Plato Solved Social Media’s Problem With Meanness 2,000 Years Ago
A philosopher’s warning on escaping “the cave” within our screens
Our modern world is full of wonderful technology that makes things so much quicker. Namely, communication. Where our ancestors waited for physical letters to travel, texts and calls come to us in an instant. In fact, it’s never been easier to be connected with those around us.
But we’re not. “Connected” might be the worst possible word to describe it. The social media designed to bring us together is populated by new creatures with an ancient name: trolls.
But it’s more than just these nameless bomb-throwers. It’s also us. We’re ruder, more sarcastic, and meaner on these platforms than ever speaking with these cyber neighbors in real life.
Oddly, a philosopher who lived over 2,000 years ago warns us about this very scenario. Plato notes our view of the world creates reality around us. This still holds true today.
You can see its repercussions in our current social media antics. In fact, Plato’s Allegory of the Cave is a good description of the base cause of our ever-present anger on Facebook, Twitter, and the cyber-world we populate today.
He also gives us some timeless advice on what to do about it. As we spend more time working from home and the internet becomes attached to everything we touch, we need it more than ever.
The Cave Allegory, The Internet, And Social Media
In Plato’s story, he uses prisoners chained in a cave, forced to stare at a wall. Behind them is a fire. It casts shadows against the wall of puppets and items carried about by their captors, not real people, or things.
Over time, these prisoners believe the shadows are reality and accept it as such. If you asked these prisoners to leave the cave, the sun would hurt their eyes and they’d return. They can only accept the light of reality with time and effort.
Now, think of the internet and social media. It’s a world of created images. Furthermore it can be a representation of reality, far from the world you experience offline — similar to the cave.
Like the prisoners, we’re spending lots of time in this cave, exposed to images created by others. These shadows look very real. What’s more, as the cyber world continually expands, this “shadow reality” consumes actual reality.
But part of our brain always recognizes certain things are shadows. This is where the meanness comes from. We get confused. People see fake things as reality, and real people as just shadows (or as the tech world calls them avatars).
Think about it. Why would you ever treat a shadow with consideration or kindness? Let’s explore this further
NPCs And Avatars: Being Mean To Shadows
Avatar: an electronic image that represents and may be manipulated by a computer user (as in a game)
— Marriam Webster, definition of avatar
According to Statista, 82% of Americans have a social media profile, and 36 million are expected to work remotely by 2025. Plus, 68% of cell phone users say they text more than talk.
So, we’re spending lots of time with avatars and shadows. We often don’t see physical people, or even hear their voices nowadays.
Dr. Mariana Plata at Psychology Today says, “The anonymity factor contributes to online rudeness and trolls.” She also notes a study done by the University of Haifa in Israel which shows a lack of eye contact is “the chief contributor to the negative effects of online disinhibition.”
After all, how can you look a shadow in the eye?
But it goes a step further when you look at a popular meme going around the internet. Look up NPC. It stands for “non player character.” Those are the computer-generated characters in video games that repeat the same lines. They’re not real.
The meme states certain people are NPCs, because they have no original thoughts. They only spout what they’re fed, like a program. They’re fake.
Now, add into this the other popular thought experiment asking whether life is just a computer simulation, like The Matrix. That’s not a conspiracy theorist tossing that about; it’s being discussed in the magazine Scientific American.
So, we’re surrounded by NPCs and avatars, with no feelings or lifeforce, within a fake world.
That’s where the meanness and anger come in. We’d never treat people that way in “real life,” but those people we smash and belittle on social media are just avatars and NPCs. They’re Plato’s shadows, not flesh and blood human beings.
As scary as this is, tech keeps moving ahead. We have internet 2.0 coming, and the “Metaverse” with more avatars, NPCs, and fake worlds. If we’re this mean today, what does the future hold? And what should we do about it?
Well, Plato gives us some advice.
Returning To The Cave
More than likely, you’ve heard Plato’s Cave Allegory. So, you know in the end the prisoner escapes into the light and can eventually see reality. Most usually end the story there.
But that’s not the end.
Plato has his prisoner exposed to the light of reality return to the darkness of the cave. Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? Why would you ever head back to that terrible fake world if you could live in the light?
Plato’s enlightened prisoner has the duty to inform his fellow captives of the real world. He needs to expose the shadows. Otherwise, they’d never believe the world they’re part of isn’t real.
Over 2,000 years later, this is our duty. While the cyber world devours more of our real world, and we spend more time staring at screens, it’s up to us to pull our head out of the cave as much as we can.
We need to look people in the eye again and spend less time with avatars and shadows. It also must be ever-present in our mind we’re not in The Matrix. The avatars we interact with aren’t NPCs. They’re people as real as us.
It’s our duty to remind our fellow cave dwellers this and expose them to the light of our own proper behavior. There’s an old saying, that courage is contagious.
Well, so is treating others like human beings and not NPCs.
Plato reminds us we can’t do this if we leave the cave and shut off social media and technology. We need to return, no matter how much we may dislike it.
We can create a more precise replication of reality in the cyber world by our engagements with others. It all starts with us. Hopefully, our light exposes our fellow captives to the reality that actual people stand beyond the shadows and avatars.
Otherwise, the Metaverse will be the darkest cave ever created.
-Originally posted on Medium 1/27/22