Dear Jessica Brennan,
Social Media gets a lot of bad press. It wastes our lives and reprograms our brains. It creates fake personas in an era when what we need is more authenticity. Yet, most of us spend a lot of time on it.
I thought I would examine ten random things I have learned from Social Media – some bad, some good – and let you decide. Good or evil? Let me know.
Here we go. Here are Ten Truths I’ve learned from Social Media:
ONE
I have learned huge quantities of the obvious and the useless. People like to post sort of dumb things. “It is raining outside.” (I can see). I’m brushing my teeth.” (Fascinating). “I just checked in at Costco.” (Why would you want to advertise that?). “Greys Anatomy starts in 5 minutes.” (Is that even still on the air)?
TWO
It is a form of communication that inspires showing off aka lying. Perfect shiny faces and laughing friends and family abound. Some of the most miserable people I know, look happy on social media.
THREE
People will believe just about anything if it is presented to them as a list (like the title of this blog – Ten Truths I’ve Learned from Social Media). 5 Ways to Know if He Loves You. 7 Signs that you have Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva. They will also buy silly things, or at least click through to see more.
FOUR
Social Media limits proper conversations even outside of its realm.
“Did you hear about that guy with Fibrodysplasia Ossificans Progressiva?”
“Yah, I saw it on Facebook.”
“Oh, never mind then.”
FIVE
You can meet other nice people who like what you like. I met many of you who are reading this as a result of social media. Thanks for the likes and follows.
SIX
My friends in Australia, England, Norway and a variety of other locations are doing well. Social Media allows me to stay in touch easily and see how they are doing.
SEVEN
People love their pets, and largely love other people’s pets too. Animals are very interesting to people and may lead to widespread vegetarianism if this continues. I found out that you can cuddle a cow. I wish I didn’t know that. It makes eating steak a lot harder.
EIGHT
Social Media is a great place to have a laugh. Funny videos, funny posts and good-natured teasing can be fun.
NINE
Social media is a breeding ground for bullies. This really should be its own blog post maybe. We talk a lot about kids getting bullied on social media but really, there are a lot of grown up bullies too and the anonymity and courage inducing aspect of being able to type your words rather than say them face-to-face allows the jerks among us to thrive.
TEN
Social Media is a strong platform for sharing important information like, Elon Musk put a car in space and immortalized David Bowie in the process, and Ashton Kutcher is fighting child human trafficking. I first saw these stories as a result of Facebook.
Social Media used to be a photo album. The social part was sitting on a couch next to a friend and the media was the album itself. Social Media was reading the morning paper with your spouse. Have we improved on that with what we are doing now? You decide.
Love Mum xo
