing a particular budget that could sustain a certain weight threshold. I became so obsessed with bridges that I spent my recesses in the computer lab and was given a copy of the software to take home. I must have logged thousands of hours constructing and testing bridges. Someone should have advised me to study structural engineering.

The obsession lives on, and I recently found the below Twitter thread on some extraordinary bridges and their history. If you, too, have a strange fascination with impossible structures, check it out!

Bridges represent some of the greatest achievements of human engineering and architecture. Here are 12 of the most extraordinary:

1. Millau Viaduct, France (2004) – the world's tallest bridge. pic.twitter.com/1uuF4Wgz3F

— The Cultural Tutor (@culturaltutor) January 8, 2023

Meme of the week

Chew on this: You’re much more lucrative for the pharmaceutical industry if you’re fat. Therefore, “big is beautiful.”

You can’t be healthy at any size, but you can get healthy from any size. Every decision matters. If you’ve set a New Years resolution to eat better, exercise, or get more sleep, focus on the future reward rather than the current sacrifice. Your future self will thank you.