"Living peacefully in a society is hard enough when we have to learn to deal with one another. What will happen when we lack those abilities because all we need to do is interact with our technology."
Being wrapped up in social media might serve as a way of pacifying society. When unemployment is rising due to automation and policy, give the masses shiny websites they can spend all day on and lots of computer games, and then they won't get together in real life much and riot. William Gibson envisioned such a future in his recent novel "The Peripheral".
You do realize that Facebook and Google already do this with the intention of squeezing every last advertising dollar possible out of you, right? There doesn't need to be a conspiracy to pacify the masses (assuming this crap even does that because I think there's a very good argument that it doesn't); distracting people is just a side effect of exploiting your data.
At least as far as the USA goes, society looks pretty peaceful to me. Sure, there have been a few protests, but nothing especially big or violent. The most dramatic sign of discontent of the masses was expressed through a peaceful presidential election, and all the spleen that most people want to vent, gets vented online in social networks or the comments section of partisan blogs.
Being wrapped up in social media might serve as a way of pacifying society. When unemployment is rising due to automation and policy, give the masses shiny websites they can spend all day on and lots of computer games, and then they won't get together in real life much and riot. William Gibson envisioned such a future in his recent novel "The Peripheral".