Editor’s Column: A different kind of horror movie

I’ve never been a big fan of modern horror movies. Most of the characters are what we refer to in fiction writing as TSTL (Too Stupid To Live) and the villains are over-the-top evil with zero redemptive qualities. It’s hard to connect with protagonists who are too dumb to turn on the lights before entering a haunted house and antagonists who are simply evil for no good reason… they should at least have some kind of revenge for suffered abuse that motivates their actions, right?

This week I watched a different kind of horror movie.

Netflix is airing a documentary titled “The Social Dilemma.” It’s about social media, and the main “characters” are former CEOs and leaders from various social media networks like Facebook and Twitter and YouTube explaining all the ways social media has crossed the line and begun to systematically destroy humanity. Technology is not the threat, it’s technology’s ability to bring out the worst in society, one speaker says. And haven’t we all witnessed that, particularly in the last eight years or so?

I’ve writtten about this before, I know, and I know many of you have already escaped or never fell into the trap, but many, many others are still stuck in the pit.

Meanwhile, your tax dollars are being used to fund social media. We’ve given up on real interaction to hide behind screens where we can be rude and hateful and mean to each other (I’m guilty, too). We’ve decided social media is a legitimate source of news and factual information (it’s not).

“They don’t have a proxy for truth that’s better than a click,” said one documentary speaker. In other words, social media can’t discern the truth from a lie, it lives on clickbait.

What we thought back in the day was just a fun way to interact with old friends from high school has since radicalized, polarized and traumatized us with computer algorithms over which we have no control. AI — artificial intelligence — isn’t showing up as an Arnold Schwarzenegger style cyborg. It’s showing up as “likes” and “followers” and “users,” and it’s triggering mental health problems, social problems, political problems, and worse.

“But we need it for business!” we cry, in the way of addicts clinging to our drug of choice. Do we really, though? We survived just fine for a long, long time without it.

You may have noticed less postings from us on social media in the past month or so. Even before this documentary came out, the use of social media to promote our content has been a hot topic in our office for a variety or reasons, and we ultimately chose to dial back on our engagement through those platforms. We’ll continue to promote breaking news and other time-sensitive topics that may not work for the weekly edition (and Nellie pics, of course), but the rest of your community news will continue to be available, as it has for the past 136 years, right here in print, as well as online (we’re working on an app, too.) It’s a small action we can take to look out for for the mental and emotional health of our readers, as well as draw a clear line between the propaganda and clickbait you’ll find on social media and the community journalism we work hard to publish each week.

I don’t like being controlled and manipulated. Not by gaslighting narcissists nor by secret software algorithms. Maybe it’s time we all arise and hit the “delete” key.