2
" I’ve certainly scolded myself for an hour or more blown on a flow of dog videos, family updates, shallow political expressions, and pleas for funds. Every one of those items has some value to me, just as each potato chip delivers some pleasure, some flavor. I savor them. But I lose count. And upon reflection I feel just horrible. But the thing is, snack foods are explicitly designed to make us behave this way. Food producers have studied, mastered, and tinkered with the ratios of salt, sugar, and fat to keep us coming back, even when the taste of much of the food is unremarkable. Facebook is designed to be habit-forming in just the same way. "
― Siva Vaidhyanathan , Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy
5
" Neil Postman reminded us that the advent of the telegraph, with its radically truncated economy of prose, created a whole new language—that of headlines: “sensational, fragmented, impersonal.” Postman blamed the telegraph for introducing us to this choppy, discontinuous method of learning that things happen, often far away, with no clear way of making sense of them or weighing their relative importance to our lives or future. “To the telegraph, intelligence meant knowing of lots of things, not knowing about them. "
― Siva Vaidhyanathan , Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy
10
" By timbre, temperament, and sheer force of personality, Donald Trump is the ideal manifestation of Facebook culture. Trump himself uses Twitter habitually both as a bully pulpit and as an antenna for reaction to his expressions. Twitter has a limited reach among the American public, and his off-the-cuff, unpracticed, and untested expressions could do him more harm than good. But Facebook, with its deep penetration into American minds and lives, is Trump’s natural habitat. On Facebook his staff makes sure Trump expresses himself in short, strong bursts of indignation or approval. Trump has always been visually deft but close to illiterate. His attention span runs as quickly and frenetically as a Facebook News Feed. After a decade of deep and constant engagement with Facebook, Americans have been conditioned to experience the world Trump style. It’s almost as if Trump were designed for Facebook and Facebook were designed for him.
Facebook helped make America ready for Trump. "
― Siva Vaidhyanathan , Antisocial Media: How Facebook Disconnects Us and Undermines Democracy