From the first moment I first went online in 1996, forums were the main place to hang out. In fact the very first thing I did was join an online forum run by the Greek magazine "PC Master" so I could directly to my favourite game reviewers (for me it was Tsourinakis, for those old [...]

A bit of an effortpost :)

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  • GamingChairModel@lemmy.world
    0·
    2 months ago

    With social media came the timeline you could mindlessly scroll through or click on suggestions.

    I mean before broadband Internet you could sit around and passively consume cable television or radio pretty easily. There’s always been a role for people to act as curators and recommendation engines, from the shelf of staff picks at a library/bookstore/video rental store to the published columns reviewing movies and books, to the radio DJ choosing what songs to play, to the editors and producers and executives who decide what gets made and distributed.

    I don’t buy that social media was a big change to how actively we consume art, music, writing, etc. If anything, the change was to the publishing side, that it takes far less work to actually get something out there that can be seen. But the consumption side is the same.

    • lugal@lemmy.ml
      0·
      2 months ago

      I think you misunderstand my position. I’m not a cultural pessimist saying social media made us all into mindless zombies. You can use social media very actively by putting much thought into your posts and conversations and researching them thoroughly. And there is alot of stuff you can mindlessly consume at home long before the internet.

      What I’m saying is that Bullshit Jobs created a whole new demographic with time on their hand to idly use online (since they work on computers) but not enough to be productive. As I wrote in another comment, in the time between meetings when a mail might come in or your boss might bump into you, a social media timeline is the way to go. You don’t have a TV in office but access to the internet.

      • GamingChairModel@lemmy.world
        0·
        2 months ago

        Bullshit Jobs

        No, the actual definition that Graeber uses for bullshit jobs is not relevant for this discussion. Corporate Lawyers are his classic example, but those are jobs that don’t have a ton of idle time. Other jobs, like night security guard or condo doorman, are by no means recent inventions, and exactly the type of people who used to pass the time with radio and magazines.

        If you’re saying that there’s a rise in idle time for people, I’m not sure it comes from our jobs.