Is Social Media Destroying Society? | Twitter Fingers | Anti-Social Social Club | B2B Vault - The Biz To Biz Podcast

3 Jul 2024 · 29 min

B2B Vault: The Biz To Biz Podcast

3 Jul 2024 · 29 min

0:00

In this episode of the Biz to Biz Podcast, hosts Justin and an unnamed co‑host (referred to as Speaker B) explore whether social media is destroying society. The conversation opens with light‑hearted banter about 1970s‑80s TV shows before moving into the core question. They argue that digital communication—text, instant messaging, and social platforms—has eroded face‑to‑face conversational skills, citing personal anecdotes about awkward gym encounters and their own introverted tendencies. The hosts discuss how the COVID‑19 lockdown intensified reliance on screens, leading to heightened anxiety, trauma, and a surge in online hostility. Parental concerns surface when Justin recounts his youngest daughter’s experience with cyber‑bullying, illustrating how platforms enable harassment that would have been limited to in‑person teasing in earlier generations. A substantial portion of the dialogue focuses on the concentration of power among a handful of tech giants—Meta (Mark Zuckerberg), Google, Microsoft, and Apple—highlighting their legal immunities, control over information flow, and potential to shape public opinion, even to the point of influencing real‑world events. They touch on cancel culture, scams, and the difficulty of fact‑checking in an environment where any opinion can be presented as truth. The hosts acknowledge the “gift and curse” nature of social media: it offers networking, business opportunities, and personal connections (e.g., meeting spouses), yet also propagates misinformation, amplifies negative attention, and can stifle diverse viewpoints. The episode concludes with a call for listeners to weigh both sides, recognize the power dynamics at play, and consider the need for greater oversight. Overall, the podcast presents a conversational, informal, and at times skeptical tone, blending personal stories with broader societal critique, and leaves listeners with a nuanced view that social media is neither wholly destructive nor wholly beneficial.

Chapters

You are now watching the Biz to Biz Podcast with Allen and Justin.
Hold everybody up.
Yo, what's up everybody? It's Justin live from B2B Vault, the Biz to Biz Podcast sponsored by Nationwide Payment Systems, hosted by this guy, the Jack Tripper of payment processing himself, Allen Kopelman. And in today's podcast, we'll be, uh, discussing, uh, if social media is to blame for destroying society, you know, as a whole, in a whole? It's a pretty heavy question, very loaded.
Definitely a loaded question. But now you have to explain who Jack Tripper is.
Jack Tripper was, as a shorty, man, I watched Three's Company. It was a TV show.
He lived with two girls.
He lived with two girls, and the blonde—
Suzanne Somers.
Oh, I love that lady.
She was hot. She was hot. Yes, she was. She would dress in those tight outfits.
Yeah, she, uh, yeah, the landlord was crazy. That was the blonde one.
Yeah, right.
The landlord was a trip. That was a— it was just a late night I would watch that show if I was, you know, breaking curfew, I guess. And then Benny Hill would come on after that.
Benny Hill was crazy.
I love that shit. That shit.
But the whole premise was, is the actor was whatever. He was pretending to— he wanted to be roommates with the two girls, and he had a— he was faking out the landlord, thought he was gay, but he wasn't, right? So it was a whole scam because they didn't want a guy living with two girls in the apartment.
No diddy.
Anyway, I don't know, wasn't good in the '70s.
It just was funny to call him Jack Tripper.
Okay, he was funny. What's— what's John Ritter is the actor.
He was John Ritter. Yeah, that was his name.
Yes, he was awesome.
The '80s has some great— the '80s and '90s had— well, that was probably like the late '70s, huh?
Yeah, '70s and '80s definitely had like the best TV.
Remember Alf?
Yeah, you couldn't— first of all, 80% of the shows on in the '70s and '80s you couldn't even show today on TV. People would be losing their complete mind over— oh yeah, the stuff that was said on TV, done on TV.
No, even the Home Improvement, the movie, the show Home Improvement. Imagine Married with Children. Married with Children on right now.
No, they would not.
Ted Bundy.
No, you cannot have that. Ted Bundy? Oh my God, he was insane.
Was that his name?
Al Bundy. Al Bundy.
Yeah, not Ted Bundy. He was a serial killer, sorry.
Yeah, Al Bundy.
Al Bundy.
And he worked in the shoe store. Yeah, he would say the craziest stuff. There's a lot of shows. I mean, Larry David Show, right? I mean, that—
Curb Your Enthusiasm.
Curb Your Enthusiasm, pretty much like you couldn't show that on regular TV.
Always Sunny in Philadelphia was pretty off the chain too. They would push it to the limit. But other than that, yeah, none.
Danny DeVito.
All those guys. All those guys and the woman. That was— they were—
but Larry David, you cannot— that cannot be on regular television. No way.
There's Always Sunny in Philadelphia shouldn't have been on regular television.
That's why it's not on TV anymore. They don't even show reruns.
It is on TV.
They show reruns? Yeah. Okay.
Comedy Central, I think.
Anyway, how you doing, man? I mean, Johnny Carson, you couldn't show half the stuff he said either.
No. Well, today's date is June 27th, Thursday, 2024.
Yeah, we're finishing up another month.
It's insane. It's approximately 1:41 AM—
PM, not AM.
11:41 AM.
Oh, 11:41 AM. Yeah, it is the mornings though.
Yeah, yeah, it's still the morning. It's early for some people.
If you're on the West Coast, it's like 3 hours earlier.
It's like 9 o'clock.
3, 8, 8:40.
Yeah, like 9 o'clock.
Yeah, almost 9 o'clock. It's time to get in the car and get on your way to the office if you work at the office, or get ready to fire up the computer. It's so crazy.
Just real quick, randomly, like back up, you know, in the Midwest where I'm from, Milwaukee, like jobs expect people to be there like at 6:00 in the morning. Oh yeah, 6:00.
An office job? That's great.
That's nice. Well, office job, 8, you're pushing at 9.
Well, you know, a lot of people got to keep East Coast hours. So you have— if you have to keep East Coast hours, if most, you know, then you're walking up like we're— you're in the Central Time Zone, like there's no, uh, no tomorrow.
I used to get pissed off, like, man. Anyway, anyway, man, so Sean, the video editor and the idea generator for the podcast, as of late, um, he's been doing a great job, um, came up with a question for us and said, uh, do you— what do we got— what do we think about social media destroying society? And it kind of caught me off guard because, you know, it's a heavy-ass question, right?
It is heavy, but it's, you know, it's definitely changed how people communicate. You know, the whole electronic way of communicating with people.
Digital.
Digitally and not being in person. I mean, we've talked about before, like, conventions are not always attended as well as they used to be. Although I was just at a convention, I was very well attended.
I don't think social media has anything to do with that.
No, but I'm saying a lot of people were doing online networking.
That's all because of COVID Yeah.
But a lot of that—
Social media destroying society, it's not from—
No, I think the way people interact with each other or talk to each other through electronic communication, email, mostly, I would say text messaging and instant messaging has, has, has made everybody like, oh, I can— they're just hiding behind the screen.
Well, I mean, yeah, in some cases for sure, but I think what, what you're trying to say is, is like people have lost the skill of how to communicate verbally amongst each other personally, interpersonally, and being able to have a conversation with a complete stranger. I was literally having this conversation right now about people not being able to talk to people last night in the gym with this guy who wears like Michael Jordans to work out, like different pair of Jordans every day to work out in. And I just was like, bro, my wife is a sneakerhead. And if I wore one of my like nice sneakers to the gym, she would lose her shit.
Right.
And this guy's wearing $200, $300, $400, $500 sneakers and working out in them. I mean, I'm all for you. You got to wear your sneakers. You know, you invested the money in it. Wear the shit, right? But whatever. Anyway, but me and him were talking and he was like, yeah, people, you know, the younger generation doesn't know how to just talk. And as a dad, you know, I'm sure you can relate to this on some level. You know, your kids are a little bit older than mine. Well, not all of them, but, um, for the most part, you know, my kids have literally came up underneath it, right? Right. You know what I mean? Like TikTok and all this, uh, Snapchat and all this other shit.
And it's an endless array of apps.
It has been. It's been like an onslaught. Yeah, like a straight up warfare of parental supervision against like these weird companies that are exploiting the youth's talents and weaknesses, right?
Well, to get attention, you know, they're getting attention in person or are they getting attention online through clicks and likes?
And yeah, kids are going to get attention whether it's positive or negative attention.
Yes.
And, you know, unfortunately when they're getting, when they're seeking attention to the point where they're doing shit that causes negative reactions, then it's time to do some assessing. But my kids never, I mean, I don't wanna say they were like perfect on social media, but It's, it's definitely affected them.
Well, you have to watch what you say on social media too, because people can get canceled. All of a sudden, all your friends get mad at you because you express your opinion, and they don't— people don't want you to express an opinion one way or another. We've seen that happen. People—
I mean, if they are upset by your opinion and to the point where they don't want to— I don't know, were they ever your friend anyway? Because I feel like, how the hell would you be expressing something that they didn't already know about you?
Well, it could be somebody that you know, like say from high school, that you know for 30 years.
I don't give a fuck.
Sorry. No, I'm just saying.
And then I'm literally so tired of that conversation, you know. For me, I, I goes back to a, uh, a lyric from OutKast, Andre 3000 was, he was like in one of his first records. You remember? Well, not first, the second album. You remember me from school? No, not really. And he kept smiling at me like a clown facial expression, looking silly, you know? And I, it's not that I don't remember people, it's just like, and I'm not trying to be rude or anything and shit, but like, you know, We've all grown and moved on in life.
Well, yeah, you change in your life and your things, whatever you go on, and that those things as you're moving through life, you know, you change your opinion or you change how you think about things as you get older. Maybe you have kids, somebody else doesn't have children, they think differently than you think.
Yeah, right. Like, speaking of, like with the social media thing, you know, when just on the communication thing, right? Like that's why they're so, I don't wanna say awkward, but socially awkward. Like I'm socially awkward too, right? Like I, and that's, but that's way before social media existed. You know what I'm saying? Like it's just, I'm just that I'm a quiet person, right? Like, I don't typically like to talk very much when I'm around a group of people. Like, I'm not really very talkative if I don't know those people. Right. Which can lead for it to be a socially awkward situation. Like, if everyone else is talking and it's just this guy standing in the corner not saying shit, like, it's kind of strange. But I think that, I mean, not everybody's a social butterfly, so. No, but I think like social media has, for me it's helped like to connect with people that I wouldn't normally connect with, right?
Okay.
And establish, 'cause like people who are like me, right? Who were just awkward that way, you know? I don't know.
Like, I mean, I think social media, like, you can, you know, if you're on Facebook or, you know, you're on a different whatever platform you're on and you connect with people in different groups that you have something in common with, you can meet people from all over the world. Like, I've met people from all over.
So that's what I'm saying, like, so destroying society is a harsh criticism of what social media—
yeah, but I think that it's kind of like put people where like, oh, I'm behind this screen, I can say everything. And there's a lot of people getting scammed by these scammers through text messaging.
It doesn't matter, we're talking about social media, not scamming. And I mean, scam is going to happen everywhere and everything. Like, social media to me is a gift and a curse and shit, right? Like It's unfortunate that we have to be in a— that we live in a society where there's like cyberbullying going on, right? Right. Yeah. And so social media is like the gateway to that, you know what I mean?
Exactly.
And my second, the youngest daughter, like, really, you know, we didn't know, but like recently just had really been like been getting cyberbullied for a really long time, you know what I mean? And So that, that's, but then again, that goes to like negative attention, you know, this child seeking something else by trying to destroy another child. You know what I mean? And social media, the only reason that this was even available to happen was because of social media. Right.
Right.
Because she, there was a platform for her to have access to. And she could continue to, you know, torment my daughter, I guess you could say.
Yeah, it's like an equivalent of like when I was younger, if kids were teasing you.
And yeah, no, it's a lot worse than that.
Right, that's what I'm saying. It's way worse. That was in person.
And they said something to you and being able to react, you know, like for me, like growing up in the '8, man, growing up, man, like, man, it's so different for these kids because like you couldn't be soft, right? Like you couldn't be scary and shit. Like, right, like say you ran into the house because some kids was trying to jump you, right? My mom would be like, no, you got to go back outside and finish what was going on because they're obviously scared of you because they want to, you know, there's 8 of them on you. Right. Why is there 8 of them? Because they're afraid of you. Or the guy that got the other guys—
the instigator, right?
Yeah, he's the one, he's the one that's afraid of you. So now go, go confront all of them, right? You know what I mean? Like, that was the kind of, you know what I mean, mentality that I would have, you know what I'm saying, growing up.
Yeah.
So like, I have thick skin. You could say, right? You know, growing up where I grew up, like, but so like social media never bothered me. But when you don't see this person, you never had an opportunity.
Well, that's where I get it. That's where I talk about when you, when you express your opinion, it's very easy for somebody to attack you on social media because they don't have to look you in the eye.
Oh, absolutely.
And you know, 100% people are addicted to their screens. So people are on their phone.
And I'm guilty as shit of, you know, like using social media as a journal, right? Yeah. Sometimes. And that's not what that's for. It's not for, you know, like I said something on social media. Oh, some people cry. It caused a whole issue.
Oh, it did?
Okay. Like it's still going. You know what I mean? So, and I'm a grown-ass man, and I will accept that as, you know, I put my foot in my mouth type of situation.
Okay.
Where what I said didn't need to be said, it was already known.
Okay.
You know what I mean? Like, so, you know, it is what it is. Like, I— but I'm gonna live in the truth though, right? Like, and that's literally what my post was, is like, I said I said what I said, and if I said it, I meant it. I don't bite my tongue for no one, you know what I mean? Like, so like, also that's a Biggie lyric.
No, but some people, their whole life is on social media. Oh, I woke up, uh, you know, or they post the pictures of their dog. Like, everybody knows who my dog is because they all say, oh, put pictures of Rocky. Everybody wants to see Rocky.
Yeah, so whatever. So I mean, but like I think that to like stay on the question of like destroying society, I think it's changed the way people communicate with each other. Absolutely.
And it's altered that.
Well, is that social media or is that the internet?
It's caused by, I think that—
I think it started with email.
I think it started a little bit with email, with text messaging.
Instant messaging.
Instant messaging. And then, when we had COVID and everything was in a lockdown, it basically like made things 50 times worse than it was before.
I honestly will say that I think my kids got PTSD from COVID I think a lot of people did. I'm serious. Like, if you've never been in jail, like I honestly think that a lot of people are traumatized. For me, it wasn't shit.
No, like for me, like, When I got—
I'm not saying like I was some jailbird, but yo, listen, like I didn't—
No, no, but I'm just saying like every day I get up, I go for a walk outside, right?
That didn't change during COVID They tried to scare people into believing that they're not supposed to walk outside.
Right.
And I was like, no, we're going outside.
Yeah, so I would go outside, go for a walk. I mean, there was one lady in my neighborhood, and I'm not exaggerating. Okay. This lady was wearing Playtex gloves like your mom would use to wash dishes back in the day. You know what I'm talking about?
Those gloves that she would use those to do, clean the bathroom. Right.
Exactly. So, you know, there was this woman, she had Playtex gloves on, she had on a mask, then she had on a whole plastic thing going all the way 360 around her head. With a huge hat on, she would see me coming with my dog and like run across the street.
Yeah.
I mean, what—
COVID traumatized a lot of people, but I think like— but when I think of it like as how COVID affected people and social media has the effect on people to this day, like, you know, it's just when there's no you got no one to supervise like your mind, right? So, you know, people post some pretty nasty things online and it spreads, you know, because people don't fact check. And I think that's one of my biggest—
well, let's not even get into fact checking because what one person says is the truth, and somebody else says isn't true, who's the arbiter of all that? Now, when they first made Facebook and it was just wide open, right? You know, when Facebook first came out and it was just, you know, all hell breaking loose.
I was, bro, word is bond. Like, I was the guy that was anti all this shit. Like, when all this first started, like, I didn't want an email address. I didn't want to be connected online. I didn't want my pictures uploaded. I didn't want any of it. I didn't.
No, I get it.
But I was like, I was still a rapper. So the little bro Julian was like, he's the conduit to everything, was like, yo, you need a Facebook, you need a MySpace, you need a— blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And he literally that night just linked up Jake, like everything that day, like right then and there. And it changed my life, to be honest, because it definitely made me realize how the internet is so powerful. And how, you know, when you say something online, that it echoes for a very long distance if what you say is impactful, right? Or controversial or—
Disgusting.
Stupid. You know what I mean? You know what I mean? So like, I think that people don't, that don't have like, class, right? Or who don't know or who don't have empathy, right? Aren't social people anyway, right? So then now they have this platform to say whatever the hell they want to say. And it really does affect a lot of people more so than—
No, I think the biggest problem today is with these social media platforms, they have this 230 exemption. And those— the companies who run— and I don't care, I'm saying it like it is— the people who run Google, Microsoft, you know, Microsoft runs LinkedIn, they run— whoever runs Facebook, Twitter, all these platforms, right? They have way too much immunity from the government. And they have way too much control over what people think. Because if you really want to get down to it, if you put the head guy from Google, Mark Zuckerberg, in a room together and they decided something—
I mean, whole wars have been started on Facebook in like Chicago, Milwaukee, Detroit, you know. I mean, I, I'm saying, no, but I'm just saying that I'm from like, so like What you're saying, you're right. Like, because, you know, Facebook, there's a team of people on there and they're like, yo, who's monitoring these accounts of these people who are talking about, you know, going to do these shootings or whatever, like to burn businesses down and shit like that. You know what I'm saying? So like, it's crazy that, that these platforms exist. And they're being used in such a manner, right?
Right. But I'm— but what I'm saying—
what I understand what you're saying is like the government is basically letting the shit happen.
No, but what I'm saying is, is you basically got two people.
You mean to tell me the feds ain't listening, don't have like direct contact with every—
they're not supposed to.
I know they— I mean, but that's—
but what I'm saying is, is if you get—
and it might not be the feds, it could be the CIA, the We don't know what they do, but I'm just saying, if you got—
listen, I grew up, you know, I'm around, I'm 64 years old, okay? When I was growing up, you had a newspaper. You don't have newspapers anymore, which was propaganda. Okay, no, whatever, I'm just saying. But you had the news outlets were much different. There were laws that got taken off the books where certain— you couldn't own multiple news outlets in one area of the country. Okay. You couldn't own all the news outlet in one city. You couldn't own multiple news outlets. And most TV stations were independently owned.
Right.
And the owner would get on there and go, well, my opinion about what they're doing in the city of Miami is blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
But the station kind of reflected on what his beliefs were.
No, no, no.
Yeah, yeah.
But what I'm saying is, what I'm saying is you got an opinion of one guy. Now we have the opinion of two people, two people, the guy who runs Google and Mark Zuckerberg. Okay. They are controlling what people and what you think. Unless you go and look beyond all that and look at other things, they can influence a lot of stuff.
That's what I was telling Sean the other day about when we were talking about just doing brainstorm about what we were going to talk about today.
Today. And, uh, and I think they have too much power.
I think that it's crazy that, uh, I mean, Mark Zuckerberg controls 3 platforms. We're in this state of—
no, I'm just saying, Mark Zuckerberg controls 3 platforms: Threads, Facebook, and Instagram. You got Google controlling most of the internet, and you got Microsoft controlling most of the email. And Google. Okay, and that's a big problem because it's 3 people that can influence a lot of stuff. And even Apple could be thrown in there too. And it's a big pro— I think it's a major problem that you got 4 people that are basically— if they all got together, they could control the news, they could control the narrative of what's going on, they can control— they have way, way, way too much control.
Well, that's what I was trying to say, is like social media people get on social media and they read something about, you know, some, uh, a political figure or, you know, somebody of importance. It could be just somebody on TV, but the article was written by some kid in New Zealand, right? And there's no fact to it. It's just an opinion piece.
And, well, everybody's got an opinion, and now they're sharing it.
And, and, you know, people are, are are living by it like it's a new law written. You know, that's the problem. You know what I mean? Like social media has a, it's literally a gift and a curse, man. Like shout out to social media for being a great business tool. You know what I mean? Like getting new customers. But on a level of, personal, like human being thing, I think that social media has a lot of negative impacts, but also still has, you know, there is some positive impacts about social media. You know, I know a couple homies who have found wives because of social media, you know what I mean? And they're happy and they got kids and stuff like that.
You know, that's it. There's good and there's bad. But the one thing that I don't like is I think that you have 4 companies in the US that basically, and they're, forget the US, they're worldwide, they have too much control over society right now.
I mean, if YouTube can monitor what we're talking about.
Yeah, but it's owned by Google.
No, listen, but what I'm saying, if YouTube can monitor what we're talking about on the podcast, but, and like literally cancel the channel in a blink of an eye.
Right.
But, you know, you're letting people plan, um, you know, wild things on Instagram and Facebook and, well, I don't, I don't know, whatever, all these other platforms. You know, I think that, you know, that people need to— it needs to be more control. That's all.
Yeah, there's two— the problem is, is those four companies have too much control, right?
And they're not letting other people have an opinion on how things should be run.
Their opinion is, is, is law.
Yeah, man. I mean, tell us what you think about that for sure. You got to take the good with the bad.
You got to tell us what you think about it. Yeah, let us know.
Smash the subscribe button. Thank you for tuning in. Check us out next Wednesday, Friday, whatever is good for you. But we'll always be here for you, man.
Peace out. Carpe diem.
B2B Vol.
Peace.