The sticky problem with social media is that these fringes, these moments of exception, are often THE language of social media and now the norm. So here’s my question. If our lingua franca becomes one of primarily exceptional events (“I just made the most awesome lasagna”, “This story just broke my heart”, “Look at this amazing picture of where I’m at”, “Just had the worst day ever”) then where do we actually live our real lives?
When we draw time from those real-world relationships and apply it to social media, we tend to lose the mundane. The mundane is underrated in my opinion. The mundane serves your waking life the same thing your dreams serve your sleeping life. It provides a means of recharging, it gives context and relativity so that you actually know what an exceptional event IS. The joy or sadness that exceptional event should trigger within you should be one of experiencing the event itself, not simply recognizing it as something share-worthy.
Social media will die out in its current form... my prediction.
It is already showing signs of information fatigue and message shadowing. The precursor for its demise is the distraction from things that matter.
Those things still matter, but with less attention they become even more important. Once a tipping point is reached, there will be a flurry of change and re-examination and evaluations of participation.
Just because we can connect with the world... is not enough.
No comments:
Post a Comment