Although the internet is a net positive for the world, Facebook has "decimated" the news industry, says tech journalist Taylor Lorenz.
"Maybe it's a net positive in your particular life but that doesn't mean that it's a net positive for the world or global democracy," she tells Jesse Mulligan.
In her new book Extremely Online, Lorenz explores how social media platforms and online content creators have redefined fame, influence and power.
Photo: Kerde Severin
Tech journalist Taylor Lorenz Photo: Supplied
'Extremely online' is a catchphrase that accurately describes many people's lives in 2023, Lorenz tells Jesse Mulligan.
"The online world is increasingly our default reality … and then the real world is irrelevant in the sense that it's almost like a stage for things to play out on the internet."
Most governments are still in denial about the extent to which social media platforms shape their political systems, Lorenz says, even when the candidates themselves don't participate.
"TikTok is now the primary communication tool for 10s if not 100s of millions of people and that's where the narratives are made these days.
"You no longer have to go through traditional Hollywood or traditional media to access an audience but you do have to go through Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok..."
When online fame is a "currency" and influencers flaunt brand deals, authenticity has become hard to define, she says.
"We're all performing for each other all day, right, even like performing authenticity. I see people doing these talks where they're very authentic or they're crying on camera but you still see the ring light reflection in their eyes."
Traditional media's lack of transparency about the news-gathering process hasn't helped people learn to distinguish opinion from fact, she says.
"Most people on the internet cannot distinguish the difference between commentary and reporting".
Meanwhile, Lorenz says, a huge number of children and teens are "drinking the Kool-Aid fed to them by tech companies" and aspiring to commodify themselves as online influencers.
It's not their parents' lack of boundary-setting that's the real issue, she says.
"The problem is the tech companies selling this bill of goods to children who are way too young to understand that it's a lie and that these decisions to set up a YouTube channel, for instance, when you're 11 years old, can have real ramifications."
Photo: supplied / Taylor Lorenz
Content creation – however desirable it may look – is actually a very difficult line of work, Lorenz says.
"Most early internet content creators have burned out and left ... These platforms evolve and it's hard for content creators to keep up and there's various mental health aspects of being online all the time and having to create content online."
The pioneering women who first turned online content creation into a revenue stream also had an important social mission, she says.
"Gen-X mothers turned to the internet and to blogging as a way to kind of express themselves there was no money to be made at that time. Initially, they of course, eventually did make money but they really wanted to challenge traditional media.
"It was about poking holes in these narratives of motherhood that were presented in these glossy women's magazines that didn't talk about these difficult issues like struggling to breastfeed or postpartum depression, all these things that mommy bloggers normalised."
Although internet algorithms now encourage content that's much less constructive, Lorenz doesn't believe social media itself is to blame for the current epidemic of online hate – she says it reflects deeper cultural problems.
"I don't think you can moderate and force everybody to be nice to each other."
