Facebook is the “high school reunion from Hell”. Twitter is the “hosepipe of hatred”. Instagram is “Twitter for people who can't or won't read”. WhatsApp is the “official disinformation channel”. These are all descriptions of social media – on social media. And the love-hate relationships that we have with this latest form of self-expression is both bewildering and addictive.
There have been reams written about the nature of our love for social media - the allure of self-presentation, the dopamine rush with every comment or like on a post, and the transformation of our very lives as social media performance.
All that is true - and social media is often depressing, frustrating, invidious. Women tend to face horrendous abuse and threats of rape and mutilation. Political arguments lose all nuance and turn into slugfests and shouting matches. Language is often vile. And the other aspect, that of one’s circle of friends and peers, turns on exclusivity, exotic holidays, the preciousness of precocious children - all leading to FOMO, the fear of missing out - a word that the Oxford Dictionary added way back in 2013.
But.
If you can accept that you will never have a life as interesting as your friends on Instagram or Facebook, that you will never know more than the economist or historian on Twitter, and you’re prepared to stay away from people you interact with on a regular basis in real life while on social media, there is so much scope for learning new things, to be entertained, to be amazed and to be provoked into thought.
It’s how you discover that the late Sultan Qaboos of Oman was a great fan of British light opera and Gilbert and Sullivan - and one of the reasons he led a coup against his father was that his father had stormed into his room and smashed his favourite record (the Pirates of Penzance). It’s finding out that both Gordon Greenidge and Vivian Richards made their test debuts here in this city, in 1974 - and Greenidge became the first West Indian to score a test century on debut while overseas. Or that we use the ‘x’ as the multiplication sign because of the efforts of a clergyman named WIlliam Oughtred, back in 1631. Or that the Marathi broadcaster and novelist Venu Chitale began her career at the BBC in 1940 as secretary to author George Orwell. Or that there is a kind of mollusc called the disco clam which uses a system of flashing lights to protect itself from predators. Its finding pictures of “beauties from Lucknow”, dating back to 1874. It’s finding out that Mary Burchell, an author of more than 110 Mills & Boon romance novels, used the money she made to save Jewish families from the Nazis before World War II.
And there’s subject-focused social media - virtual gatherings of old film fans, antiquarians, bibliophiles, mathematicians, astronomers, nature lovers - whose postings renew interest in things that you had hoped you’d left behind you, which went under the stultifying names of mathematics and biology and physics from your days in school or college; or bring to your attention films you should be seeing or books you should be reading - classics that no longer are on bestseller lists or the box office charts. And when you go from reading about books to reading them, and talking about them, from watching clips to watching a long forgotten classic that still retains its charm, your life is enriched.
Yes, posting a photo of yourself in exotic surroundings, looking as good as you van, artfully enhanced by tints and filters, and seeing the likes pour in can be immensely satisfying. So is making a smart comment about the state of the nation or the world, stimulating a comment chain a hundred posts long. But unless you’re a celebrity, with people waiting to engage with you, hanging on your every image or utterance, this is not going to happen. And when it does, it is usually accompanied by hateful remarks, ad-hominem insults, and general pettiness.
But if you are content with having fifty friends or followers - of which 40 may be bots, but are willing to follow hundreds of people who have interesting things to say, if you’re willing to prune your friends’ lists and following lists regularly and often, social media can be so rewarding. But if you keep trying to make that popular post, that viral video, that great selfie, you’ve just ended up “public, like a frog”, telling your name the livelong June, to an admiring (or otherwise) bog.
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https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/im-nobody-who-are-you/articleshow/73616060.cms
There have been reams written about the nature of our love for social media - the allure of self-presentation, the dopamine rush with every comment or like on a post, and the transformation of our very lives as social media performance.
All that is true - and social media is often depressing, frustrating, invidious. Women tend to face horrendous abuse and threats of rape and mutilation. Political arguments lose all nuance and turn into slugfests and shouting matches. Language is often vile. And the other aspect, that of one’s circle of friends and peers, turns on exclusivity, exotic holidays, the preciousness of precocious children - all leading to FOMO, the fear of missing out - a word that the Oxford Dictionary added way back in 2013.
But.
If you can accept that you will never have a life as interesting as your friends on Instagram or Facebook, that you will never know more than the economist or historian on Twitter, and you’re prepared to stay away from people you interact with on a regular basis in real life while on social media, there is so much scope for learning new things, to be entertained, to be amazed and to be provoked into thought.
It’s how you discover that the late Sultan Qaboos of Oman was a great fan of British light opera and Gilbert and Sullivan - and one of the reasons he led a coup against his father was that his father had stormed into his room and smashed his favourite record (the Pirates of Penzance). It’s finding out that both Gordon Greenidge and Vivian Richards made their test debuts here in this city, in 1974 - and Greenidge became the first West Indian to score a test century on debut while overseas. Or that we use the ‘x’ as the multiplication sign because of the efforts of a clergyman named WIlliam Oughtred, back in 1631. Or that the Marathi broadcaster and novelist Venu Chitale began her career at the BBC in 1940 as secretary to author George Orwell. Or that there is a kind of mollusc called the disco clam which uses a system of flashing lights to protect itself from predators. Its finding pictures of “beauties from Lucknow”, dating back to 1874. It’s finding out that Mary Burchell, an author of more than 110 Mills & Boon romance novels, used the money she made to save Jewish families from the Nazis before World War II.
And there’s subject-focused social media - virtual gatherings of old film fans, antiquarians, bibliophiles, mathematicians, astronomers, nature lovers - whose postings renew interest in things that you had hoped you’d left behind you, which went under the stultifying names of mathematics and biology and physics from your days in school or college; or bring to your attention films you should be seeing or books you should be reading - classics that no longer are on bestseller lists or the box office charts. And when you go from reading about books to reading them, and talking about them, from watching clips to watching a long forgotten classic that still retains its charm, your life is enriched.
Yes, posting a photo of yourself in exotic surroundings, looking as good as you van, artfully enhanced by tints and filters, and seeing the likes pour in can be immensely satisfying. So is making a smart comment about the state of the nation or the world, stimulating a comment chain a hundred posts long. But unless you’re a celebrity, with people waiting to engage with you, hanging on your every image or utterance, this is not going to happen. And when it does, it is usually accompanied by hateful remarks, ad-hominem insults, and general pettiness.
But if you are content with having fifty friends or followers - of which 40 may be bots, but are willing to follow hundreds of people who have interesting things to say, if you’re willing to prune your friends’ lists and following lists regularly and often, social media can be so rewarding. But if you keep trying to make that popular post, that viral video, that great selfie, you’ve just ended up “public, like a frog”, telling your name the livelong June, to an admiring (or otherwise) bog.
--------------------
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/bengaluru/im-nobody-who-are-you/articleshow/73616060.cms
