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Who Has a Better Memory? A Goldfish or a Human Being?
Looking at the uptake in Zuckerberg’s Threads, my money is on the former.
Who has a longer working memory? A human or a goldfish? If you look at the most recent social media behaviors of our species, it’s a coin toss. Our fishy friends seem to be able to remember when something is dangerous or bad for them. Not our species. While we point the finger (wrongly) at the short-lived memories of our bowl-dwelling friends, one really has to wonder where the more powerful penchant for recall and self-preservation lies.
When Mark Zuckerberg’s released his newest platform, Threads, in early July it changed the conversation around this question (for those paying attention). Even after the devastating revelations surrounding Cambridge Analytica, millions of users from around the world flocked to the billionaire’s latest endeavor.
People whose personal information had been sold to companies the globe over —in order to manipulate their voting and buying habits — clambered to create profiles and interact with celebrities. They uploaded pictures, locations, and heaps of new information about themselves that the company could use (free of the Meta stain). All of this despite the recirculation of the CEO’s infamous “dumb f*cks” quotes and his obvious disdain for his own…
