Unless you’ve been hiding under a rock the past couple of years, you’re part of some sort of social media device, communicating with family and friends, finding out what everyone’s thinking, doing, feeling, saying, knowing, believing, prognosticating and everything else under the sun.
But if you haven’t become part of the social media wonder, maybe you should enjoy the view from under the rock. I’m not sure these applications are having the most positive effect on society.
Of course we’re talking about the world’s three-headed monster: Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. LinkedIn has been around the longest, and hasn’t changed much over the last few years. It’s basically a way for people who either don’t have a job or think they’re about to not have a job to try to find a job, under the guise of becoming “connected”. Facebook and Twitter are relatively new phenomena, and their “friends” and “followers” have basically changed the landscape of how we as a society communicate.
From a business standpoint, the rationale behind using social media as a communications vehicle is pretty solid: since most everyone is on it, you try to build a community of people who think alike and have the same interests. Get them in a group and you’ve got a built-in customer base.
On a personal level, the objectives are to keep current on family and friend activities, reconnect with old friends and lost family, and, should you have the initiative, keep people updated on what you’re doing.
If only it were that simple.
Facebook has its benefits, don’t get me wrong. I’ve been able to connect with people I haven’t talked with in twenty or thirty years, so from that standpoint it’s been wonderful. And I do enjoy keeping up with the comings and goings of my family, all of whom on both sides of the aisle are out of town.
This is what Facebook and Twitter are for, keeping in touch. Unfortunately, it has become extremely sophomoric, at best, and somewhat antagonistic at worst.
If you’re on Facebook, you may have seen things like “Farmville”. What the heck is that? I recently got a post from one of my Facebook friends that says: “(Friend) just found some White Mystery Eggs and wants to say thank you! (Friend) just harvested their chicken coop and found some White Mystery Eggs, and wants to thank their friends for feeding the chickens!” Huh?
People send you everything under the sun, just because you’re on their “friend” list. Like horoscopes. Not just yours, it seems, theirs. Or someone else’s. I don’t know. Did I sign up for that? I don’t think so.
Worse, people use Facebook to promote their political or religious views. For example, I’m supposed to click “like” if I believe in God. Well, my religious views are none of your business. I’m sorry, people, this is not the place. And as onMilwaukee.com columnist Tim Cuprisin put it so well in his blog yesterday, “frankly, my politics are of interest only to me.”
The point I wanted to make is that with all this non-intellectual communication, we’re not talking about anything meaningful anymore. There’s no dialogue, no interaction. No thought, really. Sure its fun, but there’s got to be a way to make it more constructive.
Neal Gabler wrote a column for the Los Angeles Times on this issue a month or so ago, stating perfectly that “the more we text and Twitter and ‘friend’, the less likely we are to have the habit of mind or the means of expressing ourselves in interesting and complex ways.” The bottom line is that how we communicate largely determines what we communicate. And the ‘what’ isn’t very good right now.
I’m worried. I’m worried that kids will stop reading books, if they haven’t already. I’m worried that this social media frenzy will continue to replace positive, constructive dialog. I’m worried that we’ll stop learning. I’m worried that our world will become all thumbs and no brains. We can do better.
