Social Media: a stream of consciousness rambling
Social media. Much has been written on the pros and cons of social media over the years. So much. Is that going to stop me weighing in with my tuppence-ha'penny thoughts? No of course it isn't. It's my blog and social media gives me the sense of entitlement that I can pronounce on any issue I like from the safety of my living room. So there.
OK so a bit of a piss-take first sentence. But it's a curious beast this social media. On the one hand it has enabled me, as a musician, to connect with other musicians from all over the globe, to collaborate with some of them, to become friends with many and to discover new music I may not have otherwise come across. I mean how wonderful is that?
It's a stunning thought that I can collaborate on a piece of music with someone from France, or Australia or the US and talk to them in real-time about it without it costing me an arm and leg in telephone calls via Facebook or Twitter or one of the other social media platforms.
A while back I posted on Facebook and Twitter that sometimes posting on those two sites was like talking to oneself in an empty room. There's so much traffic on those sites that your own posts can get lost in the deluge, even with hashtags - something I'm constantly forgetting to do. Of course sometimes what I post isn't particularly interesting, even to me after a while.
I wondered if some people feel pressure to keep posting updates and quotes and pictures every few minutes otherwise they fear they may not be real to other people (or themselves)? Where does that pressure come from? Within themselves of course. Social media is an insidious beast and it really has created an alternative reality that for some may feel more real than the outside world because of the connections they've made.
It's easy to understand this. In the outside world it can be hard for some to summon up the courage to talk to strangers. Whereas on social media you can communicate with whomever you want from the safety of your own house. It's a godsend for those who suffer from shyness or a phobia.
But I called social media insidious. It is. Because it creates this alternative reality that lulls us into a false sense of security and it calls out like the Sirens to draw us in offering a Utopia. Once in we are ensnared and find that often it can be more like dealing with the Læstrygonians.
Or maybe people feel they'll be forgotten if they don't post several times a day. Social media has either created or fulfilled a need to be constantly heard (and seen if you like posting selfies) and so Facebook and Twitter, along with other platforms, is full of posts about every aspect of people's lives from what they are eating to where they are going, links to everything from conspiracy theories to quantum mechanics and everything in between.
Needless to say I do this as well. Ironically. Of course. [Cue raised Spock-like eyebrow].
On the upside social media can be a wonderful learning tool. The amount of articles on science, history, music and other subjects I enjoy I've read that I would have otherwise missed because like-minded people have posted links to them.
On the downside (for me) is the amount of spurious nonsense that is posted whether it's conspiracy theories or new age flummery that many people accept without researching them first. You can easily see this just by reading the comments.
I don't think social media (or the wider Internet) has changed how people believe things in that regard. In fact with virtually the whole world of information at our fingertips it should be easier for people to research things now. Yet oddly the opposite seems to have happened. For some reason if someone posts on Facebook some conspiracy involving governments, aliens, chemtrails, the new world order, or whatever is popular at the moment, then they've given the world something that can be researched yet a lot of people just accept it because it fits in with their preconceived ideas and we all find comfort with like-minded people and ideas.
There used to be a ironic saying "I read it in the papers so it must be true". Now we can just replace "papers" with "social media" or the "Internet". I know that research has shown that we are all hard-wired to believe in things. For some it's aliens (which has replaced the gods of old as society has evolved) and for others it's science (although many would argue belief isn't the right word for science).
And heaven help you if you post a rebuttal to a post on social media that is obviously rubbish. People will come out of the woodwork and it can get rather unpleasant. It wouldn't be so bad if people counter-argued your position with a well-thought out response but because of the nature of social media people will often resort to ad hominem posts which of course says more about them than you. Hence the trolls and cyber-bullies. To bowdlerise Dick Winters, "Social media brings out the best and worst in people."
Look at the recent furore over the casting of Jodie Whittaker as the new Doctor on Doctor Who. Good grief you'd have thought it was something important people were getting worked up over instead of just a television programme. I've been watching the programme since Jon Pertwee was the Doctor, so for some time. Does having a female lead bother me? No. It's just a programme I happen to like. There are more important issues to get angry about people.
Which leads me to another thought. Does social media trivialise important issues? For example, there a recent news report about Theresa May wanting to introduce new legislation to control the Internet. It didn't get much coverage on the social media platforms at least not for long but the Doctor Who example above raged on for days and is still going on now in some Facebook groups. On Twitter where you can see the trending topics the Theresa May story didn't stay very long before being replaced by something less important, I forget what it was now but it was probably a television programme or a sports thing.
Of course I realise I can only see what friends post or re-post. But a bit of research seems to show that other people have noticed this trend as well.
Does creating a level playing field for all news stories distort how we see the world. In fact does social media distort how we see the world? I think it does. Not always for the worse though. Social media has been a boon for certain causes like LGBT rights for instance. It's through social media platforms that those who are suffering because of who they are can get wider attention to change attitudes and laws. Yet the opposite it true as well. Social media can be used to spread intolerance, bigotry and pure spite.
With social media everyone can have their fifteen minutes now. For some it might last a bit longer and for others it won't be as wide-reaching. Twenty years ago we were known only by friends, family and colleagues. Now there's the whole world who can get to know us, either directly through Facebook or Twitter or through our music or art when we post links on those sites. We are more obviously connected with the world thanks so social media.
Social media also endows us with a sense of entitlement (as I joking said above) to comment on everything, regardless of whether we know anything about the subject or not. Knee-jerk reactions instead of reasoned responses. Last years Brexit referendum was a large-scale example of that here in the UK. Both sides of the argument used social media to put across their points - I say points but usually it was fear-mongering and lies. Everyone had a view but most were based on the fiction and lies spread by the media and arguments on various Facebook groups and on Twitter became rather heated. They still are although the truth about Brexit and its ramifications are out in the open now (they always were but most couldn't be bothered to search for them).
That sense of entitlement artificially inflates our own sense of importance on the world stage. Look at me everyone mentality that hides the fact that we are not that important to the world at large. That 99.9% of the population of the planet couldn't give two figs about you. But social media plays up your role on the stage.
It can, for some, be used to fill a gap. To stop that loneliness from eating us from within. To boost our confidence. It can take the place of what we don't have in the outside world.
It may sound contradictory. Well it is. But then social media is a contradictory thing just as the world is and so are all the people who live on it. We are all a mass of contradictory thoughts, emotions, ideas and sense of self. That's normal.
Love it or hate it social media has brought forth some great advantages as well as great disadvantages. Just like life really only a virtual version.
Just some thoughts.
