Autor: Caio

Hoje é dia 2 de setembro de 2024. Eu sou o Caio e te pergunto: o que tem pra hoje?

Bem, por aqui, o que tem pra hoje é que estou começando um projeto novo e você pode acessar aqui. Espero que curta!

😉

Note: This is the english version of a previous post written in portuguese

There has been much discussion about Jonathan Haidt’s book “The Anxious Generation.” I have discussed the ideas the author presents here and here. I still believe the text is very important and needs to be worked on/discussed. That’s what I attempt to do in this post.

The book has been among the bestsellers in both Brazil and the United States since its release. I don’t think this is a coincidence. Those involved in the education and upbringing of children, adolescents, and young adults have noticed the impact that interactive digital technologies have provided — whether for better or worse.

I would like to, within this proposal, bring the text into focus and discuss how it is being treated in some places I’ve seen/heard/read about. It’s peculiar that at least four researchers with solid and consistent work on the digital context and adolescent behavior have suggested that the issues raised by the author in his book are mere moral panic; minimizing the impacts of social media and mental health—especially of adolescents. I find it amusing that some of these researchers seem so angry about what’s in his book that they refuse to even mention it by name, yet they refer to the book’s points constantly. Recently, they expressed their views in three different podcasts on this topic, which is quite interesting to observe. You can listen to these episodes here, here, here, and here. The researchers in question are Candice Odgers, danah boyd, Alice Marwick, and Devorah Heitner.

I have read quite a bit of work by all these authors and frequently use texts written especially by danah boyd and Alice Marwick in my classes. What they say carries significant weight and helps me understand the world and the impacts of interactive digital technologies on the lives of children and adolescents. Their comments on Haidt’s text need to be carefully considered, as there are many important criticisms to take into account.

My interpretation, however, is that despite the criticisms, what Haidt addresses in his text needs to be a topic of discussion among parents and educators.

Indeed, we need to view Jonathan Haidt’s statements in perspective and not consider everything in his book as absolute truth or even understand it only as he has stated. We shouldn’t do that with any text by any author, to be clear. However, part of the criticisms from the authors mentioned above relate to the causal relationship Haidt posits between social media use and mental health problems in adolescents. Given the relationship he proposes between social media platforms as causes of observed mental health issues in adolescents, it must be understood that, although there seems to be an evident relationship, it is not necessarily causal.

Look, we—collectively—have had more access to tools, treatments, professionals, and diagnostic apparatus for mental health in recent years. This alone could help explain the increase in diagnoses of conditions related to worsening mental health. However, we need to understand that social dynamics are complex and many things are happening simultaneously. The rise in diagnoses coincides with the widespread adoption of social media platforms, but it also coincides with a series of other global events (wars, climate change, various conflicts, social inequality, injustices of all kinds… the list goes on).

This does not mean that there is no influence.

What I want to say here is that while it is somewhat naive and presumptuous to categorically state that social media platforms or even the emergence and use of smartphones are the cause of mental health problems in adolescents, it cannot be denied that social media platforms do influence our mental health. More on this later.

The main criticisms from the cited authors regarding Jonathan Haidt’s work directly address the point that the correlation and causation relationship he establishes between social media use and declining mental health is weak and there is insufficient evidence that it is the cause of the mental health issues we have observed (this is not speculation); especially concerning adolescents. Even considering the scenario from 2019, emphasized by the author in his arguments. These criticisms are indeed very important, and we always need to be careful not to let facts A and B occurring in the same period be understood as having a causal relationship with each other.

But it is also a fact that we need to always try to understand the general context in which a particular fact fits. What Jonathan Haidt discusses is quite related to what people perceive in their daily lives. Not by coincidence, as I mentioned at the beginning of the post, his book has been widely read around the world.

When I started writing this text on July 9, the book was the second most sold on The New York Times list, having been on the list for 14 weeks. I understand that this reverberation exists because those who are echoing what the author says in the book are seeing things happening. And that’s why I think we need to discuss the book’s topic.

For those who haven’t had the opportunity to read the book or the article that helped launch the book published in The Atlantic, I recommend watching the author’s presentation of the book and his ideas at a great event by the Center for Humane Technology. You can watch this talk here:

The most eloquent argument that goes beyond the issue of causation relationships indicated by the four authors I mentioned earlier comes from people who discuss the impacts of interactive digital technologies on our lives with a techno-optimistic perspective. I understand this is the case with journalist Taylor Lorenz, who has an excellent podcast on digital culture called “Power User.” One of the referenced talks above was published on her podcast, when she interviewed danah boyd.

Taylor often criticizes Haidt’s text, classifying it as moral panic (danah boyd does the same). I especially recommend this video from Taylor Lorenz on the topic to help build an opinion about it:

Unfortunately, one thing I think is important for helping with the context here cannot be replicated. I was recently browsing Instagram when I came across a post that Taylor Lorenz commented on. Her comment was essentially a plea for us not to collectively agree with Haidt’s argument, which she classifies as moral panic.

As I said—due to the nature of the Instagram platform (which is awful)—I couldn’t locate this post again, which I remember being from a news outlet. What struck me about this example was Taylor Lorenz’s comment and the responses people made to her comment… when I stopped to read the responses, one mother’s comment stood out. It went something like, “Taylor, I know your work and would like to learn more about this because I’m noticing this at home.” Like this, many other responses mentioned that people understood the journalist’s argument but were seeing that adolescents and children in their circles were showing mental health problems or difficulties, not to mention issues related to family dynamics impacted by mobile device use.

What the mother alludes to in her response to the journalist is the decline in young people’s mental health. This is something I’m also noticing in my circles. So, this is an important thing to consider (not just from these two examples, but from the overall context we live in). There are indications that the research mentioned or discussed by Jonathan Haidt may be weak for establishing the causal relationship he proposes in the book. Regarding this, I understand it is accurate.

On the other hand, it must be recognized that we are experiencing serious issues related to social media platforms primarily. These issues are related and have a direct impact on people’s mental health.

So, what I’m saying is that it would be very naive of us not to consider the context of conflict we collectively see, for example, since 2013 in Brazil, and which also gained global proportions in 2016 with the presidential elections in the United States due to electoral periods.

We see what happened in Brazil in 2013 and 2014, which was intense political mobilization through the instrumentalization of social media platforms, and how this brought much more serious collective consequences than just arguing with relatives in WhatsApp groups. Both in the 2018 election and during the pandemic, we suffered collective consequences and developments due to the use of social media platforms, their instrumentalization and political appropriation, and the influence of these platforms on collective behavior.

Therefore, I reiterate, it would be very naive of us to recognize this in collective behavior and political organization in society and collective movements and behaviors around ideological issues in society, and to separate other possible developments, considering that social media platforms do not influence adolescents’ and children’s mental health.

I think it is an absurd naivety and wonder to recognize how the use of platforms affects our collective behavior and influences political and electoral decisions but to separate the development of children, adolescents, and young adults from this context. We are observing this in the world around us, which is why I think we need to put Jonathan Haidt’s reading into perspective, looking at it critically, but also acknowledging that social media platforms and communication tools mediated by digital technologies do indeed cause social and individual changes.

Criticisms of what Jonathan Haidt writes should not seek to completely invalidate what he is documenting. What is necessary is to focus on the unfortunate attempt to establish a causal relationship. This is the real weak point of his argument. However, I do not believe that his considerations on the decline in adolescent mental health and its potential connection to social media are disconnected from reality.

I think it’s important to consider and take into account that impacts related to the use of interactive digital technologies by adolescents certainly exist. However, I also understand that we may not yet have developed the methodological tools necessary to analyze this.

In this sense, I believe that when we have the appropriate methodological apparatus to understand this relationship (social media use/smartphones and mental health), we will see results of this impact. I think we will see this impact manifest in the future.

So, these children who are growing up today with screens in front of their faces all the time and are being educated with TikTok and similar platforms will certainly show consequences of this in their futures. We just don’t yet have the necessary methodological tools to talk about or assess this impact now.

In this sense, it’s interesting to note that it is quite peculiar to look from the perspective of those who were adolescents in the 1980s/1990s and who are now researchers in universities; who had a formation as we were exposed to, and to see arguments that smartphones or social media do not impact adolescent mental health.

We cannot simply say that. Continuing with the techno-optimistic argument that there are no impacts is reckless because we are looking at the impact these elements have on our lives as adults, and the tangible real-world experience is showing us something different.

Finally, I think this note might be useful to organize the argument as follows: we should neither ignore nor dismiss the impact of today’s children and adolescents having their phones in their hands all the time. Declaring the absence of influence from the perspective of someone who has already been formed, who was educated with books and is now an adult, and despite having great difficulty, can identify that the phone needs to be turned off, is too naive. To look at adolescents who are exposed to screens all the hours they are awake and say that this will not impact their mental health is almost a joke.

Muito tem se falado sobre o livro “A geração ansiosa” do Jonathan Haidt. Eu mesmo falei sobre as ideias que o autor defende aqui e aqui. Sigo achando que o texto é bem importante e precisa ser trabalhado / discutido. É o que tento fazer neste post.

O livro figura entre os mais vendidos nas listas tanto no Brasil quanto nos Estados Unidos desde o seu lançamento. Penso não ser por acaso. Quem está presente no processo de educação e formação de crianças, adolescentes e jovens adultos, tem percebido o impacto que as tecnologias digitais interativas tem proporcionado. Para o bem ou nem tanto.

Gostaria, dentro dessa proposta, de colocar o texto em pauta e falar sobre como ele está sendo tratado em alguns lugares que tenho visto / ouvido / lido. Peculiar que, pelo menos quatro pesquisadoras com produções bem sólidas e consistentes sobre o contexto digital e o comportamento e adolescentes tem colocado que as coisas que o autor fala em seu livro seriam puro pânico moral; minimizando os impactos colocados no livro referentes às mídias sociais e saúde mental – especialmente de adolescentes. Acho engraçado que parte dessas pesquisadoras têm tanta raiva parece do que está no livro dele que se recusam até a mencioná-lo pelo nome, mas fazem menção o tempo todo às colocações do livro e recentemente, elas se manifestaram em três podcasts diferentes sobre esse assunto, e isso é uma coisa bastante interessante de se perceber. Você pode ouvir estes episódios aqui, aqui, aqui e aqui. As pesquisadoras em questão são Candice Odgers, danah boyd, Alice Marwick e Devorah Heitner.

Já li um bocado de coisas escritas por todas estas autoras e uso com frequência textos escritos especialmente pela danah boyd e Alice Marwick em minhas aulas. O que elas falam tem grande peso e me ajudam bastante a entender o mundo e os impactos das tecnologias digitais interativas nas vidas de crianças e adolescentes. O que elas falam sobre o texto do Haidt precisa ser observado com atenção, porque há muitas críticas bem importantes a considerar.

Minha interpretação, no entanto, é a de que, apesar das críticas, o que Haidt trabalha em seu texto precisa ser assunto entre pais e educadores.

De fato, a gente tem que olhar as colocações do Jonathan Haidt em perspectiva e não colocar tudo o que está em seu livro como verdade absoluta ou mesmo entender que tem apenas o valor de face declarado por ele. A gente não deve fazer isso com nenhum texto de qualquer autor que seja, diga-se.  No entanto, parte das críticas das autoras mencionadas acima se relaciona a relação de causa e efeito que o Jonathan Haidt coloca entre uso de mídia social e  problemas de saúde mental em adolescentes. Tendo em vista esta relação que ele propõe entre o uso de plataformas sociais como causas de problemas observados na saúde mental de adolescentes, há que se compreender que, embora pareça ser evidente que existe uma relação, ela não necessariamente é de causa.

Vejam, temos – coletivamente – mais acesso a ferramentas, tratamentos, profissionais e demais aparatos de diagnóstico de saúde mental nos últimos anos. Isso, por si só, poderia ajudar a explicar o aumento de diagnóstico de condições relacionadas a piora de saúde mental das pessoas. No entanto, a gente precisa entender que as dinâmicas sociais são complexas e muitas coisas estão acontecendo ao mesmo tempo. O aumento de diagnósticos coincide com a adoção de plataformas sociais em larga escala, mas também coincide com uma série de outros acontecimentos globais (guerras, mudanças climáticas, conflitos de diferentes tipos, desigualdade social, injustiças de toda sorte… a lista não para).

Isso não quer dizer que não exista qualquer tipo de influência.

O que quero dizer aqui é que, embora seja um pouco inocente e presunçoso postular categoricamente que a causa dos problemas de saúde mental enfrentado por adolescentes seja as plataformas sociais ou mesmo a emergência e uso dos smartphones, não dá para negar que as plataformas sociais influenciam nossa saúde mental. Mais sobre isso adiante.

As principais críticas das autoras citadas sobre o trabalho do Jonathan Haidt vão direto no ponto de que a relação que ele estabelece de correlação e causalidade entre uso de mídias sociais e declínio na saúde mental das pessoas é fraca e não há evidências suficientes de que seja essa a causa do problema que temos visto (isso não é especulação) na saúde mental das pessoas; em especial de adolescentes. Mesmo levando em conta o cenário a partir de 2019, enfatizado pelo autor em seus argumentos. Evidentemente estas críticas são muito importantes e precisamos sempre tomar cuidado para que não deixemos que fatos A e B que acontecem em um mesmo período sejam entendidos como tendo uma relação de causa e consequência entre si.

Mas fato também é que precisamos sempre tentar compreender o cenário geral em que um determinado fato se encaixa. O que o Jonathan Haidt fala encontra bastante relação com o que as pessoas percebem no dia a dia. Não por acaso, como escrevi no começo do post, o livro dele tem sido muito lido mundo afora.

Quando comecei a escrever este texto no dia 09 de julho o livro era o segundo mais vendido na lista do The New York Times, estando na lista por 14 semanas. Entendo que essa reverberação existe porque quem está reverberando o que o autor fala no livro está vendo coisas acontecerem. E é por isso que penso que temos que conversar sobre o assunto do livro.

Para quem não teve a oportunidade de ler o livro ou o artigo que ajudou a lançar o livro publicado na revista The Atlantic, recomendo acompanhar a fala do autor apresentando o livro e suas ideias em um evento bem bacana do Center for Humane Technology. Você pode assistir esta fala aqui:

O argumento mais eloquente que vai além da questão das relações de causalidade indicado pelas quatro autoras que mencionei antes vem de pessoas que discutem os impactos das tecnologias digitais interativas em nossas vidas com uma perspectiva tecno-otimista. Entendo ser o caso da jornalista Taylor Lorenz, que tem um excelente podcast sobre cultura digital chamado “Power User“. Uma das falas referenciadas acima foi publicada no podcast dela, quando entrevistou a danah boyd.

Taylor frequentemente critica o texto de Haidt classificando-o como pânico moral (danah boyd faz o mesmo). Recomendo em especial este vídeo da Taylor Lorenz sobre o assunto para ajudar a construir uma reflexão sobre o assunto:

Infelizmente uma coisa que penso ser importante para ajudar no contexto aqui não é possível replicar. Recentemente estava navegando pelo Instagram quando me foi recomendada uma postagem que a Taylor Lorenz comentou. O comentário dela foi justamente um grito para que não concordemos coletivamente com o argumento de Haidt sobre o que ela qualifica como panico moral.

Como disse – por causa da natureza da plataforma Instagram (que é um lixo) – eu não consegui localizar novamente esta postagem que lembro-me apenas ser de um veículo de notícia. O que me marcou nesse exemplo foi o comentário da Taylor Lorenz e as respostas que pessoas colocaram ao comentário dela… quando parei para ler as respostas das pessoas sobre o que ela havia comentado, chama atenção o que uma mãe falou para ela. Era mais ou menos assim “Taylor, conheço seu trabalho e gostaria de saber mais sobre isso, porque eu estou percebendo isso na minha casa”. Como esta, várias outras respostas mencionavam este aspecto de que as pessoas entendiam o argumento da jornalista, mas estavam percebendo justamente que os adolescentes e crianças de seu convívio demonstravam problemas ou dificuldades relacionadas a saúde mental, sem mencionar as questões relacionadas às dinâmicas familiares impactadas pelo uso de dispositivos móveis.

O isso que a mãe faz alusão na resposta à jornalista é o definhamento da saúde mental de jovens. É o que eu estou percebendo também em meus círculos. Então isso é uma coisa importante de levar em consideração (não apenas por estes dois exemplos, mas pelo contexto geral que vivemos). Há indícios de que as pesquisas faladas ou mencionadas pelo Jonathan Haidt sejam fracas para que se estabeleça a relação de causalidade que ele estabelece no livro. Quanto a isso, entendo ser algo acertado.

Por outro lado, há de se perceber que estamos vivenciando questões graves relacionadas às mídias sociais às plataformas sociais principalmente. Estas questões se relacionam e têm impacto direto na saúde mental das pessoas.

Então, o que quero dizer é que vai ser muito inocente de nossa parte não considerar o contexto de conflito a gente coletivamente vê, por exemplo, desde 2013 no Brasil e que, também em virtude de período eleitoral, ganhou proporcóes mundiais em 2016 com as eleições presidenciais nos Estados Unidos.

A gente vê o que aconteceu aqui no Brasil em 2013 e 2014, que foi uma intensa movimentação política a partir da instrumentalização das plataformas sociais e como isso foi trabalhado trazendo consequências coletivas muito mais graves do que apenas brigarmos com parentes em grupos de WhatsApp. Tanto na eleição de 2018 quanto durante o período de pandemia a gente sofreu coletivamente consequências e desdobramentos que se deram em função do uso das plataformas sociais, da sua instrumentalização e apropriação política e da influência dessas plataformas no comportamento coletivo.

Portanto, reforço, vai ser muito inocente da nossa parte perceber isso no comportamento coletivo e organização política da sociedade e movimentação coletiva e comportamentos em volta de questões ideológicas na sociedade e separar outros possíveis desdobramentos, ponderando que as plataformas sociais não influenciam a saúde mental dos adolescentes e crianças.

Penso ser de uma inocência e deslumbre absurdos a gente perceber como o uso das plataformas afetas nosso coomportamento coletivo e influencia decisões políticas e eleitorais mas separar o desenvolvimento de crianças, adolescentes e jovens adultos desse contexto. Estamos percebendo isso no mundo ao nosso redor, por isso penso que precisamos, claro, colocar essa leitura do Jonathan Haidt em perspectiva, olhando com o olhar crítico, mas também ter em conta que as plataformas sociais e os instrumentos de comunicação mediados por tecnologias digitais que temos usado proporcionam sim alterações sociais e individuais.

As críticas ao que Jonathan Haidt escreve não devem buscar invalidar por completo o que ele está registrando. Acho que necessário é focar na tentativa infeliz de estabelecer relação de causa e consequência. Este é o ponto realmente fraco de seu argumento. Entretanto, não creio que as considerações que ele faz sobre o definhamento da saúde mental de adolescentes e sua eventual relação com as mídias sociais sejam algo desprovido de conexão com a realidade.

Penso ser importante considerar e levar em conta que impactos referentes ao uso de tecnologias digitais interativas por adolescentes certamente existem. No entanto, entendo também que talvez não tenhamos desenvolvido ainda o instrumental metodológico necessário para poder fazer essa análise.

Nesse sentido, eu entendo que, quando o aparato metodológico apropriado para enxergar esta relação (uso de mídias sociais / smartphones e saúde mental)  a gente vai ver resultados desse impacto. Penso que veremos a manifestação desse impacto no futuro.

Então, essas crianças que estão se desenvolvendo hoje com a tela na frente dos seus rostos o tempo todo que elas estão crescendo e sendo alfabetizadas com o TikTok e congêneres, certamente apresentarão consequências disso em seus futuros. Apenas não temos ainda o instrumental metodológico necessário para falar ou para avaliar esse impacto agora.

Nesse sentido, interessante registrar que é bastante peculiar olhar com o olhar da formação que tivemos (pessoas que foram adolescentes nos anos 1980/1990) e que somos hoje os pesquisadores nas universidades; que tivemos uma formação como à que fomos expostos e ver argumentos de que o smartphone ou as mídias sociais não proporcionam um impacto na saúde mental do adolescente.

Nós não podemos simplesmente falar isso. Seguir com a argumentação tecno-otimista de que não há impactos é leviano porque estamos olhando o impacto que estes elementos tem na nossa vida como adultos e a experiência real do mundo palpável está nos mostrando / evidenciando outra coisa.

Por fim, penso que essa nota poderá ser útil pra organizar o argumento no seguinte sentido: não devemos nem podemos olhar a criança de hoje e falar que ela ou o adolescente com o celular em mãos o tempo todo não recebem impacto dessas tecnologias e das mídias sociais em suas formações. Declarar a ausência de influência com o olhar de quem já é formado, de quem foi formado com livros e que hoje é adulto, e, apesar de ter muita dificuldade, consegue identificar que o telefone precisa ficar desligado, por exemplo, é inocente demais. Olhar o adolescente que hoje fica exposto a telas durante todas as horas que está acordado e falar que isso não vai ter impacto em sua saúde mental é quase uma piada.

Quando você abre uma janela anônima em seu navegador, esta ação é executada com a esperança e o pressuposto de que as coisas que você acessar naquela sessão não serão registradas e nenhum dado relacionado às atividades ali executadas será coletado.

Esta funcionalidade é especialmente útil para quando você, por exemplo, vai usar um navegador de terceiros em um computador público (digamos, uma biblioteca) para checar seu e-mail. O uso de uma janela anônima nos dá a garantia de que ao fechar aquela janela, tudo será apagado (histórico, dados enviados em formulários ou qualquer outra informação que permita quem quer que seja a identificar a pessoa que usou aquele recurso.

No entanto, se você faz isso usando um navegador Google Chrome, não necessariamente isso é verdade.

Ontem e hoje tem sido noticiado que o Google acordou em deletar dados que foram coletados das pessoas quando usando o navegador Chrome em modo anônimo.

O interessante desta notícia é que a manchete, em minha opinião, não deveria ser esta. A manchete deveria ser: O Google mentiu para todos os usuários do Chrome por muito tempo, levando-os a crer que o modo anônimo era uma maneira de não ter as suas ações devidamente registradas e nem ter dados coletados.

Entendo que isso é uma questão muito grave, que evidencia a desconsideração para com as necessidades e expectativas dos usuários em uma postura enganosa e prejudicial.

Como falo no vídeo abaixo, a ação inicial que todas as pessoas que usam este navegador devem fazer imediatamente é deixar de usa-lo.

Estamos em 2024 e os navegadores modernos são praticamente equivalentes em termos de funcionamento. Nesse sentido, usar um navegador que não te respeita feito por uma empresa que mente para você, não é uma escolha sadia.
Minha indicação no momento é o Mozilla Firefox, que funciona excelentemente bem em qualquer plataforma (Mac, Windows, Linux, Android e iOS).

 

This image represents a very serious issue regarding social media platforms that are commercially exploited, rely on algorithmic manipulation and have a business model of selling advertising space.

As part of their operation, these platforms restrict the organic reach of posts. I had already detected this in an article written a few years ago (available in Portuguese).

The image shows a post from a user who has over 6,000 followers and post display data that records that only a fraction of these followers saw the message.
Prior to the X-transformation, this post view data was not public. I understand that the display of this data broadly highlights the reach restriction imposed on profiles, which is quite detrimental to the use of the platform for messages that followers sign up to receive and that are important (such as weather and traffic services, for example).

Why would you follow an entity that sends weather alerts (such as rain and storms) on a platform like this? There is a great risk that you will never see an important update that could save your life.

Social media, by definition, is for sharing content. This content can be video, text, images and even links to other content that we can access on the web. This process of empowering people with the ability to share provides many social benefits.

Instagram is a social media platform built with the aim not of helping people or society, but rather with the function of generating profit/revenue for its owners through the sale of advertising. That’s why the product is built in such a malicious way. There is not the slightest desire to provide a product that people can leave to consume content elsewhere. Even if it’s just for a few minutes.

I decided to record a video to demonstrate how ridiculous this is. I was browsing the content on Instagram and decided to access the stories of the profiles I follow. One person shared in stories a reference to a text that could be interesting. The process of accessing this post, having to return to the profile home page to consult the link, clicking to access a secondary list of links and, only then, finally being able to access the content and then choosing to open the given link in my main browser is ludicrous.

I had to tap the screen seven times to access a link.

The amount of effort that the user needs to exert to be able to carry out a simple activity on this platform drives me crazy. I lack the rationality (or perhaps intelligence to understand the genius behind it) to understand why a platform that makes it so difficult to carry out a simple action can be so adopted and used.

I am very bothered by the greed that drives this development and, perhaps, that is why I have never been able to effectively use this service.

It’s a bad and evil product. It doesn’t matter how many people use it. Whoever is involved in it knows this and, in fact, it is something open. It’s a bad product.

 

 

Semana passada eu recebi um texto muito interessante na newsletter do The Atlantic que trata de como as telas de celular proporcionam impactos no crescimento e desenvolvimento de crianças e adolescentes. O texto é uma espécie de resumo de um livro que está sendo lançado do Jonathan Haidt. Deixo a vocês uma versão que traduzi, aqui.

Resolvi gravar um vídeo falando um pouco sobre este texto:

Neste vídeo, além de fazer breves comentários sobrte o texto, eu falo das relações entre este material e algumas outras leituras, como o livro “It’s Complicated” da danah boyd, os livros “No enxame“, “Sociedade do cansaço” e “Sociedade da transparência” do Byung-Chul Han, o texto “Hiperativos” do Cristoph Türcke e também “O show do Eu” da Paula Sibilia.

Como achei que o vídeo acabou ficando um pouco curto, achei melhor complementar. Eis um segundo vídeo sobre o texto:

Gostaria de saber o que vocês acham sobre isso a partir dos seus comentários. Vocês tem percebido esta alteração no desenvolvimento das crianças e adolescentes?

This is the english version of a post I published on dec. 07 2023 in PT-BR.

After 48 hours, the poll I placed on Mastodon ended to find out if people followed profiles that published content in languages other than those they speak natively. There were 4255 votes and 792 shares. The reach this poll had exceeded any expectations I could have had. With just over 650 followers when I started the poll, it reached almost seven times the number of people it represented.

In addition to the issue of reach, the results of my poll question were very interesting. For many people who responded and commented, this seems obvious and something you didn’t even need to ask a question to know. However, one thing seems to go unnoticed by most people when it comes to the Mastodon platform and the fediverse in general: as Mastodon / fediverse does not receive algorithmic interference in the process of selection and assortment of posts and in the assembly of feeds, here we have more access to posts from people who write in other languages.

On platforms with algorithmic interference, like commercially exploited platforms, this happens all the time. So, in those spaces, what happens is that – even if you choose to follow a person who writes in another language – the post assortment and display algorithms operate so that you do not see these posts or see fewer posts from languages that are not your native language. The algorithms assume that you only speak the language of your system or the one you signaled by interacting in the first posts you saw on the platform when you started using it (of course, signals such as the geographic location of the device and the declared location of the address IP associated with you when you created your registration also interfere; there are many flags).

On platforms that are not manipulated by algorithms, like Mastodon, this does not happen. So, if you choose to follow five profiles of people from five different countries who post their publications in five different languages, you will see everything that these people publish. This substantially changes the possibilities of interactions with different people and the eventual relationships that are built in these environments. It was to try to find out how people relate to this content that I carried out the survey.

Thank you so much to everyone who responded and participated! I learned a lot from the comments and usage reports.

Let’s continue using Mastodon / fediverse to meet more people and more cool ideas and shorten distances, including removing language barriers!

This is the english version of a post published in PT-BR last december.

I’ve been using social platforms since they first appeared. I’ve been online and posting for longer than I care to admit.. 🙂

I confess that my enthusiasm for Mastodon (and the Fediverse, of course) only increases every day.

This morning I had the idea of asking the people who follow me (just over 650) on Mastodon if they followed people who speak/post in languages other than their native language (link to post). I wanted to know this because I interact a lot with people who speak other languages on the platform. I wanted to know if my case was common.

Not in my wildest dreams would I achieve this reach and engagement on another platform. I had more than 1300 followers on Twitter when I deleted my account and I now have more than 800 followers on Instagram.

Never, ever has any post of mine on those platforms come close to this. On Mastodon I have just over 650 followers and this post of mine received more than 230 shares and the poll received more than one thousand and two hundred votes in five hours.

Mastodon and fediverse are the place to be. Look, I don’t make a living from producing content. I imagine things are even cooler for those who work with this.

The potential is gigantic.

This is the english version of a post previously published in PT-BR.

In 2017 I was introduced to Mastodon. Like most people, the first impression I had (and, frankly, practically everyone says this) was that Mastodon would be “just” an alternative to Twitter. Even more so after the blunders caused by world record holder Elon Musk with Twitter, Mastodon has been gaining many users in recent months and practically everyone thinks it is just a clone of Twitter. It’s normal to think that… The character limitations and even the way the standard interface is presented make us think this is really the case.

But things aren’t quite like that. And, thankfully, I didn’t need 5 years to learn this. Mastodon is something completely different from Twitter (frankly, much better too); very easy and fun to use.

To begin with, an important consideration. Mastodon is part of Fediverse, a true constellation of services that work on top of a protocol called ActivityPub, created by W3C and which allows content in different formats to be distributed across the internet.

Mastodon is one of these services, but it is not the only one. There are social media services that work on top of ActivityPub dedicated to images and videos, for example. Mastodon is just one of them, which allows text format updates and posting of different media formats.

Well, this is the basics of the ActivityPub related thing. If you want to know more about ActivityPub, you can follow this link.

To understand and use Mastodon, however, you don’t need to know it in depth. Just understand that, being built based on this protocol (ActivityPub), Mastodon is a federated and open social media platform. By federated, understand that each one can create an instance (or server) and connect this server to the federation, causing the content of the other federated servers to be accessed by whoever is in their instance and vice versa (the content posted on their instance will be viewed/accessed by anyone linked to the other federated instances).

This provides a very interesting scenario. Each instance administrator can define their own rules and is also responsible for user management and, of course, the functioning of this little piece of the network. And as the network is federated, servers communicate with each other and everyone can see what is posted on other servers and interact with other users.

It works more or less like email. My email server (caiocgo.com.br) has specific rules for attachment sizes and storage space for messages. These rules may be different from those of Gmail, iCloud, UOL or Yahoo. However, people who have email created on each of these services can send messages to people on other servers without any problems. We’ve been doing this for years, right? At Mastodon it’s the same thing. Each server has some particularities but, as long as they are linked to the federation, users can interact freely.

Well, the different servers/instances of Mastodon can allow – for example – the entry of only one type of user (think of an instance of a University, which can only allow members of the academic community to register), establish posting rules and own conduct, define character limits, allow or prohibit specific types of media and so on. This can be cool because there is the possibility of restricting viewing or responding to certain posts only to members of the instance (or their followers)… Anyway, one thing is important to reinforce: members of an instance with restricted access (such as in the example I gave, of a University) can follow and be followed by everyone in the fediverse (as this large environment of servers participating in the federation is called) normally.

Many people consider this issue of instances as a complicating element of Mastodon. However, explaining it this way, things are quite simple, right? We choose a server to connect to based on requirements that may be our own (being part of a community, for example, or being interested in meeting people from a certain group) or even for reasons that are particular to the instance (choosing to participate in an instance that has a higher character limit in posts, for example or even being an employee of a company that created an instance) and start interacting.

One thing I mentioned above is important to explore further: meeting people from a server/instance. This is because on Mastodon, posts are viewed in three possible minimum timelines (I say “minimum” because you can choose to follow hashtags and have even more timelines). These three are: Your timeline (called HOME) where posts from all the people you follow appear. The second timeline is the server timeline (called LOCAL), where you can see all posts marked as public by people in your instance. The third is very broad (called FEDERATED) and shows all posts marked as public from all people linked to the servers that are connected to yours. This means that these three timelines tend to be very busy, on an increasing basis, you know?

Oh, and while I’m explaining this, it’s worth delving deeper into a topic I touched on above: posts marked as public. That’s because on Mastodon, you can mark posts as restricted. Then only those who follow you will see the post. This way, you won’t have your selected posts visible on anyone’s LOCAL and FEDERATED timelines. Unless you signal. All of this is configurable for people, which gives Mastodon users enormous freedom. In addition to being able to mark posts as public or private, you can set the language of the post (because, similarly, you can choose to only view posts from a specified language) or even lock your profile, so that only those you approve can see you. follow. In other words: the user has control over a lot of things on Mastodon.

Understanding these basic points, you can see that it is a social media platform with a lot of versatility and potential, right?

Feel like using Mastodon? The first thing to do is create your account. The best way to do this is by accessing joinmastodon.org where you can filter servers and find your preferred server. Don’t worry as this choice is not final. You can migrate later. I myself have already migrated four times (I started in 2017 on mastodon.cloud, then I migrated to mastodon.online, then I went to ursal.zone, then to social.vivaldi.net and now I’m on mastodon.social). When you migrate servers, you take your list of followers and the list of profiles you follow. Only the posts are not migrated either. It’s all very simple.

Well then. Once you have chosen the server, simply register. I strongly recommend that this process be done through the browser on a computer. Once the account has been created, you can access your server via your browser and also use one of the many Mastodon clients available. There are clients for all platforms and with different functionalities/looks. The native (official) clients for Android and iOS are pretty cool. On iOS I use Mona. But I’ve used Metatext a lot, which I think is really cool (Metatext allows you to edit posts after they’ve been published, which I think is really cool, since I keep making typos) and there’s also Woolly and IceCubes, which are excellent apps.

Using mastodon on your smartphone is easier. Applications make the process of following and interacting with people from other servers very easy. On the desktop you can interact with people freely too, but from time to time following a profile may require copying a URL and pasting it into the search bar in order to follow. An extra step but it doesn’t kill anyone. We get used to it. As if that weren’t enough, you can also choose, in the browser, to use the basic or advanced interface. Many people recommend the advanced interface because it looks like the interface of some Twitter clients that people used (TweetDeck).

As Mastodon is open, there are also alternative ways to access it via browser. Elk (elk.zone) and Pinafore (pinafore.social) are two of these forms. These initiatives allow you to use mastodon with a different interface. I really like Pinafore and, when I’m on the computer, I access it through it.

Coming back to usage, Mastodon is quite inclusive. Every image you post, you can put a description text. Instance administrators emphasize that this is very important and recommend that everyone post image descriptions. This ends up helping a lot. Furthermore, it is up to the post author to indicate that content is sensitive and, thus, readers are warned. You can do this with text posts as well as image posts. Look how cool! Of course, in the applications (and also in the web interface) you can configure it to mark everything as sensitive or view all content without having to click again.

Regarding the dynamics of the platform, understand that one thing is very cool: Mastodon has no interference in the assortment and ordering of posts through algorithms. This makes the platform a very cool environment for interaction. You will see everything that the profiles you follow post and vice versa. All your public posts will be seen by everyone who follows you. In addition, there are boosts, which are impulses. You can replicate someone’s post to your followers. This is really cool to make a message reach a larger audience. There are also, of course, comments, which allow you to interact with the authors of the posts and with anyone who may have already commented there. Finally, there are favorites, which, although they do not amplify a message, signal to the author that you liked it.

Of course, you can use replies to posts to build threads, in the same way as on Twitter. Likewise, there are also direct messages (DMs, which can be individual or group). About messages, one important thing: they are not encryption and the instance admin will be able to access them. Therefore, it is recommended to never put sensitive information in a DM (but this applies to any platform).

Well then. I think this is pretty basic, right? The one thing to do now is to create the account and start interacting. There are cool services like movetodon (www.movetodon.org) where you can see which people you follow on Twitter are already on Mastodon and follow them there too. Migration is very simple and easy.

Hope to see you at Mastodon!