Putting the “Social” back into Social Media

Circa 2009, Facebook was all the rage. You couldn’t go a day without at least one person asking to be added as a friend or if you’d seen such and such’s new relationship status. Everybody would post photos of their parties, holidays, celebrations and their most valued moments of personal connection. There was a real buzz that social media could suddenly bring us all closer together — we could share the highlights of lives and stay in touch with friends and family no matter where they were.

It seems like social media drives us apart more often than it brings us together.

Fast forward to 2020, and it seems like social media drives us apart more often than it brings us together. It has become a place where divisions manifest and can even become tribal. A place where perceptions are distorted and viewpoints narrowed. A place where an onslaught of advertising bombards our feeds, drowning out the space where we would once document and share our most personal life events. Social media has become an incredibly ironic term…it is anything but social in a genuinely human sense.

Recently, we spoke to Nicola Reasoner from Google’s product marketing department about her experiences of fun when it comes to social media and virtual events. We asked her if she felt that current social media platforms are fun to use and in her opinion, the platforms we use are “not super fun.” She expressed a need to combat this issue, saying that for her, it’s important to ensure that clients’ experience at events are “magic,” and she expects to go above and beyond expectations both before and during an event.

Many social platforms today make it hard for people to actually connect with each other.

Many social platforms today make it hard for people to actually connect with each other, from Reasoner’s point of view. They are optimised for consuming content rather than promoting personal connection. Some virtual platforms (as opposed to social platforms like Facebook) do help Reasoner and deliver magical experiences to clients. She told us that virtual platforms like Teooh allow people to “network with each other” in a more human way.

“I love Teooh because one of the best things about events is getting to talk to people.”

Reasoner (like most of us) loves to talk to people. That’s what being “social” is all about: making connections and expanding the social fabric of our lives. We are social creatures — we need to talk to people in order to stay sane. In a world which is becoming increasingly polarised and isolation is being normalised, many of the current social media platforms are driving us apart. Fortunately, virtual platforms like Teooh are putting human connection first and foremost, enabling an increasingly isolated world to connect once more. Perhaps we are at the cusp of another golden age of virtual connection, just like we experienced circa 2009 with the Facebook revolution.