Social media and technology — are not the same

Social Media, a Trip Down the Rabbit Hole or Just Having Fun?

Let’s find out

People are interested.

In themselves, in their neighbors, workmates, and relatives back in New York.

They want to know how everyone is doing, how the reunion went if their brother got the ’52 Buick running, and if Grandma is doing okay.

In the past, if we had a question and couldn’t wait for a letter to arrive, we made a phone call. Long distance was expensive but we made it work. We used code words to encompass entire subjects and, in a few words, knew that everyone was doing well.

Today is different.

Compared to any time in the past we have almost unfettered access into a person’s life.

Where they are, what they’re doing (today, yesterday, and on their birthday), and what they made for their last dinner party because it’s all right there on social media with pictures.

Want to know what your friend is wearing to the prom, just check Instagram, the video is posted there.

Or how they’re doing on their diet — check out the before and after photos, including the new bikini shot as they’re stepping out of the pool.

We see selfies taken at Disney World, at Yosemite, hanging over the edge of El Capitan, or “threatening” to leap onto Bridal Falls.

Or from one of your former bosses as she takes her first glider lesson — just before she losses it.

We are being let into people's lives, into their homes, and into their bedrooms in unprecedented ways that would have gotten some people arrested years ago.

But why are we suddenly this curious as a society? What’s changed?

Back in the day when access like this was frequently denied or required years of personal contact and trust, did we treasure the access we were given to people we cared about?

And what does it say about how we treat people today when admission into their lives is free?

Schools, playgrounds, community centers, and the backyards at a friend’s house were the places where we met, engaged ideas, resolved problems, ignited romances, and generally got to know somebody.

But today when walking from one class to another, smartphone in hand we are accessing unlimited information, photographs, gossip, texts, old homework assignments, and general nonsense that would have been impossible a few years ago. Or perhaps not even considered important to know about.

Access tends to create value in something that wasn’t there before.

And this isn’t a question of social media being destructive or instructive in our lives, because social media Apps are separate creations overlayed onto a never-ending stream of technological innovations that are propelling us into the future.

We are being given choices on subjects and categories that we can barely define let alone exhaust as we wade through terabytes of data that is doubling every few years.

So, how much is enough?

Today when asked about our friends and our reach into our environments, we count people we know and have known for years on social media but in fact have never met.

We point to them as best friends who we share intimate secrets with and never question the miles between us as being a deterrent.

We know Sadie or Hector as well as we know anyone and though they live ten states away, the interaction is real, the questioning nature of the relationship constant, and the belief that they have our back, unquestioned — and yet, we’ve never met.

Social media removes the constant need to be in touch — physically, mentally, or emotionally. We send an image that conveys countless words about how we’re doing. How the exams went and if we’ll ever date again.

We’ve replaced a handshake, a hug, or a moment sharing the same space with music, emojis, or a Tik Tok video that is encoded with way more emotional and intellectual subtext than we thought possible in the days before the internet. And we’re okay with that.

We see an image of someone we call a friend and though it may have been made hours or days before it’s like they’re right there with us, sharing a drink.

Listening to our problems and giving us reassurance that what seems broken is not really broken at all — just in a different phase of existence.

How does this work?

There’s no denying that social media is cool. It allows communication at the speed of light — well almost -and is far more dependable than crossing paths at a park, street corner, or a friend’s house.

Send the text and 99.9% of the time it arrives.

Send an image and your friend in Iowa knows the night ended poorly. Knows you’re hurting and with a quick text can untangle the knots in your heart and stomach and get you ready for the next day.

So, social media is as good as everyone says it is, right? Even when it gives us insights into areas of a person’s life that we seldom have any interest in and God help us — wish we had never seen. But we keep coming back.

We keep turning on the phone, powering up the App, and checking the feed to see what we’ve missed.

Who’s online, what is being said by someone we follow, and who seems to know exactly what we’re thinking.

Why?

Did we need to know 99% of what we now have access to just a few years ago?

Are the last ten thousand Tik Tok videos actually adding texture and relevance to our lives or are they purely entertainment, more inclusive perhaps, but not providing insight into how to make the world a better place to live?

Are we better global citizens today because we see how seals in South Africa get tangled up in plastic and nylon fishing lines and how they’re being rescued?

Or are we more in tune with our fellow creatures across the world because we can watch their graduations live, their dances being performed, and their friends running for shelter as the bombs burst overhead in Ukraine?

If we know with an alarming amount of accuracy, what you ate last night, what time you went to bed, who you went out with, how it ended, what you’re wearing to sleep, and what lotion you used for your toilette at night — aren’t we approaching voyeurism yet?

Social media allows engagement on a grand scale, far beyond anything our parents or grandparents could have imagined.

We get to talk to Uncle Fred in real-time from Australia as he makes his way through the outback hauling four trailers on his way to Perth and posting it on his IG account so his 3800 followers know what he’s up.

Whatever we did years ago with letters, a basic phone, and lots of up close and personal conversations is being replaced with social media Apps that condense language into characters and emotions into images.

Is it efficient — hell yes! Cost-effective — unbelievably so.

A workable replacement for hours spent driving to grandma’s house, or visiting Uncle Mark and Aunt Helen on the family farm and watching lambs being born or an old and much-loved dog passing?

Not sure.

Social media is not technology. It’s what we’re doing with it.

So, is sharing unlimited personal information via texts, photos, videos, and the like an advancement?

If getting together with a good friend once a month and spending five hours talking and catching up is now replaceable by a Zoom call, are we in a better position socially? Have we moved up or down the scale?

Voyeurism — Merriam-Webster 2nd definition: the practice of taking pleasure in observing something private, sordid, or scandalous