This becomes a question of how the term social media is defined.
In its broadest
sense, anything where people can converse publicly in this way might be considered “social media”. When Martin Luther nailed his treatise to the cathedral doors in the 14th century AD it could be considered to be social media. this would also automatically include all forums and BBSes which is a phenomena dating back to before the internet as we know it was even created. There were numerous BBSes on AOL for example.
In its strictest
sense this is NOT social media because it very intentionally lacks large amounts of modern systems of tracking, bot interference, automatic referral systems, and other things that make modern social media what it is.
where do you draw the line?
the question becomes then does this particular forum share any of the issues mentioned in the article, and if so in what ways?
looking at the article, it appears to be a summary and interpretation of a survey.
The article makes
three claims:
-social media is viewed as being very inaccurate
-Social media serves to amuse and anger but also make people feel lonely and depressed.
-Social media tends to argue from limited information
Only one question is directly treated. It is interesting because of the blank space after the term “social media” implying the answers were to specific sites rather than a general question. This makes question one somewhat useless because I very highly doubt this site was included even once.
the second two points seem to be that social media tends to make emotional and frivolous arguments and often to do so from a basis of limited information.
I have seen emotion arguments made here. I have probably made a few. I think they get shot down here a lot more quickly than they do on more normal social media. I’ve been kicked off Facebook twice through concerted effort by other users for shooting down emotional arguments I saw made.
I would say some, but less than average.
the partial information thing is sort of a given, and something of an unfair complaint.
No human has complete information.
Is there a lack of complete information here? Yes. The thing is we KNOW that there is a lack of information, and we tend to precede on that basis.
I think there is more information here than in many other places. That information is still not complete though.
so what does this site share with other social media? Some things. At least partially. That few people believe what we have to say? Undoubtedly. Belief is not binary though.