Certainly by some definition of the word you can call these things communities just because that's how language works. Using "community" in this way is so pervasive I laughingly recall a tech bro watch company calling the people that buy their watches a "community".

But from the meaning of the word before the rise of social media, social media platforms and the loosely structured groups underneath that you "form" by "joining" (AKA sometimes just looking at a video or web page or something) them definitely don't resemble nor replace a community.

EDIT:

TL;DR: Being subscribed to "Lemmy Shitpost" (or just not blocking it, as is my case) isn't exactly like joining the local chapter of the Loyal Order of Moose.

[–] The_Picard_Maneuver 6 points 5 months ago (1 children)

...I guess you aren't going to want any of these welcome cookies that we baked for you then. =(

[–] aesthelete 2 points 5 months ago

😆

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

One of us

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That's a fair take I think.

Would you say smaller forums where people largely know each other are communities then? IRC? Discord?

Because I struggle to think what else could or has ever fit such a strict definition.

[–] aesthelete -1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Would you say smaller forums where people largely know each other are communities then? IRC? Discord?

Probably not, but they're at least closer. Real communities provide you care, support, relief from loneliness, a sense of purpose, etc. etc. etc.

It's possible for some (lucky souls) to find tiny nuggets of these benefits in even the worst online "communities" (I think partially because we're hard wired as humans to need these things), but by and large it's does not exactly scratch the same itches that your grandma's sewing circle or bridge club used to.

Because I struggle to think what else could or has ever fit such a strict definition.

It's difficult to reason about because if you're anywhere close to my age group (old ass millenial) online "communities" appeared and replaced existing physical communities across the country (I'm speaking in US terms). We're now basically as lonely as we've ever been as a country, and I think it's at least partially related to us going inside and screen timing it up for a number of decades on these platforms where "the community" is a bunch of strangers angrily typing messages to you through the Internet.

I find it no small coincidence that loneliness in America skyrocketed even as people became more active on social media. It points at the exact lack of benefit you get out of these "communities" that you used to get out of the old type.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This seems like a rose-tinted glasses view of the past. Sure there were communities for rich white cishet men where they organized around mutual shared values of racism, misogyny, football and queerphobia but for the rest of us it was being shunned and gathering with the few other local shunned people in nasty dungeons.

Thankfully the internet came and solved all that. Now queer people have dating apps which work pretty flawlessly for us, and the space online is endless for us to gather and be ourselves with each other, freely, across all borders.

communities provide you care, support, relief from loneliness, a sense of purpose, etc. etc. etc.

but by and large it's does not exactly scratch the same itches that your grandma's sewing circle or bridge club used to.

I'm sorry you're struggling with loneliness, personally I'm definitely not and I can't say I know anyone who is.

Socializing online is great and the communities there are much more true and real than some IRL circle of Karens and their Christian bleach enema method and their TERF enclaves.

It's also a much more efficient method of meeting people you actually get on with as well, rather than the endless NPCs on Tinder and IRL who only want to consume alcohol, travel and go to the gym. It's crazy that I could be with someone who appreciates all the same things I do, my gf and I are def soulmates.

I find it no small coincidence that loneliness in America skyrocketed

Sounds like we're just measuring mental health awareness, plus the rise in boomers using the web and often exposing people to their alienating rhetoric.

You get the point, you said what I knew you were gonna say because I have a radically different experience.

[–] aesthelete -1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I’m sorry you’re struggling with loneliness, personally I’m definitely not and I can’t say I know anyone who is.

It has nothing to do with me personally. I'm a bit of a hermit myself. I'd say my social needs started to not be met around 2022 (after approximately 2 years of near total isolation due to COVID) but now I'm completely back up to baseline again.

It has to do with the country: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bowling_Alone.

The data also doesn't tell the story you're telling anecdotally here: https://www.wgbh.org/news/local/2024-06-26/loneliness-most-prevalent-for-bisexual-transgender-adults-in-america-cdc-research-says

Yes, it's possible for people in marginalized communities to reach each other digitally using the Internet; it's also possible for them to encounter more hatred and bigotry online than they used to in real life (albeit with hopefully less dire consequences).

Sounds like we’re just measuring mental health awareness, plus the rise in boomers using the web and often exposing people to their alienating rhetoric.

I don't think I'm "just measuring" anything. If you want to plug your ears and pretend that I'm not talking about real problems, that's all fine and dandy. Go ahead about your day and enjoy your dating apps, but social media isn't all roses.

There is research indicating that, for one thing, these platforms cause real harm to girls in adolescence specifically: https://www.noemamag.com/social-media-messed-up-our-kids-now-it-is-making-us-ungovernable/

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

I'm a bit of a hermit myself.

That seems like the problem and what's creating the perception making you agree with this.

I took a brief glance at the summary page on Wikipedia for the self-help book:

religious groups (Knights of Columbus, B'nai Brith, etc.), labor unions, parent–teacher associations, Federation of Women's Clubs, League of Women Voters, military veterans' organizations, volunteers with Boy Scouts and the Red Cross, and fraternal organizations (Lions Clubs, Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks, United States Junior Chamber, Freemasonry, Rotary, Kiwanis, etc.

Honestly wouldn't miss these if I knew what any of them are. They sound like weird cults.

Everett Carll Ladd claimed that Putnam completely ignored existing field studies, most notably the landmark sociological Middletown studies,[8] which during the 1920s raised the same concerns he does today, except the technology being attacked as promoting isolation was radio instead of television and video games

Sounds like he was reasoning backwards.

Other critics questioned Putnam's major finding—that civic participation has been declining. Journalist Nicholas Lemann proposed that rather than declining, civic activity in the US had assumed different forms. While bowling leagues and many other organizations had declined, others like youth soccer leagues had grown.[10]

And was wrong.

In their 2017 book One Nation After Trump, Thomas E. Mann, Norm Ornstein and E. J. Dionne wrote that the decline of social and civic groups that Putnam documented was a factor in the election of Donald Trump as "many rallied to him out of a yearning for forms of community and solidarity that they sense have been lost."

So like I said they yearn for the ethnostate. Solidarity should be based on class through an explicitly Marxist or anarchist lens, not solidarity in how much they love bashing the fairies.

“People who feel on the margins, who don’t always feel included socially, for whatever reason, that those people are more likely to have higher levels of loneliness,”

So it isn't social media or erosion of civic institutions or any of that made up nonsense, it's just the fact that so many people are still bigoted as hell. That figures. I would suggest them the internet because unlike IRL they have block buttons, adblockers etc to cultivate their own better world.

it's also possible for them to encounter more hatred and bigotry online than they used to in real life (albeit with hopefully less dire consequences).

Just block the bigots? Change platforms? It's ez. This is why headphones always in when I'm outside, best block out the riff-raff wondering the streets on my daily walk. I love technology!

I don't think I'm "just measuring" anything. If you want to plug your ears and pretend that I'm not talking about real problems, that's all fine and dandy. Go ahead about your day and enjoy your dating apps, but social media isn't all roses.

You measure more COVID you get more COVID. Then you go "Oh no! It's on the rise!" and the cycle repeats.

Social media is shit because of corporate control. The early internet free from it was really good.

https://www.noemamag.com/social-media-messed-up-our-kids-now-it-is-making-us-ungovernable/

This just references the book and makes a bunch of extrapolations. Being ungovernable sounds really cool actually. Also something about the "kids born after 1995" and "coddling" and "colleges making kids distorted" set off my dogwhistle alarms off so I went to look this "magazine" up and would you know it: it's run by a think tank funded by a NY slumlord billionaire: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berggruen_Institute

Honestly I expected worse but I wouldn't really take them at their word for opining on how girls these days only know Xanax, twerking, be bisexual and hot chip before examining real material factors for why everyone is so stressed (hint: it's housing and everything being fucking expensive and an exploitative scam and has fuck all to do with technology).

[–] aesthelete -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

That seems like the problem and what’s creating the perception making you agree with this.

No, you just personalize everything.

Again, I'm not making up the statistics. I'm not writing the books or doing the analysis. People who spend their whole career doing this stuff are doing it, and you find it easy to dismiss all of it because you agree with the "criticisms" section of a wikipedia page, have a confirmation bias, and you like the little tech bubble you live in...so it must not be a problem overall if it doesn't affect you personally.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah you're not writing the books, you got billionaire think-tanks doing it for you, and so far your statistics don't actually prove the point you're trying to make.

We never measured loneliness in the past 100 yrs in trans and bisexual communities, so we have nothing to compare to, and your single study knows not to make claims about "these days" that you are making here, for all we know it's exactly like i said - its been worse and now its better, even if it's still bad.

Likewise general loneliness studies take into account the increased awareness and openness around mental health and pin it as one of the potential causes as well as the declining purchasing power (a requirement to socialize) and lack of funding for local governments to prop up infrastructure for public spaces as well as a lack of public transport and suburbanization all long before they even touch social media, which is only ever mentioned by MSMs as a scare tactic to clickbait readers, and there's still the fact that a 100 years ago the exact same arguments about loneliness were being made and likewise blamed on progress and technology like the printing press by reactionaries and yes, there was a moral panic about books getting everyone to stop socializing and only read instead.

So it's actually you who personalizes everything, and instead of defending your arguments with logic you Appeal to (somewhat doubtful) authority which doesn't even back up your point, you draw your own conclusions and project them onto the data - a classic misuse of statistics

have a confirmation bias

Yes I do, but so do you, and so far you've yet to present anything actually remotely convincing. I don't have a stake in this personally, I don't use social media and idc about it, it was a mistake to have it, I just like the internet because I can buy drugs with crypto without the fuzz and glowie opportunists itching for kids to beat up

and you like the little tech bubble you live in

Do pray tell what is this "tech bubble"? Are you going to resort to calling me a techbro now just because I know things you don't? You do know where you are right?

Also "bubbles" aren't real, that whole craze about how we were all in echo chambers on the internet was completely manufactured and thoroughly debunked - it's actually the opposite

At this point though if you fall prey to algos that's on you imo. Just don't use algorithmic platforms with a profit incentive ez pz we have foss fediverse clients and instances for a reason. Same as complaining about streaming costs, just pirate that shit.

I left Tumblr because I couldn't patch out the ads with Vanced and I don't tolerate advertising in any way shape or form, thankfully on the internet it can be disabled with Sponsorblock, DeArrow, privacy badger, unlock etc., unlike IRL where the psychic damage is unstoppable.

so it must not be a problem overall if it doesn't affect you personally.

Plenty of things don't affect me personally, the genocide in Gaza, homelessness (though I was close to it), lack of entry level jobs for graduates, COVID, layoffs, medical bills etc. but I believe they are all problems, the mismanagement and exploitation of society by the capitalist class and imperial ambitions make my blood boil.

I strive to cultivate that hate, to anhiliate the state as my civic duty, but I just like to maintain some basic intellectual honesty while I do so, and not fallback to noble savage and greenwashing fallacies of the anprim ecofash reactionary crowd who just are vaguely upset by aesthetics of modernity.

[–] aesthelete -1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I ain't reading all that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Then remain ignorant? Your call bud, can't educate you if you don't want to learn.

[–] aesthelete 0 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Yeah I'll remain ignorant because I didn't read some poorly composed wall of text written by some random stranger on the Internet.

You know what? You're right after all. This is a great community. I can feel the sense of belonging already. 😆