I don’t think anyone on the internet has ever been in the same conversation. They post to the same comment threads. They all get put into the same news feeds. They like the same photos.
But they’ve never actually talked where they had the same conversation. The same framework. The same intentionality.
Take something innocuous like a video game review. Some are end up commenting on the final review score. Some talk about the graphics. Some talk about the reviewer’s take on the graphics. Some talk about the reviewer. Some talk about the other people making comments.
Now apply that same phenomenon to every other digital conversation from your aunt posting an old photo to something say, evolution or violence in the Middle East or systemic racism within a society.
There is no (effective) moderation nor (effective) reconciliation.
Which means that we almost never get to “meaning.” We get mindless echoes, and simple establishment that turns out people have opinions.
Taking nothing away from all the technology and discoveries that have led to our current state, but the next layer of technology is upon us.
A layer that goes beyond hiding or deleting posts. It’s a layer that can sort, categorize, and ideally synthesize feedback. A layer that proportionately weigh the opinion of the collective versus the opinion of the vocal minority. A layer that can detect priority issues versus topics of general apathy.
Simply opening books at a library does not write a paper, it’s the reading, the highlighting, the connecting, the notes-gathering, the interpretation that composes content that has value. It’s also all of those tasks that are “hard part.” Being able to Google something is spectacular but also barely the first step in the digitization of this process.
