THOUGHTS #18: SOCIAL MEDIA - NOW & ---

SOCIAL MEDIA: 

This the first part in a series on the effects of social media on our culture as viewed through the prism of award-winning journalist and author Dylan S Le Maire.

It is a commentary and nothing more or less, but it will explore the impact on all of us, and hopefully give people a greater understanding on what is happening all around us because of platforms like Facebook and Twitter.

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Funny thing about this concept if you will, that we often refer to as...friendship.

It is a vast departure from the traditional view of the term when applied to social media. Seems to me that platforms such as Facebook and Twitter and Tagged and all the others have rewritten the rules if you will...have attempted and I think deliberately to re-define what we mean when we throw out the term FRIEND.

To me, who has had many many off-line friends for some time...as I look to the difference between the ones I have online for the most part and the ones offline, there is a clear difference.But I also think that the lines are becoming blurred.

There seems to be a coarseness entering in. For some we look to the people we meet online with a lot of skepticism, maybe deserved maybe not. It is true we don't have the same context for online meetings as offline for the most part. But how is this affecting overall our perceptions and maybe our expectations when it comes to our internalizing the people we meet. Are we engaged in the same way? Are we feeling the same with the people we meet online? Do we use the same standards to deine our relationships both on and off the web?

I don't think we do for the most part. For one thing we don't have the same touchy feely personal intimacy closeness with the people we meet online.

I CAN tell you that there are some people I care deeply about for I have come to know them fairly well...not as much as I might if we were friends offline, but enough to know these are real people of value. We hold lenggthy conversations and that is rare on Facebook. I have done that MUCH more easily on Twitter and that is in 140 character soundbytes which ain't easy. ON Facebook there aren't the same restrictions and yet I have far fewer deeper relationships on FB than I ever did on Twitter.... and that shouldn't be.

People I know on Facebook are no busier than the people I knew on Twitter and except me who is now far busier than I was...

I don't know it is just different. But leaving that aside, HOW is the general nature of our online friendshipes irregardless of the platform...DIFFERENT than our offline friendships and do we perhaps hav FEWER OFFLINE relationships than we used to have because we spend so much time online EVEN THOUGH what we do online is often SO MUCH MORE superficial than what we do offline. There isn't the commitment to the relationships seemingly online, and we do leave them often for no good reason or irrefutably so. We get offended far faster and for reasons we never would with our offline relationships because when you are friends with someone who is physically right around you but so are so many others, it is a lot more public. I think by nature we invest far more heavily in our friends ofline, but why?

One thing Social Media has done is to make it possible to expand dramaticatly the number of people we can meet, especially those from other places and even other countries and yes other worlds that we would probably NEVER have the chance to otherwise. That can enhance US in ways unheard of 20 years aoo. This phenomenon known as Social Media is primarily less than 15 years old AND YET LOOK at the changes in our lives worldwide. The impact, the influence it has had on all of us. The time we spend and how we spend it and the opportunities to learn and grow in ways imnpossible for most of us not that long ago.

But are we really better off? Do we truly take advantage of the internet in all the ways it gives us access to? Are we growing way beyond what we might have otherwise? Do we understand that our very lives are changing?

In a way this is a grand experiment in human interraction and WE are the guinea pigs in the process...but for what purpose? At the endx of life what will be and do and how will we have improved as a species?

The jury is still out but I think it helpful if we periodically think about social media. Assess if it is a positive aspect of our lives or not? That is an individual thing and one worth considering when assesing our own lives.

SOCIAL MEDIA: THE WORLD OF NOW
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