Reality is just a game now
Back in the mid 90's as the Internet was starting to become more accessible to the general public, I remember reading an article that made the following point:The telegraph effectively killed many newspapers as everyone moved to newspapers to printed national and global news. That was bad b/c it lowered the options people had for consuming news and dramatically reduced the diversity of ideas and opinions. The Internet was going to do the same to the point that we all read the same big websites and therefore had the same thoughts, opinions etc. I remember reading this and thinking "that kind of makes sense". Revisiting the idea recently, Pandora, YouTube, TikTok etc have all made a business out of building a customized feed for YOU. It's become the exact opposite of what the original article predicted. It's not surprising that we've become so divided when you can "build" your own reality by choosing the information streams that you want to consume.PS In terms of mass media shared experiences, 120 MILLION people watched the series finale of the TV show MASH. Hard to imagine a similar event today.