Disconnection induced by social media???

Social media is supposed to connect people. But does it actually disconnect them? From a list of the top ten YouTube channels, I found I had watched ZERO of them.

Mr. Beast, 2021 top YouTube earner, gives away $1M to make a single video
from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00NgUctWoLQ

This creator earned $54 million on 10 billion views in 2021. I wonder if all his videos cost $1 million (don’t forget to add stadium rental fees) and whether he actually made a profit? The complete list is found in a BBC article here https://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-59987711 . the categories represented are:

• Stunts like the above, or comedy pranks (3)
• Toy unboxer or reviewer (2)
• Minecraft player (2)
• Game creator, some computer games also some stunts (1)
• Boxing (1)
• Geek chat show (1)

I have seen only two of the categories. My son watches Minecraft players. I don’t know which ones. I can’t stand them. Sometimes I run across unboxing videos when I am looking for substantive reviews or demonstrations, and they are pointless so I just skip over them. I mean, how hard is it to take something out of the box? I want to see it operate.

For the first 50 years of my life, from 1950 until 2000, it would have been impossible for me not to have seen any of the top ten TV series or movies. So, I had a strong shared culture with the people around me.

Now? I am living with strangers. And don’t send me your favorite videos because most likely they’ll make me feel even more distant. And I don’t care about people from whom I’m distant. Even before COVID I rarely dealt with a store clerk, only an occasional waitress or I might go dancing. COVID killed that. Our society has been disconnected, and I don’t believe it will plug back in after the pandemic. It feels like to me the habit of shared contact and culture has simply been discarded. People would rather live in Minecraft, or join some obnoxious political or religious group that no one else can stand. People have solitary jobs like driving delivery trucks or working from home on computers or controlling equipment in an automated warehouse.

But what is the point? What is the goal of it, without a connected society? Go live on a desert island and be served margaritas by a robot? Oh, no, just watch comedy videos of the island and have the margaritas pre-mixed and delivered to your door.

OK, then, you are just taking up space in the carbon footprint. Have your mind transferred into a computer so that those of us wanting to live outside one will actually have a world to live in.

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