It’s rare I’ll post a long-ish video, but I thought this one was great. I love Nguyen’s enthusiasm for his topic.
Attention conservation notice: Persuasive argument for why Twitter and FB suck so much (ties together echo chambers, moral outrage porn, and gamification).
“Social media has turned conversation into a game, where we compete for points in the form of likes, retweets, and follower counts. This tempts us to trade away the subtle goods of discourse—like connection, understanding, and wisdom—in return for the thrills of success in vividly quantified terms.”
I recommend watching the whole thing, but here’s a little bit of his discursion on porn.
What do we mean when we talk about food porn, or real estate porn, or organization porn? We’re talking about something that gives us “immediate gratification freed from the costs and consequences of actual engagement.”
“Moral outrage porn is using a representation of moral outrage for immediate gratification freed from the costs and consequences of actual moral engagement.”
“This is not a criticism of moral outrage:
“Genuine moral outrage involves the orientation towards morally good action.
“Moral outrage porn involves using one’s moral outrage for the sake of immediate gratification, while avoiding the demands of genuinely good action.”
Find out more about C. Thi Nguyen at his website.
UPDATE: Here’s what looks to be a written draft of the above talk: How Twitter Gamifies Communication.
(hat tip to Eugene Fischer for pointing to this video in his blog)
(100 Days of Blogging: Post 078 of 100)