George R.R. Martin thinks “social media is having terrible effects on our society”

In between writing sessions for The Winds of Winter, George R.R. Martin watches movies, and the latest inspired some thoughts.

Not long ago, A Song of Ice and Fire author retreated to his mountain hideaway to concentrate on writing The Winds of Winter, the long-awaited sixth book in his series. He laid out his routine in a blog post, saying that while most of the day is spent on writing, at night he’ll allow himself time to read, or watch a movie.

Well, apparently he just got around to watching the Netflix documentary The Social Dilemma, and he has some things to say about it.

In brief, The Social Dilemma interviews some of the people who helped create and maintain some of the biggest social networking platforms of our age — Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and so forth — digging into how even though these platforms may have started with good intentions, they’ve become monolithic organizations that watch everything we do, isolate us in bubbles that make us less able to absorb new ideas, erase the lines between truth and fiction, and generally marching us towards the apocalypse.

Basically, the doc explores a lot of ideas that have been bubbling out there for a while, but brings them together in a way we can understand them, complete with fun little graphics of human beings getting tugged like puppets on strings.

Anyway, none of this sits well with Martin, who wrote on his Not a Blog that the movie “terrified me more than any horror movie I have seen in the past twenty years.”

"I have never been a fan of Twitter or Facebook or any of the other social apps out there.  My Not A Blog remains my main (and really my only) method of interfacing with the internet.   The accounts I have elsewhere largely just echo stuff I have already posted here.   I do think the social media is having terrible effects on our society… on political discourse, on journalism, on the fabric of our democracy itself.   But I do not think I ever realized how bad it was until I saw this doc."

Like he said, the idea that social media is dangerously eroding discourse has been broached before, but there’s definitely irony that he went on to share this post on Twitter where it was discussed with memes and snappy comments and all the other things that look innocuous but may subtly be driving us apart. And I’m no better; I’m gonna share this on Twitter and do my part to be part of the problem.

Are we all caught in this cycle? Is the only solution to burn our computers and run into the woods? Let’s put a pin in that and never take it out, because I have no idea what the answer is.

Also, whenever Martin makes a comment that seems to allude to our increasing polarization as a species, it’s hard not to think of the time he was cancelled online for controversial remarks he made as host of this year’s Hugo Awards. And the internet remembers that kind of stuff: it’s one of the worst and best things about it all at once. I wonder if that’s covered in the documentary.

To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.

Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels