According to science, social media is single-handedly responsible for shortening our attention spans, making us lonelier, exacerbating incoming inequality, destroying our country’s relationship with North Korea and melting the polar ice caps.
Fortunately, I have created a plan that will fix social media once and for all, which I am uniquely qualified to do because I live in San Francisco. Moreover, last night my bus drove past the Twitter headquarters.
It used to be much harder to bully someone. You had to look them in the eyes as you dumped pig’s blood on them at the prom.
And so, free of charge, here is my plan to fix social media. I’ve included only sites and apps that I’m familiar with, because if I haven’t heard of it, it’s not worth fixing.
Twitter has a bully problem. This is old, non-fake news. Instead of punishing Twitter trolls, we elect them as president.
It used to be much harder to bully someone. You had to look them in the eyes as you dumped pig’s blood on them at the prom. So here’s my fix: Before you can @ someone in a tweet, your phone will call them on FaceTime so you can tell them to their (virtual) face what you were about to say in a tweet. (I don’t exactly know how the technology part of this will work — that’s what the people who know code are for.) Voilà. Twitter is fixed.
Facebook needs to get better at two things: weeding out fake news and addressing the echo-chamber problem. My proposal: instead of friending someone on Facebook, ask them IRL if they want to be friends. If they say no or think that’s a weird question, then why would you want to be friends on Facebook?
Also, instead of letting you share an article on Facebook (that may or may not be fake news), Facebook will prompt you to print the article so you can mail it to each of your friends. Not worth it? Then why are you sharing it on Facebook? That’s what I thought. Facebook, fixed.
Snapchat
People once dismissed Snapchat as a sexting app for teens. Now it’s mostly used for pictures that aren’t good enough for Instagram. I don’t use Snapchat, so I can’t tell you what needs to be fixed. So far, Snapchat seems like it’s been fairly successful at keeping things fun and apolitical. Let’s just hope that Anthony Weiner doesn’t show his face (what did you think I was going to say?) on there anytime soon. If Snap Inc. is looking to increase daily active users, I recommend convincing Donald Trump to release his tax returns on Snapchat (just don’t tell him screenshots are a thing).
Pinterest hasn’t yet devolved into a cesspool of alt-right fearmongering.Pinterest, you keep doing you: empowering single women to plan their dream weddings and convincing amateur chefs that soufflés really aren’t all that hard to make.
Now, if the alt-right does discover Pinterest, we’re going to see a drastic shift in the content on the wedding boards (white cone-shaped hats as bridal-shower party favors) and cooking boards (cocktails made with liberal tears, deer’s blood and gin).
It’s hard to screw up pictures of sunsets and lattes and puppies and cute kids. But like our esteemed president once said about exclamation points, “less is more” (fact check: he didn’t say that). I propose that Instagram codes an alarm that alerts frequent posters about anything cliché. A push notification will pop up right before you tap Share that reads, “Looks like you’re about to post another picture of yourself in a wedding dress. This is your 436th consecutive day of posting pictures in a wedding dress. Are you sure you wish to continue?”
I would wager that the reddit community doesn’t want to be fixed. But if you wanted to rid reddit of its conspiracy theorists, all you would need to do is send them on a conspiracy-theorist cruise without an Internet connection. This is a real thing. Google it. Speaking of…
But Google isn’t really social media, now is it? And their doodles are becoming increasingly inclusive. I’ll leave them alone for now.
I’d say my work here is done. If we follow this formula exactly, social media will be fixed for all time. I’ll accept thanks for my contribution to humanity in the form of micropayments in amounts exceeding $100.
