in Media, Musings

Sometimes walled gardens are good

I often knock Facebook as being like the new AOL: a wonderful walled garden designed to keep you from ever wandering elsewhere on the Internet. There’s some truth to that, sure. But it occurred to me that the vast majority of really inspiring, uplifting news I’ve gotten has come from sources like Facebook.

Sure, Facebook gets repetitive (“cat-video-du-jour!” “you won’t BELIEVE what happens next!”) and often the choices made by Facebook’s feed algorithm feel claustrophobic, but a lot of news offered by the traditional media seems too often biased towards the negative (“if it bleeds, it leads.”). To my surprise I’ve discovered I have soft spot for the “fluff pieces” found on Facebook.