Social media
I know much has been written and discussed concerning the role of social media in creating both connection and distraction/confusion in modern relationships. I've got a lot more to say on the matter, but I wonder if perhaps it was a good thing that in the past we weren't able to learn and share information quite so rapidly.
I watched with Ama last night the rescue of Baby Jessica in 1987, which was one of the very first "media circus" events in the fledgling years of CNN. It was fascinating to me to hear Ted Koppel repeatedly say that it was a strange phenomenon for him that those 1,000 miles away from an event were actually closer to the event (through cameras) than those standing 50 feet away in person. Indeed, Ted. It is strange to have distance and connection no longer matter to one another. What was once a requisite for communication, that is at least a sharing of personal contact information and a basic familiarity with an individual, is no longer required for someone to participate in our most private lives. People now feel comfortable messaging or contacting others they have no connection to, except maybe a comment or a post on some public social media webpage or a basic Google search. What is that? What is it about social media that makes us think it is acceptable to assume familiarity and communication with people whom we otherwise have no connection?
And what we think is private no longer is. The past is present and future and, though we may grow and change, our actions are forever cemented in the digital space that operates on this strange dichotomy of stagnation and constant change. Social media is quite real. What is said and done there impacts us in ways we may never even know or ways we wish we never did. Strangers can be intimate even without our permission and intimate partners are made distant through the complexities of human connection that cannot be replicated in digital space.
And it is a Pandora's box. Once entered, however necessarily, it is impossible to escape. Like anything, it is a tool. But, due to the rapid development of such a powerful change in the human condition, our ability to use the tool has far outpaced our collective conversation on how we should.
I watched with Ama last night the rescue of Baby Jessica in 1987, which was one of the very first "media circus" events in the fledgling years of CNN. It was fascinating to me to hear Ted Koppel repeatedly say that it was a strange phenomenon for him that those 1,000 miles away from an event were actually closer to the event (through cameras) than those standing 50 feet away in person. Indeed, Ted. It is strange to have distance and connection no longer matter to one another. What was once a requisite for communication, that is at least a sharing of personal contact information and a basic familiarity with an individual, is no longer required for someone to participate in our most private lives. People now feel comfortable messaging or contacting others they have no connection to, except maybe a comment or a post on some public social media webpage or a basic Google search. What is that? What is it about social media that makes us think it is acceptable to assume familiarity and communication with people whom we otherwise have no connection?
And what we think is private no longer is. The past is present and future and, though we may grow and change, our actions are forever cemented in the digital space that operates on this strange dichotomy of stagnation and constant change. Social media is quite real. What is said and done there impacts us in ways we may never even know or ways we wish we never did. Strangers can be intimate even without our permission and intimate partners are made distant through the complexities of human connection that cannot be replicated in digital space.
And it is a Pandora's box. Once entered, however necessarily, it is impossible to escape. Like anything, it is a tool. But, due to the rapid development of such a powerful change in the human condition, our ability to use the tool has far outpaced our collective conversation on how we should.