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art, data, david cameron, debate, facebook, ideas, news, Obama, prime minister selfie, social media, think, thoughts
The purpose of the article is to discuss thoughts on if our Social media is holding us back as a generation or helping us advance.
Today we are living in a world where people would much rather sit and look at their phone than talk to a human beings, myself being one of those people some days….. What kind of world is it where prime ministers and presidents are taking selfies instead of running the country… well michelle doesnt look too happy about it!
Now I am not saying that this is necessarily a bad thing, it just makes our communications and behaviours very different.
What are the effects on Society?
Today over 83% of households have Internet access and increasingly more people are encouraged to join Social Media sites to connect and Keep In touch with ‘Friends’. This relatively new form of social interaction puts the skill set we as humans have evolved over 100s of years to an enormous waste and could potentially lead to a break down in Society as we know it.
OK… So the above statements sounds very extreme and i am not really here for that however we have learnt how to communicate with one another in the flesh instead of via a keyboard. We have learnt to speak, read and understand one another to a high degree. So why would we waste these skills that have been so crucial in our developments as a species?
Society was built on mutually agreed aims, understanding and rules. Today with Social media all alot of these learnt norms and rules have been removed. Even emotions that help us learn such embarrassment are no longer an issue.
Friends
Take Facebook for example I can have 100s of ‘Friends’ and yet still be very alone. I can say things that have no real impact or have an overly dramatic impact. How can I gage what is acceptable and what is not? How do I learn how to form true friendships with another if all i have to do is ‘Add’ someone and they are my ‘friend’? Social media is a new game for us and does it have a benefit or a downside.
I personally believe that it is prohibiting us. For the following:
Time is wasted looking through an almost strangers profile and seeing what they had to eat for Tea last night. This effort and time could be better spent for more productive activitys.
There’s too much data- Facebook alone takes in 500 times as much data as the NewYork stock exchange per day, however we have not yet learnt to interpret the data and put it to good use yet as the sheer volume is hard to deal with. People say they like or dislike things but what does this really mean? What is it a measure of? Could society be losing touch with the younger generation by not listening to these voices?
People become removed from the life created outside of Facebook- When you remove facebook you realise your friends on there aren’t really your friends at all and coming to terms with this can be quite difficult to break away from social media.
Our skills are put to waste– Our interaction skills are put to waste behind a screen as its difficult to engage with people who you want to engage with through the all the noise.
Any ways food for thought…..
Hope your having a great day 🙂