I've never understood comments on Youtube videos.
Not that commenting on videos is a bad thing, I just don't understand the signal from brain to fingers that results in "12:44 comparing breaking bad to wow wow wubbzy is CRAZY" because I do not feel the need to share my reaction to that information. Alternatively, you can go on Twitter right now and find a popular post that you won't find any real interaction with, you'll just find 100 checkmark accounts that all are bots saying some variation of "this is so cool I already touched myself to this post" or some real guy asking grok to explain everything for him because he's unable to form any critical thought by himself, so your response will be BURIED under all those replies that don't do anything and don't give you anything and so EVEN IF you were to reply no one would ever see it because you don't have that stupid blue check so there's no reason to respond to anything.
This is a recording I took of just a typical reply thread on Twitter. It's stupid, it's nothing, and it's dead.
...the internet has made me very cynical.
Thus, I don't really interact with the internet as anything more than a viewer, that's all. I don't really post, I don't comment, I don't do much of my own thing. However, what everyone who knows me will tell you is that I share SO much of what I see with everyone in my circle. Stupid posts that don't mean anything they just made me laugh, something that made me irrationally annoyed, cool edits of things I like, songs I think the person would like, articles to my dad about why our president is failing, everything like that. I don't interact with anything directly, I'm a lurker, an observer, someone who will distribute, but not contribute. All of my internet interaction skills come from using my better judgement (wink wink nudge nudge) on if a source is reliable and trustworthy. There's a great deal of importance in just understanding where something on the internet came from and if it has any credit to it, and I like to think I've been put through the ringer enough times to make that call. Especially now in the age of information, there's so much misinformation being spread. AI runs rampant, dead internet theory is probably true (see Twitter post above) and lying is legal, free, and gets a lot of clicks.
Maybe being cynical and distrusting on the internet is a good thing for now, because it keeps you safe. However, it's kinda like the second half of that Animaniacs quote, "Early to rise and early to bed makes a man healthy but socially dead." However however...what do I know, I'm just some guy that you can choose to listen to or not. There's a good number of ways to discern whether or not a source is trustworthy, but when it comes to social media, it's in your hands what you want to look at and what you don't. Sometimes you see a video called "Can a shotgun shell EXPLODE 100 gallons of MILK????" and you can't help yourself you do want to know if a shotgun shell can EXPLODE 100 gallons of MILK and so you click on it. Then in the recommended videos there's another video of a guy who is gonna see how far a sniper bullet can shoot through ice and well you've just GOTTA click on that one. Oh, cool, there's a video explaining how guns work? Might as well. And so you keep clicking, and clicking, and clicking, and soon enough you're so far down an alt-right pipeline that you're clicking add to cart on a "Don't tread on me" flag that's gonna be in the background of your 8:00 AM Zoom math class.
Internet safety is doing...not that. It's having the self-control to stop yourself from clicking on something you don't actually want to see, stopping yourself from doom scrolling for hours upon hours. You don't have to waste your time.
Although, the pipeline of clicking does bring up a good point. Negotiation, the process of travelling across diverse communities, discerning and respecting multiple perspectives, and grasping and following alternative norms (wink wink nudge nudge) is another great skill to have when surfing the world wide web. The internet is great for giving you millions of perspectives on everything, you can have, as Bo Burnham once said, a little bit of everything all of the time. Gathering the full picture and the whole idea is why Youtube comment sections exist, it's why there are entire classes on how to research effectively on the internet, it's why bots will touch themselves to every popular post on Twitter because so many people are looking at that comment. Sometimes you want to see what people have to say about the new live-action adaptation Disney just announced. Only when you start to explore those diverse perspectives can you build a strong viewpoint on a topic. And that's when you can bring your own perspective into your classroom.
That's right, all along this was a big introduction to me as the prospective English teacher. Aren't I smooth?
All of the above text can also be applied as a teacher. I think it's incredibly important to teach students how to find a credible source and how to get as many perspectives as possible on a topic, and it's even more important to teach them internet safety. There's value to be found in a little bit of everything all the time, they can learn as much as they want about something and get help from an online source when I didn't explain something as well as I should have. Plus, texting has made communication across the world super simple. However, that cynicism I have is not unfounded, because there are so many different ways today's youth can be exposed to danger on the internet. Those are very dark sides of the internet that are becoming easier for children to not only access but be lured into. Some even say children are growing up too fast being shown everything on the internet whenever they want. There are forums upon forums for kids to stumble onto and the dominos start falling for them to ruin their lives.
A wise man once said, "The love of my life is a lady named Ramblin' On" and I think I'd agree with him, which is a long winded and annoying way for me to say it's time to wrap this up. I'm very nervous for future generations and how they explore the internet, maybe stricter guidelines will be put in place and I won't have to worry, or maybe they won't and the chaos will sort itself out, who knows. I just know the internet is massive, everyone needs to look out for each other, and Youtube comments make no sense to me.
Ooooo yes, credible sources. This is a discussion I have with my partner all the time. He will come to me with a wild claim about something-or-other that he heard on YouTube and I'll have to walk it back by showing him why the source is incredibly incorrect. He has since been much more critical about what he hears during his YouTube marathons.
ReplyDeleteThis comes back to exposure to media during early education and the access to education. We are from different backgrounds and have had very different educational paths. While I was afforded the opportunity to pursue my education completely without any other obligations (until high school when I got a job), his obligation was to his family and their farm which provided them with both income and food for their large family. I am still interacting with academia, while he left that world at the age of 12. Navigating technology and the vastness of the Internet is something he had to learn on his own.
I now explicitly teach this in my Intro to CS classes. These are a few of my favorite sites to use when analyzing information sources:
https://dhmo.org/
https://www.petsorfood.com/
There are literally so many things I could talk about that relate to your views, but I was immediately drawn to your thoughts on commenting. I completely agree that commenting on a video or post that you see on social media is entirely useless. Personally, I occasionally hype my friends up when they post pictures, but other than that, I am also an observer in many ways. Although, I will admit that I post every now and then after doing fun things, but only so my friends kind of know what I've been up to.
ReplyDeleteBesides that, I don't get how people like posting for the world to see, and I think posting for likes/comments is absolutely ridiculous. At the same time, it's sad to see that most people crave likes and comments. It's like an endless cycle of wanting attention from strangers that honestly don't even care about you.
But enough of my rant...although, again, I think commenting is useless with not leading to genuine interactions, and being shallow, I do have a Youtube video that has some of my most favorite comments from people, especially since it's all Harry Potter related. And with this video, I honestly only appreciate the comments for my own amusement, and have never really listened to the artist.
https://youtu.be/c4BLVznuWnU?si=8O6Sofa1jeqjRKLS
This was such an entertaining read! Your cynicism feels earned, not edgy-for-the-sake-of-it, and the way you lean into humor actually strengthens your argument. The opening rant about YouTube and Twitter comment sections immediately hooked me, but what really stood out was how you reframed “lurking” as a form of participation. Sharing, curating, and distributing content within your own circle fits into participatory culture, even if you’re not leaving public comments that get buried under bots and blue checks.
ReplyDeleteI also really appreciated how smoothly you transitioned into your future-teacher perspective. Your discussion of pipelines, misinformation, and self-control connects perfectly to digital literacy and internet safety, especially the idea that negotiation and exposure to multiple perspectives are skills that have to be taught, not assumed. -Tyler Dickson
Hi Jack, this post got me thinking! I post on instagram and will comment on my closest friend's pictures, but never on general posts in social media. I always look through comment sections just to see what people say and sometimes I will see arguments between people that will start to get me mad. The worst to me is a Facebook comment section, now that will rile me up.
ReplyDeleteI liked your idea about people being "cynical and distrusting" of the internet. This is something I make sure to focus on when I'm seeing information through the media and socials. I mean even our own government officials can post untrustworthy information that we have to look into our selves so we can form our own opinions and judgements. I also liked the idea of internet safety of knowing when to click off and just stop. Sometimes clicking onto things and going down the rabbit hole can just bring you somewhere you don't have to be. So it's important to be safe online and to know when to give our minds a break.
But like you explained, exploring the internet gives us different perspectives and find out about new ideas and concepts. I think as educators it's important for us to help students understand the importance of balance and safe ways to use the internet. So that when they do this in the classroom they will apply this to their own lives outside of the classroom.
Hey Jack! I'd like to begin by saying what a brilliant blog post! You touched on a number of topics as it relates to the internet (comment sections, credible sources, monotonous nonsense, etc.) that directly correlate to my own cynicism and "glass half empty" mentality when it comes to education and digital media. However, what I wanted to touch on most was how your illustration of your own cynicism while also promoting the good changed some of my own personal view of the two's correlation with each other.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that there is a true value in viewing multiple perspectives and that the internet is a gold mine of all these perspectives that can be found immediately (thank you Bo Burnham for the analogy). Your post, while clearly outlining the pitfalls of the internet and how it can be used in the classroom, shows that there is a hope with proper online conduct and safety to attain what we desire from the internet. It is a cache of value but also a bomb, but in the way that you illustrated your point, I feel hopeful that there is a good way to cut the correct wires and glean what we can from all the good there still is.