Social Media

The change that is happening these last few years with regard to social media is astounding. More and more people are connecting socially through the internet with the techno gadgets they tout in their purses and pockets. Who would have ever thought of technology and humans meshing into such a global social network a few years back? Not me, but then I also wasn't too keen about cell phones, either.

Amazing to watch your fingers "do the talking" as you silently touch keyboards, putting your subconscious thoughts down, and bingo, getting a response from somewhere in the global cosmos from another human being. This is beginning to remind me of what happened to money. First, there was barter, then there was money, then there were plastic cards, then there were electronic accounts.
Increasingly complex and symbolic. How often do you touch money these days?

Socially, at first we humans talked with other humans, then there were telephones, then there was email, then there is Facebook and Twitter. Something is missing in all of this. This is a sketchy existence, an outline of life in order to be part of something bigger than us. What is wrong here? Plenty.

What is missing is the human connection; seeing and hearing people talk in a conversation, watching them express emotions, touching their hand, or giving them a smile or nod. What is missing here is the ability to carry on a conversation and learning the signals that people give when communicating. What is missing here are real people.

Another problem is that I don't know that the person I am writing to on twitter or facebook is real, do I, unless I know them personally. So we learn to accept another reality, just like we learned to accept other worlds while watching movies and videos. Even though we are living in this "real" world, when we watch movies, read a book, or communicate via internet, we are transcending ourselves and living in another reality at the same time that our bodies are rooted in a physical place.

Finally, I have noticed on an increasing basis, that more and more people are not writing proper English on the internet. At first, I dismissed it thinking that people would write on their tiny computers and it would be difficult to correct, but when I saw a Wikipedia article the other day written full of typos, I said enough is enough. The internet does not have quality control. People write and push a button, and voila it is public to the whole world. Something is wrong about that. Because once it goes on the internet, it stays in the databanks forever.

Think about it.