‘Social Media is for Idiots’?
Let’s go back in time…
It’s 1990. We get out of bed; and we don’t check Facebook. We go for a jog; but we don’t share it on Snapchat. We cook dinner; yet we don’t take a picture and post it on Pinterest. We meet up with friends and we don’t spend half an hour filtering pictures for Instagram.
Can you imagine?
Yes, that sounds like a very strange world indeed, because somewhere along the journey of the 2000’s, Social Media was born and very quickly became the forefront of our lives. Surely, to allow the Internet to cause this lack of attention to the real world…that’s idiotic?
Actually, it’s very debatable.
If you think about it, Social Media itself is very clever; it has sucked us in and got us addicted to its convenient and instantaneous communication services. In fact people are clever to use it. How intelligent they must be to recognise that this digital method of communication will create success for their business! Because that’s what they do. Social media has brought about a huge new department for companies who want to reach out to others and get them interested, all so that they can make money. These people are smart people. They’re not idiots.
In all honesty, if anyone thinks it’s for idiots, it’s probably because of those embarrassing humans who like to tell us when they’ve just been to the toilet…
Nevertheless, if you consider social media in its professional uses, it’s an easy platform to promote your company and share what you do. It all comes down to making money and getting attention from a wide audience. This is something that humans crave and thrive for. It is the desire to be appreciated, to be admired and to be known. It’s an up to date way of leaving our mark on the world.
People may say social media is for idiots, and sometimes it is. But those people who use it to promote their businesses are actually pretty smart. They are clever in opening up their minds to something new which can gain them a lot of success. They have even created new job roles especially for dealing with social media. This has changed the way business is done entirely. There’s a whole new platform to get your products/services out there, and it’s all thanks to Social Media. The smart ass- getting all the credit again.
All being said, the problem I have is this:
We have created a whole new, virtual world, so much that we barely even live in the real, physical world anymore. We are so wrapped up in feeling the need to share everything about ourselves that we are losing the ability to live in the moment.
So yes, social media likes to treat us like fools. But is it really for idiots? I’m not sure. I just hope that people don’t end up relying on it too much. I wish that people would enjoy their lives and live through their own eyes once in awhile. I know that these days there is no way of escaping it, but just once in awhile… It’s why I’m quite jealous of my grandparents as they survived without the Internet and Smartphones. They were fine; they’re not idiots. They lived in a time where meetings with friends would involve going out and doing something! Eye contact with each other instead of looking at a screen when someone is talking to you. They didn’t worry about getting ‘likes’ on their profile picture. When they got bored, they would spend time outside, learn an instrument, paint a picture, read, write, and the list goes on…they wouldn’t lie on their beds scrolling through their Social Media feeds for hours on end. They were so much more productive and could see the world as it was, not through deceiving camera lenses. They observed and admired their surroundings. Maybe we should be like them- we should stop admiring each other’s social media feeds, but start admiring what is actually given in front of our eyes.
Anyway, I think it’s safe to say that Social Media is only for idiots when it falls into the wrong hands. Social Media may treat us like idiots, but we have the ability to overpower it by making it useful to us in business, promotion, selling, etc. Whatever we might think of the people using it, it’s undeniably powerful, and we don’t know how far it’s going to take us. Whatever its mischievous plan is, we need to keep our ground. Us humans need to stay in control…
we were here first!
With thanks to Mat Lopatinsky
