Social media and individualism result in increased isolation, as it tears apart the social fabric of our societies. For many there is not much interaction beyond the family circle. Even neighbours are just strangers. This ultimately will undoubtedly lead to major disruptions and social unrest. How do we go about breaking that cycle and build real communities again?
I don’t agree that it will cause social unrest or that it tears apart the social fabric of our society. I don’t see a reason to discount interactions of people on the internet, or why internet communities are any less real than in-person communities (even if they have some differences).
You might be interested in this book, Bowling Alone, about the decline of participation in in-person social groups.
Online interactions aren’t as rich as in person one, primarily due to the lack of social signals given off by text on a screen. There’s little emotion, the tone of the words you read is the tone you read them in. The internet isn’t a good enough substitute to replace in person connections. Many people suffered during covid when online interactions were the only choice.
Depends on the person, I benefited immensely during COVID when interactions mostly went online. Not everyone interacts the same way, or has the same capacities or preferences. What you’re saying may be true for the majority, though.
A great example of what this Lemmite said is the fact that they got downvoted without a response.
In a face to face setting, the downvoter would need to interact with the speaker out they’d have to bad-mouth the speaker behind their back. Those are more social actions:
Interaction with the speaker would make it easier to find common ground.
Badmouthing the speaker would open the downvoter to criticism from other people in the conversation.
Or they take their friends and walk away in silence. Then less people listen to the original commenter because why would anyone listen to someone that’s talking to nobody who’s listening?
I can’t say that my face-to-face interactions with people on contentious issues have been much better than my online ones, honestly, even when I am making a genuine effort to treat their concerns as reasonable and find common ground.
OP is talking about building communities. IRL interactions are situated in a context: a group of friends/neighbours/coworkers or an explicit community meeting.
When people are talking in that context, they think about the opinion of the rest of the group. Saying something unacceptable will burn bridges. Being impolite can do the same thing.
But interacting online typically doesn’t have that risk. We split off into our echo chambers and align with people who share our beliefs, so there isn’t a cost to saying something unacceptable.