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So I gather we’ve got a debate on social media around here. Unfortunately I can’t make tonight’s main event (though I’ll be sure to catch the video). It’s an interesting topic and I think it’s telling that so many of the younger brainiacs at AEI are chiming in on it.

But I’m also at something of a loss as to what the “and therefore what?” angle on all of this will be. As far as I can discern there’s no serious public policy aspect to this. If Roger Scruton wins and convinces everyone in the room that social media is bad for human relationships, we will be no closer to Congress banning social media.

That doesn’t mean it’s not worth debating. But I do think it points to the fact that this is less a problem looking for a solution and more a fact of life that simply has to be dealt with.

Indeed, what I find a bit amusing about all of this, as I am increasingly nostalgic for the wild west days of the Internet, is how this is really an old question gussied-up as a new one. More than a decade ago—before Facebook and Twitter—there was a lot of thumbsuckery about whether “the Internet” was bad for human interactions. See this New York Times story from 1998, “Sad, Lonely World Discovered in Cyberspace.”

Those studies proving that the worldwide web is a cold, alien realm—on the Web nobody can hear you scream!—were trotted out regularly. I always thought there was both merit and hype to the claims.

But these complaints pre-date the web. The phone was seen by many as destabilizing to human relationships and the social order—because it was! But it was also a monumental boon. The same can be said of the car, the telegraph, the ocean-going vessel, the printing press, and smoke signals. Technology is inherently destabilizing to the existing order, because the existing order builds up around existing technology. I discussed this point at some length in a piece for Reason years ago reviewing a book by Wendy Shalit, a young “neo-Victorian”:

For example: Shalit writes nostalgically about calling cards and their demise. She points out, correctly, that for most of Western history, people didn’t want unmarried men and women to be alone together, even during courtship. Calling cards expedited the courting process without rocking the boat too much. A gentleman in pursuit of a young lady would drop off a card at her home to request a personal visit. If the woman declined the invitation, both she and her suitor would be saved face-to-face embarrassment.

Shalit loves this idea, and she doesn’t seem to think there’s any reason why we can’t have it back. It has not occurred to her, apparently, that people used calling cards before we had this neat invention called the “telephone.”

Calling cards were a small part of an ongoing social compromise with the rising middle class’s increasing willingness to accept romantic choice. Arranged marriages were giving way to the insight that people should be able to select their spouse, or at least have some say in the decision. So elaborate dating rituals emerged, offering ways to pay tribute to tradition while still affording greater liberty in choosing a partner. We still use many of these rituals today, and some of the old traditions are gaining new strength. But Shalit seems unconcerned with all of this. Indeed, she likes arranged marriages too.

So yes, social media is destabilizing, but destabilization isn’t necessarily bad. Social media, like so many other technologies, improves some relationships while it damages others  and changes most.

More to the point, this is a “problem” without much of a solution. I suppose it couldn’t hurt for guidance counselors and parents to know that social media has its downsides, but I’m not sure that’s news to anybody, particularly the people who use social media the most—young’ns. I suspect that there’s not a boy or girl in Christendom who wouldn’t rather spend 3D time with friends or who doesn’t understand at some level that living entirely on the computer or the cellphone is lame. At the end of the day, though, you’ve got to trust that people will figure that out and act accordingly on their own, because the “problem” isn’t going away.