Social Media Is For Idiots
Why the internet has made us all incompetent
Circa 1995 when the internet first became public to the average household, and the conception of social media had not even begun, there was a big wide world that had not yet been shared by the click of a button.
Fast forward to the 21st century, with the rise in social media sites from all corners of the web, it is almost impossible for one to not have been posted to some form of social media outlet.
But the question is; has social media forced us to become incompetent in an age where we have access to more information than we have ever before?
Much like the historical era of the Renaissance or the Age of Postmodernism; We are in what I like to refer to as the Age of Bandwagonism, also known as the Bandwagon generation; and within this age, the need to voice an opinion and express outrage surpasses the need for credibility.
It almost appears that no matter the cost, social media has contributed to the appreciation of approval from encrypted robots and completely dissociated strangers; over having the ability to express true and authentic thoughts.
It is almost impossible to ignore that the need for constant gratification and approval has reduced the admirable concept of revolution and freedom of speech, to a mere babble of likes, comments and trending hashtags.
“An internet minute is the apparent nanosecond it takes for a breaking news story to be dubbed fake and/or a conspiracy on social media.”
― Stewart Stafford.
But, is social media all that bad?
Let us track back to former viral sensations: #SaveOurGirls; #Kony2012 and the uproar caused by the Libyan slave trade. These trending topics all have one thing in common — at one point the outrage surrounding these cases literally broke the internet.
Every person, celebrity, civilian; and myself included, became social vigilantes looking to avenge the injustices done to those in less fortunate positions. However, in the end the outrage we intended to use to make a difference was simply fuelled by the idea that we were ‘talking about it’, without actually doing anything worthwhile. As always, once the outrage had surpassed, the attention shifted to yet another viral hashtag that plagued the internet in its place.
So the need to ask the question arises: Are we predominately driven by the idea that we can get something to trend within minutes of clicking the share button, over actually wanting to use our social media privilege to make a longstanding difference?
Let’s face it, the age that we live in now thrives off of the likes of Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, and with a major increase in the amount of professions centred around it, there is a constant need for online communication.
So why are we not using this unlimited source of information to make more of an active difference?
A lot of the social issues projected on social media have somewhat been trivialised, but it’d be too far a stretch to call for it to be disregard completely. The potential of social media by far outweighs the negatives, but to make it worth our while, we simply need to learn how to use it.
The impact we could have on the world that transcends from the viral into the tangible is most definitely possible. And as I always like to express in every piece of writing, there is always at least one silver lining. Although social media has reduced a lot of disguised conversations of approval as ‘thinking freely’ and not being ‘caged’ by society, there is also a positive to social media; but the only difference now is that it takes a lot of time to filter the nonsense and posts of ‘fake news’ in order to find the more authentic forms of expression.
We need to use our tools correctly and construct a ‘social media - for idiots’ rather than being idiots that let social media use us.
With thanks to Paige Williams
