Social Media Rant

All day long, every single day, I come up with ideas to blog about. Maybe the ideas are sparked by an errant comment, an interaction or something I read throughout the day and yet, I never seem to remember these ideas when I sit down and try to type. I once tried keeping a notebook (that didn't last long), sending an email to myself (that didn't last long either) and keeping a document in the cloud with snippets of what I wanted to say. Yeah, you guessed it, that didn't last long either.

Today, though, we're going to talk about social media. For two very real reasons:

1. Social media pervades each and every aspect of our lives, and
2. I just submitted a proposal to be a Social Media Manager for a local business

A lot of people have written about social media over the years. From the first days of websites such as Friendster and Classmates.com, to the revolution that was MySpace and then the behemoth that is Facebook, social media outlets have taken over our culture connecting us in ways that have never been done before in the history of the planet.

Right now, with a few sentences and an internet connected, we call all reach hundreds if not thousands of people with our opinions, rants, thoughts or worries. We can reach across space and time to speak with the other side of the planet instantaneously and avoid the people sharing the same room with us. 

Social media has allowed people of like-mind to connect on a scale never before imagined outside the fever-dreams of philosophers and science fiction writers and yet it's made us more alone. Interconnectedness is disconnecting us.

No, you're wrong! I have a gazillion friends! you might cry out in defiance, and you might be right. Maybe you do have friends, but when was the last time you hung out with your friends? When was the last time you hung out with them and didn't have to write a post or tweet about it; share a group photo or share with everyone else who you're sharing your IRL time with. (IRL, for those of you uninitiated, means: In Real Life).

Apps make it easier to coordinate, but does they make it easier to connect? Emojis and stickers are supposed to compensate for body language and the varied forms of non-verbal communication, but can they really? Well, no, they can't. 

And what happens when you're not on the social bandwagon, when you haven't jumped on to the newest and latest trend? Are you left behind or do your "friends" reach out in an old-fashioned way? When was the last time you had a phone call that wasn't work related or had someone knock on your door? When was the last time you spoke with a stranger for nothing more than the sake of meeting a stranger?

Social media didn't start with Facebook or Twitter; it wasn't invented in a college dorm room or by a wacky start-up looking for something new. The idea that we could communicate with a friend or stranger, share content and ideas didn't begin with Facebook, but rather in a research lab many decades ago. It began with the first email ever sent. 

Yes, email. You heard me correctly. Or rather, you read me correctly. Email. That bane of existence for corporate stooges all over the planet; the app on your phone you never check; the name@url you hand out willy-nilly because no one cares enough to email you is in fact the oldest (digital) social network in existence.

And it's still one of the best.

But, EMAIL? you might wonder? Yes.

Unlike Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and more, email is 100% federated. That means you're work email can talk to your personal email; your @gamil can freely share information with your @aol. It means no convincing your friends and family to try this latest and greatest social media outlet with the [insert doohicky name here]. Good old fashioned email where you can share photos, audio files, videos and memes. Email where you curate your own lists (how long did it take Facebook and Twitter to create that capability?) and read through comment threads like they're ... social!

Google tried to replicate the benefits of email with Buzz and then Google+, but so few of us were willing to move to a new neighborhood and make new friends. Sadly, a vast majority of people stayed where they were, maybe checking out the Plus, noticing they didn't know anyone and then slinking back over to the party where they knew everyone. 

Such behavior is an indictment against society. Sure, your network might grow organically as you add friends of friends, but where are those leaps from one social circle to the next? Where do you meet that fascinating stranger or explore new ideas with new people you would not have otherwise met? Sure, email might not have been able to make those leaps, but Google+ did (and to some extent Twitter and good ol'fashioned forums like Reddit). 

I recently logged into Facebook for the first time in months. Maybe since November. I was looking at the business page of the company that I take on their social media duties. In my own feed I saw a lot of posts and as I was looking at them I noticed a disturbing trend I see on just about every social media site: the link-dump.

If you don't know what link-dumping is, it's exactly what it sounds like: someone posts a link. That's it. Just the link. Or they share a post of a link. No introduction of why anyone should want to click through that link and read/watch/listen to the content. 

I saw people sharing memes instead of ideas. People were commenting but more often than not they were merely going through the motions of Liking the post and adding an emoji if necessary.

Where was the social? Where was the content creation? The sharing of great ideas? We have the chance to exchange ideas on a global scale and what are we doing with it? Memes. 

And let's not ignore the almighty algorithm that keeps people in their echo chambers. Now, there are many terms being bandied about by "experts" on what to call these feedback loops, but I prefer these two terms as they're very descriptive of what's happening across all social media platforms (except the fediverse). The algorithm is deciding what each and every one of us sees in our social media based on what we've interacted with in the past, whether that's positive or negative.

Think about that for a second: you comment on a friend's post that you disagree with and the social media platform starts sending you more of that kind of content. Like a friend's post and you see more of that, as well, whether you actually liked it or merely Liked it. 

Suddenly you're bombarded with that echo chamber where everything you see is of the same vein. Even if you disagree with it or vehemently dislike it (and, of course, there is no dislike button anywhere). 

You engaged and engagement means more time on the site and that time equates to advertising dollars social media sites are making off your views.

But what happens to the brain here? When you're in that echo chamber can it change who you are or how you think? Absolutely. It's been documented many times that the brain conforms to what we experience and when you're only experiencing fear and loathing the brain with conform to fear and loathing. When you only experience Likes as a positive input, you will post content that results in those likes, thus giving you an instant rush of endorphins. And you do do it repeatedly to get that rush only to find yourself in an echo chamber, your own content fed back to you by the Matrix social media site. Resulting in more time spent there, resulting in more advertising dollars. Rinse, wash, repeat.

My much shorter post yesterday was about my being an INTP and constantly seeking out new information, more data. Perhaps I'm the wrong person for the almighty algorithm to stake a claim to as I tend to want diversity in my intake. One day I might be reading about pre-Christian European cultures, the next motorcycles, and the next, I might be learning about the inner mechanics of how an electric engine works. (For the record, I'm usually thinking about systems and leadership, but that's another story.)

Drug addicts often talk about the high they feel when they're on their drug of choice. Well, addicts of any kind, honestly. Social media addicts need to have a heart-to-heart talk with themselves about what they're contributing to society by sticking to social media all day long. There's nothing wrong with communication, coordination or even sharing a funny meme - but when your electronic life supersedes your biological one, you need to question what you're doing and how you're doing it.

When you're not getting multiple sides to the same story, you need to consider you're in an echo chamber and make a course correction. 

When you're only seeking out information that supports your confirmation bias, you seriously need some introspection.