alt Hacker NewsAnd on the grasping hand, one could think they were right - so instead of defending social media by pointing at the past and saying it's "just the same doom and gloom reaction to more communication, it will pass", or - conversely - instead of claiming social media is a new and uniquely bad thing, we could perhaps consider that their observations were valid then, and are even more valid now; that we've been going down the wrong road for the past 100+ years, and social media is merely an incremental worsening of a mistake made so long ago, we can't even conceptualize correcting it now.
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But it wasn't continuously bad, or at least that's the impression I get. Yellow journalism reached it's heyday in the 1890's but started turning things around towards respectability in the 1900's.
But at some point if you’re saying hundreds of years of human history are “the wrong road”, isn’t it like saying gravity is the wrong road? Even if true, what does it matter? I don’t believe prescriptive changes to human nature have ever worked.
The mistake, IMO is thinking there are any options that are not ‘mistakes’ in one or more ways.
But how exactly would you define the "mistake made so long ago"?
Is it the free circulation of newspapers?
Would you prefer to ban journalism or restrict the exchange of information, and what would that imply for the internet?
If you ask me, it seems like the incentive "money" might be a problem. Maybe commercial journalism and social media are the main issue? Which is closely related to the concept of media as entertainment.
Not a new idea either, and a boring reply without a real answer, I know.
Allowing only state-sponsored journalism would not be any better, right?
Public broadcasting (as independent from the government as possible) is nice, but doesn't solve the issues discussed here.
It seems like a reasonable and common view that being dependent on other's money hurts freedom of thought and expression, which is a basic requirement for free press.
So commercial media always was the default, but being dependent on commercial success and the favor of the public always hurt the mission we ascribe to a free press.
Same goes for the requirement to entertain the readership – it cannot be disregarded, no matter how sophisticated the media we consume might be, it needs to capture our attention in some way. This differntiates writing from data.
So my long answer kind of confirms your observation that "we can't even conceptualize correcting it now". I'm not sure if it's impossible though.
I'd be curious what your own ideas are about how to "fix the mistake". It seems like a political question for sure though.