Sure, sure, Chris Hughes was one of Facebook’s co-founders, helped President Obama ascend to the presidency and now owns The New Republic, but in some ways he’s just like every other millennial.
For instance, he, too, read that viral Buzzfeed piece, “30 Signs You’re Almost 30.”
“Which I saw,” he mentioned. “I’m 29 now, which makes me feel old in this room,” he laughed.
The room he was addressing was Wednesday’s Make Progress conference, the annual gathering of progressive student activists sponsored by Campus Progress (which, by the way, was renamed “Generation Progress” as of Wednesday).
There, in a rare interview, the Facebook alum discussed a downside of social media.
“I worry that when we use social media we only listen to people who agree with us,” Hughes told the crowd.
On Twitter, Hughes noted, “we follow people that we like,” and on Facebook, “we are friends with the people we already know.”
“I’m worried we may only listen to people around us, we tend to think that everyone agrees with us and anyone else who doesn’t agree with us is crazy,” he continued. “If we only listen to people we agree with, how do we actually make sure that we’re right?”
Personally, Hughes said he counters this by subscribing to publications that represent differing views.
“It’s funny that you say that–my dad’s a Republican, so growing up he subscribed to the New York Times because he wanted us to be well-rounded and he recently was like, ‘well, that backfired,’” offered student journalist Grace Tatter of UNC-Chapel Hill, who was interviewing Hughes at the liberal conference. (Hilariously enough, she accidentally introduced Hughes as the editor-in-chief of “The New Republican” when he first stepped on stage.) “But there’s something to be said about having all sorts of reading material,” Tatter added.
“Yeah, it makes it more fun, you know?” Hughes agreed.
