Facebook revelations: Social media has empowered our voices but impoverished our hearing
Dog photos, updates from friends, wild misinformation about vaccine safety: One of these things is not like the other.
If past patterns hold, the public relations and political storms lashing Facebook will soon blow over, and Mark Zuckerberg and company will return their attention to reaping more profit from their social media leviathan.
But before the spotlight veers off toward one of our other crises, we ought to use this moment to get to the bottom of what's gone wrong. How has social media – billed as a force to democratize communications and connect more people – turned into something that does more harm than good?
The answer, it’s clearer than ever, is that while social media has empowered our speaking, it has impoverished our hearing. Unless we get better at the latter, and the platforms make that possible, they will keep on fueling the dysfunction of our time.