How social media threatens humanity

Recode Daily

Recode

Society & Culture, Science, Technology

4.6 • 1.3K Ratings

🗓️ 21 December 2021

⏱️ 15 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Social media has, in an incredibly short period of time, drastically restructured the way we communicate. But there's a problem: We know very little about its dangers. A new paper in the scientific journal PNAS argues that if left misunderstood and unchecked, we could see unintended consequences of new technology. Recode's Shirin Ghaffary spoke with Mirta Galesic and Jay Van Bavel, two co-authors of the paper, to learn more. References: Read Shirin’s original interview here. Want to read the paper? You can find it here. Mirta Galesic, professor of human social dynamics at the Santa Fe Institute. Jay Van Bavel, associate professor of psychology and neural science at NYU. (@jayvanbavel) This episode was made by: Host: Shirin Ghaffary (@shiringhaffary) Producer: Sofi LaLonde (@sofilalonde) Engineer: Paul Mounsey Support Recode Daily by making a financial contribution to Vox! bit.ly/givepodcasts Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Think about cheese.
0:02.0	Make your thoughts cheesier.
0:04.2	Now add 100% chicken breast fillet, Chipotle sauce and Ameta cheese melt.
0:08.3	And it's giving the new cheesy chicken stack at McDonald's.
0:12.0	Did we mention it's cheesy?
0:13.9	Cheese.
0:15.8	Availments at the 4th of Jan, 2026 from 11 a.m.
0:18.1	Plus and participation may vary.
0:19.2	Subjects availability.
0:20.6	Hey, it's Adam. Just a quick reminder that we're on break for the next 11 a.m. Plus, and participation may vary. Subjects availability. Hey, it's Adam.
0:21.7	Just a quick reminder that we're on break for the next couple weeks.
0:25.1	And Rico Daily will be back with new episodes in the new year.
0:28.7	In the meantime, here's one of our favorites from this year.
0:32.2	Thanks.
0:34.4	The academic concept of collective behavior is used in fields like sociology to understand
0:40.3	how large groups of humans or animals interact without any clear leader.
0:44.3	Sometimes these interactions can be harmless, like a crowd doing a wave at a soccer game,
0:49.3	or incredibly harmful, like the stock market crashing.
0:53.3	Collective behavior can also help us understand how we as a society are reforming because
0:58.4	of new technologies.
1:00.2	A new research paper published in a prestigious science journal argues that the way we use social
1:05.1	media every day is having unprecedented effects which can be dire on our society as a whole.
	...

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