Former Facebook executive Chamath Palihapitiya shared his thoughts about the impact social media has had on society to an audience at the Stanford Graduate School of Business saying, “I think we have created tools that are ripping apart the social fabric of how society works,” The Verge reports.
With his comments, which he made in November, Palihapitiya joins the club of big names in tech speaking out about the negative influence of the technologies they’ve helped create, especially when they’re overused or misused, including former Facebook president Sean Parker and iPhone designer Jony Ives. Palihapitiya joined Facebook in 2007 and was a vice president for user growth. He now runs his own VC firm focused on funding companies in sectors like education and health care.
Palihapitiya told the audience that they should take a “hard break” from social media, adding that he uses Facebook as little as possible and doesn’t allow his children to use Facebook either.
As The Verge’s James Vincent notes, Palihapitiya’s criticisms weren’t all Facebook-specific, and he did go on to say that Facebook “overwhelmingly does good in the world.” Instead, he focused on how the attention economy of the internet has warped our interactions both on-and-offline.
“The short-term, dopamine-driven feedback loops we’ve created are destroying how society works,” Palihapitiya said. “No civil discourse, no cooperation; misinformation, mistruth. And it’s not an American problem—this is not about Russian ads. This is a global problem.”
Read more on The Verge.