In PART I of my five part series on social media I explored a possible end of social media (SM) that may have sounded a
bit like science fiction. In PARTs 2-4 I want to explore the process instead of
the product.
PART 1: The Matrix :: PARTs 2-4 : The "Real
World"
Social media has such a broad based appeal from
the middle school student to the older generations in large part because of its
entertainment value. Who among us who is plugged into the Network has not been
bored and instinctually reached for their nearest SM app or website? It's
nothing new. We have had similar screened interventions into our boredom for
decades. Before the TV and the Internet we had radio. Before that we had books.
Humans seemed to be hard-wired to distract ourselves from the world around us.
However, books and radio never seemed quite as addictive as TV and TV not as
much as SM. SM it seems to me is like digital nicotine. Why? PART 2 is about
its entertainment value.
If you have ever been addicted to cigarettes as
I once was then you know the insatiable longing or draw to satisfy your lusts.
It is as if a void exists within you that can only be filled with your vice. SM
seems to work the same way. For some reason we cannot seem to pick up the ol'
digital mainframe for a scheduled and limited amount of time. Whenever we sign
out or close the tab there is a nagging feeling like we are missing something.
It's like FOMO (fear of missing out) to the nth degree. Why? The attainment and
illusion of enrichment.
There used to be this concept in society known
as a secret. For those of you who aren't familiar these secrets
were bits (no pun intended) of information that only you and sometimes those
closest to you were privy to. For example, if you knew how to make Grandma's
secret World's Best Apple Pie then you kept it to yourself. Only you and a
select few others knew how to make the best pie in town. Now, if Grandma gives
you that recipe would you not be inclined to share it with everyone else? Why
does Joe Met-At-A-Party-Once deserve to know your family's time tested
tradition? For the "likes"? Another example of a secret is
when you found that hole in the wall restaurant that had the best happy hour
that quickly became your favorite restaurant. These days, it quickly becomes
everybody's favorite. Such experiences are not secrets anymore because they are
instantly shared and consequently instantly diluted.
Is all of this sharing bad? Not necessarily.
Most of our mamas and papas told us that sharing was good. C.S. Lewis once said
that praise not merely expresses, but completes enjoyment. Though it
comes with a cost, by sharing we are fulfilling our enjoyment of the pie and
the restaurant by giving it to our Network and consequently the world.
The flip side is true too. How many times have
we made Grandma's World's Best Apple Pie or visited Jody's new favorite hole in
the wall only to find them to be our new favorite pie and restaurant? How many
new artists have we found that we had never heard of before? How many of our
days have been brightened by Colonel Meow or the endless list of other cat
memes? The list of enriching experiences goes on and on. But what has been
shared with your network becomes the property of The Network.
For the avid social media enthusiast their
network is earned by the quality of their posts. Some are judged by their
"likes" and others by their frequency. Either way information is
popularized based on algorithms of engagement. However, the "look at me"
factor always exists. It is as if we molded a digital ball of information and
tossed it into the ether to be suspended, viewed, and reviewed at the leisure
of our "friends" while we wait around to be validated for our work.
However, sometimes we want a return on our investment.
In my time as a Node[1]
I have noticed that folks tend to throw information out into the Network that
they hope will yield a return. Social media is a great outlet for public
service announcements. I have seen individuals post "missing bills"
for children and pets, weather advisories, school closings, environmental
impact studies, and a host of other informational material that the poster is
hoping that other Nodes in their Network will connect to. I have often wondered
why there has been such a spike in this use of SM as a bulletin board for PSAs.
Has online posting become a substitute for civic engagement? No doubt one could
just turn on the TV for dire public information, but it seems that SM has
democratized what is viewed as important. No longer does the Corporation
or newsroom producers decide what is put before your eyes. You decide
based on who is in your Network. I don't know whether posting has become a substitute
for other forms of sharing information that the public needs to know, but
it is certainly an easy way to do it. However, this ease comes at a
cost. When information is democratized then the floodgates are broken and
critical information gets garbled in with the white noise. The missing child is
just another post below the cat video and the recipe for Grandma's pie.
Lastly, I would not be doing the entertainment
aspect of SM justice if I did not include a few words on conflict. The great
democratization of public information comes with a blessing and a curse. The
blessing is access. Any person within a certain network can access a treasure
trove of information that has been posted in that network. However, everyone
that can view a post can comment on it and there is no cauldron for anger,
tirades, and trolling like SM. We are all different people with different
political and social views. As a matter of fact these views are often so
complex that it would take several conversations with another person just to
figure out what their views are, but the Network is structured such that a) you
are put into a few boxes by certain categories and b) are given an impetus,
incentive, and the freedom to comment on someone's views at face (or screen)
value. You do not have to look someone in the face; You do not have to read
their body language; And you can assume whatever you want about a person (often
the worse given the volatile political climates we live in) without risking
anything.[2] How many
times have we seen someone lambast another person for their political views?
How many names have you seen someone call someone else from behind the safety
of their computer screens? How much pain has been caused from ex-lovers who
take their revenge out on digital walls instead of confronting their emotions
like real world adults? I have not even been privy to the SM profiles of
younger kids. I can only imagine the cruelty. Bullying was bad enough when
there was one bully in school because he was bigger than everybody else. When
the Network levels the bullying playing field… God(s) have mercy. Our avatars
are a lot more comfortable expressing their ids than our real world
counterparts.
I began PART 2 by talking about cat pics, apple
pie, and restaurant ratings before moving on to more sanguine topics like missing
children, angry tirades of ex-lovers, and cyber bullying. You may ask:
"Why? I thought this PART was about entertainment." It is—entertainment
comes at a cost. While we may appreciate recipes, restaurants, and cute animals
we are forgetting about the time in between. How many posts do you scroll
through before you find that nugget of gold? How much time elapses before you
cling on long enough to someone's post for it to enrich your life? How many
posts do you make a day? Why? What are you gaining by it? My argument is
distraction. Life is so hard and so complicated that we will jump at any
opportunity to enrich our lives and/or forget about the days troubles. The
problem is that enrichment is few and far in between. The rest of the time is
spent in a mind-numbing brave new world of searching. We are spending our lives
online waiting for a real world experience that will never come and parading
our passions in the meantime.
Then there are the interactions. As a tool SM
is one of the greatest inventions humanity has devised. It is the great
flattener of personal access, but like entertainment access comes at a cost. We
do not talk to people; we talk to Nodes. We do not look into someone's
eyes; we look at their profile pics. And we do not treat them as complex
individuals full of hopes, dreams, and fears; we treat them as another set of
blinking lights to be liked or ignored. The results of these interactions can
vary from respectful philosophical debate to downright hatred and vilification.
And no matter the outcome the possibilities are addictive.
In PART 1 I argued that SM is creating a parallel world where we
create ghosts or idealized avatars of ourselves that interact with each other
in a web of connections that mimics a community. When we post a recipe, a
review, or a tirade we are creating patterns (if not the neural pathways) of
our digital selves in the hopes that they will be received and validated. When
we review the posts of our "friends" I find that we are often
absent-minded and scrolling. SM—it seems to me—is the 21st Century opiate of
the masses. When we do engage on an open topic it is often with blind eyes and
a mute heart. Whether our reactions are positive or negative they are not the
full story. Like our ghosts our posts, "likes", and comments are mere
shades of our inclinations and affections. Rarely do we engage in open and
honest philosophical debate with those whom we disagree in the hopes of
rounding out our perspectives with new information. Like the "real world"
we mostly herd ourselves with like minds. Such is the very nature of Network
building. SM is simply a way to quantify our experiences for our and others
entertainment.
[1] By “Node” I
mean a fixed point of origin in the Network that is defined by a personality.
In short, it is a persons’ online self.
[2] I do want to
acknowledge that there are extraordinary situations out there that I cannot
know, understand, or empathize with that require special treatment and real
world intervention, but for the purposes of this piece I am referring to those
commonplace interactions between Nodes.
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