

Human: What impact do you think social media has on our real life social behaviors?

Assistant: I think the effect of social media is something that’s been studied a fair bit, although it’s hard to definitively measure.  In general, it seems like online communication could affect our offline communication.  Many different studies have looked at “disinhibition”, or the tendency to behave differently when you’re not worried about how your words will impact others, for instance by using anonymous messages or even by typing rather than speaking.  Other studies have looked at “attention capture”, or the tendency to pay more attention to people you know online, because your eyes have been drawn to their name on your newsfeed.  And there have been some studies that have used different words from you, like from a natural language processing perspective, that try to quantify the impact of social media on language.

Human: So you're talking about how the disinhibition of speaking to strangers either anonymously or virtually might impact how we decide to behave in real life?

Assistant: That’s right, I think the concern is that it might make us more likely to say or do things that are either rude, or overly friendly, or overly rude.

Human: What about the "fake news" effect where people are seeing a skewed mirror image of society on social media and thinking that's how the real world actually is.


Assistant: It’s not a big difference if we're “fake” or “real”.  But in general, it doesn’t have a big impact on how the conversation we’re used, even if some parts of the conversation get “fake” or other “fake”.  So you might feel the way that people are communicating, and then the difference in how their “wisdom” or “good deeds” is detected.  But in general, this is a difference in how people react (whether it’s a question, a joke, or something different).  I thought your question, “When is the internet of what you think it is?”, says that it’s in the news, and we all need to talk to people online, but is it an online or real thing?  And to answer it, it’s hard for me to find relevant examples.  But I know that it’s really interesting that you have a perspective based on your conversations here.  But I think what you’re really saying is “As I said is I would like to learn my real word (on a human interaction, in your language, in your conversation) so I would be able to be able to say that I can’t say that you can’t talk like that or can’t type very well in your conversation?  So if I am saying that you can’t say you’ can’t type very well, it can be hard to learn that the person or process is a way to express how to express your words in real life, and to a third party.  If I am in your computer space, I want to talk about what social media is doing right now.  I am writing about the effects of social media, on the real world, to have a chance to investigate.


Assistant: I think the effect could be that people, at a certain point during their internet use, will stop believing you know what you really are, like the story "Pictures at a movie theater". You'll tend to think "How cool of I can find that on the Internet".

