the social media paradox
source: Holly Warburton
Disclaimer: This is not a judgmental piece, I just want to give everyone a chance to analyze and reflect on our relationship with social media, so I’m dedicating this blog to it. In doing so, I present a series of rhetorical questions and some thoughts.
@psan5630
Do we remember much of what life was like before social media? I guess the answer depends on what generation you’re from - but still, technology is so hegemonic that it’s involved in many aspects of our lives.
I’d like to believe that the intent of social media is to connect people despite their location - even when you’re in space, you can tweet… literally. Social media does this well: you can interact with all sorts of people from a little icon on your phone. It’s pretty magical in that sense. It’s one of the major reasons I think many people and companies make a huge deal of it. I remember when the Facebook blackout happened last year; I couldn’t believe that this magical thing, that serves us 24/7, could actually shut down. It made me reflect on how having any form of dependency on it is actually a lot more risky than any of us can comprehend. Facebook being down meant Whatsapp, Instagram etc. and almost 2 billion daily users had no interconnectivity via these sites for a while. What did you feel when this blackout happened? How did you feel when it was over?
In the previous paragraph, I mentioned how social media serves us. The main way it does so is through interconnectivity, communicating with other people, and discovering new ideas. Now I want to ask you, social media does serve us, but do we serve it? To elaborate, the latter part of that question refers to social media addiction. Excessive use of social media is an addiction to it. I’ve heard of people who could scroll through social media apps for almost half a day. Often times we hear of the habit of waking up and heading straight to the apps, or falling asleep while using the apps. I think the thing about addiction is not particularly what exactly we’re addicted to but what we’re escaping from as well as what we’re searching for by getting lost in whatever we’re addicted to. Some people say it’s the posts and the showing-off culture, the beauty standards, the fashion trends, the friend groups and other relationships. Some also say it’s the idea of being an ‘influencer’ or keeping up with ‘influencers’ via what they post. What do you think?
source: unknown
The internet is not a (real) place. It’s actually a form of a virtual reality, even if it very much involves and is in fact, run by real people. It’s one of the reasons I think there’s a huge affinity for technology, most of us probably already have it somewhere in our consciousness that the internet is not a real place. I believe this is the reason cyber-bullying is prevalent. I have a theory that people probably feel comfortable being active on social media and having the gall to say things they would hardly publicly say in real life because they know. the internet. is. not. real. life. They call such people ‘trolls’ - often private accounts, or accounts with no profile pictures or posts, and with eerie usernames. Do you think social media is a facade at all? I listened to a podcast that talked about how wars, to quote, “culture wars” and “cold wars” are initiated and fought on social media. I’m truly skeptical that the every single person that attaches themselves to these “wars” care that much about whatever the topic of contention is. I say this because it’s easy to make political statements and declare political stances online because they never have to back them up or stand up for it in real life. Also, never forget that with social media, everything becomes a trend - including something as indisputably significant and sensitive as activism. Don’t get me wrong, there are many people out there who truly care about the causes they raise awareness about on social media, but it’s an unfortunate fact that there are also people who promote ideas and ideologies they either don’t believe in at all or don’t believe in enough/ know enough about, to defend and argue on.
Whatever happened to the freedom to disagree? A very important and increasingly significant question. Social media’s benefits are incredible; the aforementioned interconnectivity, being able to share joyous moments, and having your voice heard are some examples. Perhaps the most important benefit of social media is expression. Everyone has the ability to express themselves in some way, and social media allows for this to occur on the literal World Wide Web - which I think is phenomenal. With social media, you can view perspectives from people from all over the wold… again, interconnectivity!! This allows us to learn from other people and opens the possibility of meeting new people and new ideas - also phenomenal. However, something has been changing in recent years, there seems to be a straight line in which we all ought to be walking on. This line is a metaphor for a bunch of ideologies (almost entirely political) that we ‘should’ all abide to. Any form of disagreements with those ideologies invites what we now call ‘cancel culture’ and harsh labels. The most disdainful part of this is that social media is being wrongly used as a breeding ground for cultivating the ideas of unforgiveness and fear. This is very sad because the diversity of thought is so advantageous and so essential, but instead it’s consistently being viewed as dangerous. People don’t often like to be disagreed with, but we learn from disagreements.
The social media paradox is knowing and appreciating the benefits and purpose of social media but also being aware and conscious of the flagrant contradictions that underscores its flaws. BUT, there are advantages and disadvantages of everything. Nothing and no one is perfect. Again, this was just a thought-provoking session in order to assess our relationship with social media and have a healthier relationship with it.
Stay positive, stay hopeful, stay blessed.
-C
A reminder:
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THANK YOU!
