Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for January 19, 2025

“Now that we’re focused on our phones, let’s wander into traffic!”

But on GoComics, your posts can be deleted just because somebody doesn’t like your opinion and flags your post.

How does avoiding social media fix social media? If he stops using social media, the problems he complains about will still exist.

Needs to get on Bucky Katt’s “Anti social website”

I GET why Tictok is banned now. I watched Smerconish today and it is less about spying and more about false news. trump even admits that Tictoc was a major factor in his duping Americans. That is why he is now in love with the app which he once hated!

Would you provide a link to the website where he says what you quote? Thank you.

Another interesting book on the topic is “The Anxious Generation” by Jonathan Haidt. But I think it may already be too late. The Fermi Paradox looks more and more bleak…

Same as 80s TV, 90s radio … back to Tanakh, Bible and Koran. I’m sensing a pattern here.

Goat needs some new friends.

A person could easily fall into the social media black hole of untruths and opinions, I limit my interactions to music I like and old friend’s conversation!

Mastodon is social media and has no algorithm to speak of, just a chronological feed. You get what you follow.

Of course, it couldn’t be the “real” media or the oppressive government making people angry or divided. Just consume and listen to us and all will be peaceful.

Trump Inauguration on MLK Day! Go Irony that one out for yourselves…on SOCIAL MEDIA!!

My online guilty pleasure is car crash videos. I’m not sure, but I think this makes me a bad person.

My FB “Reels” shove road rage and brake-checking dash cam vids in my face. I skip over them now.

I saw an article about the disruptor impact of the printing press. It wasn’t printing the Bible (which was important) but that one of the most popular books was about how to find witches. (“300-year terror: How the printing press fueled witch hunts, misinformation in Europe.”) So…here we are 300 years later.

Don’t blame social media. The bible tells us the human heart is the most deceitful and wicked thing. (Jeremiah 17:9). There is no cure but Jesus.

Those who most need to read the book won’t put their phones down long enough to do so.

I’m going to look for this at my library.

That explains so much.

So true. It’s called a .“strong take”. And it pervades more than social media. We are over stimulated. And this has had major effects on all aspects of society. As I like to say. Too Much Information!!

It’s time it was re-titled ‘Anti-social Media’.

It’s no accident that Donnie and Emo both own social media companies. Just watch, one or the other will buy TT

Does the Chaos Machine provide guns?

Anonymity also seems to increase hostility and name calling. For all many know, those they are arguing and denigrating with are actually someone they consider a friend.

Why do I try? Why?

Maybe Zebra would be more interested in my information.

Humans. So stupid.

The book is only half true. The media companies show users what the users engage with. It just so happens that most people choose to engage with the divisive antagonistic comments of others. The users who engage with these comments create a cycle of hate for themselves.

I never engage with these posts and therefore I rarely see them. When I do see them in search results, I block the account posting it. I’ve create a cycle of the no-hate.

TikTok and the like need to be banned for more reasons than “the Chinese are spying on us”.

Most “Social Media” is for weak-minded people,imo…

Careful Pig. Around here, simply having a different opinion will get one labeled an “enemy.”

This comic outrages me!

Which is why I don’t have any social media accounts. YouTube I use for help in figuring out a problem like cooking shows or how to fix things when the directions are not clear enough, etc.

I’ve actually deleted Facebook off of my phone. More time for meaningful (relatively speaking) pursuits.

The Social Dillema is a very good documentary on this.

How do they profit from it?

And the beat goes on……

Nailed it Pastis.

“Gen Z Upset About TikTok Ban For 4.3 Seconds, Which Is The Maximum Amount Of Time They Can Focus On Something Thanks To TikTok”—Babylon Bee

In a nutshell, “In chaos there is profit”.

“If everyone lit just one little candle, what a bright world this would be”—plus we’d burn down Facebook!

Sure, based on this logic, J6 was all social media’s fault (not the fact that there some truly awful people in this country). That doesn’t discount Goat’s original point, of course. We can hold both ideas without them canceling each other out.

“The Chaos Machine: The Inside Story of How Social Media Rewired Our Minds and Our World”Book by Max Fisher

From the Wikipedia article, Donald Trump–TikTok controversy

In 2020, the United States government announced that it was considering banning the Chinese social media platform TikTok upon a request from then-president Donald Trump, who viewed the app as a national security threat. The result was that TikTok owner ByteDance—which initially planned on selling a small portion of TikTok to an American company—agreed to divest TikTok to prevent a ban in the United States and in other countries where restrictions are also being considered due to privacy concerns, which themselves are mostly related to its ownership by a firm based in China.

… lots of discussion covering intervening years …

The discussion makes it pretty clear to me that if you use Tik-Tok, the Chinese can and will get information about you. That’s more non-partisan than ever.

In March 2024, Trump reversed his position on banning TikTok, and began advocating against banning the app. Trump argued that while the app’s national security and data privacy concerns should still be addressed, banning TikTok would empower Facebook, which he labeled the “enemy of the people.”83 This announcement followed Trump’s meeting with Jeff Yass, a Republican donor who owns a “significant stake” in ByteDance and who had supported Trump’s Republican primary opponents Ron DeSantis and Vivek Ramaswamy earlier in the 2024 campaign cycle.84

With Trump, money talks. With Meta (formerly Facebook) now on board with sending Trump “inauguration donations” perhaps Trump will go back to supporting the ban. We’ll see.

And if you are not too freaking lazy and/or hypocritical, you can check out the references for yourself.

If people didn’t have the desire to be liked and be right all the time, most of those problems would go away

I wonder if Pastis got paid for the book promo?

Since Gutenberg invented the printing press many have had the same warnings to humanity. The Catholic Church said the Gutenberg Bible was the work of satan. The media, newspapers then radio, TV and now the internet, each would bring the ruination of humanity. It seems that the more information the masses have, the more difficult it is to herd them in. It has been demonstrated that manipulating the information can control people. It has been done since, and was done in Germany in the 1930s, and is being done today in the U.S. Past manipulations have been eventually defeated. Can we defeat this manipulation again?

Panel #2: Finally! Someone knows how to use a possessive plural apostrophe.I was chastised over it a few days ago.

Social Media is a tool…….we have free will ………..can be used for Good or Evil, like most things.

Like the song said long ago “mostly say, ‘hooray for our side’”, whatever side that happens to be.

Darn, and just about the time I was almost about ready to join TikTok.

That’s a really good book. It motivated me to cut back on my social media usage and I’m glad I did.

I deleted both me Facebook and X accounts this week. From now on it is only blue skies for me. Love that MAGA, republicans, fascists, racists all get blocked when they try to get on the site.

My YouTube Short algorithm recently has given me cuts from SUPERNATURAL, Lucy Thomas songs, and baking videos. You get what you watch and click.

Huh, that seems to work with comics, too.

I find that reading the posts on select social media platforms makes me feel so much better about myself, it’s almost worth the terror of knowing those people are allowed to drive and vote.

This would be a lot funnier if it wasn’t so true. :-(

I have Darwin Awards on my daily feed.

Last panel: A lot of people probably feel the same way as Pig.

That’s running away, Goat. You wanna combat it, combat with patience, acceptance, and compromise. It’s a thorny road with a LOOOOOOOOOOT of nasty obstacles, but the finish line is worth it. Every time.