The Matrix of Social Dilemma
What Is Social Media?
When I think about social media, the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Tik Tok come to my mind. It operates in a form of entertainment by communication through people or products through the internet. But of course that is just my explanation on how I see it. The book defines social media as followed: Social Media is a form of communication (such as websites for social networking and microblogging) through which users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content such as videos. That definition doesn't sound too bad when you actually read it. But after looking at the documentary, The Social Dilemma presented by Netflix, I'm sure many people open there eyes and was amazed about the breakdown of social media (At least I was).
The Good
When it comes to social media, let's no make any mistake about it, their is good that comes from be actively involved or engaged in it. I can tell you from personal experience that social media and some of their apps have brought me closer to family members that for the past years I wasn't actively involved with. Even before the pandemic, I would facetime family members and friends. And I'm not speaking immediate family but distant cousins, aunts and uncles. Family and friends got to see my daughter grow right before their eyes by me simply adding new pictures of here, and then commenting on the pictures. I believe without this process me and some of my family or friends would not be as close. Everyone has different things going on in their lives and may no have to means to take a trip and visit, but in place of that social media has filled that void. Bringing it back to the pandemic when things where shutdown and people where not traveling, social media keep people together during holidays or even establishing weekly virtual parties for friends. So if you ask me if there is good in the use of social media. My response would be, of course!
The Bad
When there is good anywhere bad is somewhere to follow. Social dilemma showed you that in so many ways. Of course I said social media has brought families and friends closer together, but that same platform has distance families and friends just equally. The phone is like the........
It really is two different worlds that one lives in. In the real world without our phones we act one way but with your phone many people live a different life and playing the phone life into reality more. But besides being in the Matrix just like the documentary mentioned how long can we really go without our phone. We are constantly checking it for something rather it's a Facebook update or a advertisement sent through a social media platform. How is that those internal drives can control our precise movements throughout the day. I totally agreed with the analogy of going down the rabbit hole when searching for something. I can't tell you how many hours I have spent going down a rabbit hole in search of some kind of narrative.
The Fix
I can't say that there really is a fix because social media has provided good as well as bad. But what I can tell you, is when the bad got a little out of control. Remember the days when cells phones existed but we didn't have this thing called WIFI. WIFI created a endless option to communicate with people any and everywhere no matter if you had service or not. But in addition to WIFI, I believe this moment before WIFI topped it all. "Unlimited DATA" I recall when I had data limits, I would restrict myself to times when I would use the phone or CPU. But with unlimited data it is truly seamless and I believe a lot of people thrive in the moments of unlimited data. So again I ask myself is social media healthy or unhealthy.............
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