Super nervous everyone suddenly everywhere. All over social media people delete and shut off their messenger & apps, and all over social media everyone heatedly debates the impact of the realities of Netflix' new "The Social Dilemma" film unearths. I have ended up in quite a few debates myself, causing a lot of comments and responses I thought which summing up would bring value to my readers here.
Here is the big question for you! Is social media causing the damage & should be rebuked with consequences (comment SM below), or are we, the users, causing the damage and we should stop pointing fingers at the social media companies (comment WE)?
A pack of wolves, a flock of birds, a rotte of hunting dinosaurs, or a school of fish have always behaved in their ways of social interaction in order to have a better chance of survival.
We, humans, have also always behaved like a school of fish (take note of the past tense!), it has been part of our survival in the same way. And today? We are pulled, all of us inevitably, into a time of change, and being 'sucked' into it we end up with very random & confusing behaviour that makes us bump our heads instead of flying in unison or swimming intelligently!
Our urge for creative innovation in technology has blasted us into an 8bn size single school of fish, permanently connected and full of news with so many new unwritten rules of engagement that we're totally lost. But I have hopes that we'll learn how to navigate as smoothly as a massive flock of birds.
If we are honest, it would have been impossible for us to navigate this smoothly off the bat. Now we need to learn how to navigate with these new rules and learn how to behave so that we don't bump each other in this massive move of navigating a transition because that is what we are in for! Not easy, because all this dives deep into influencing our lives. It even goes right into our soul without us noticing; and how do we deal with this in relation to our children, how do we teach them?
I don't have Netflix and I don't watch TV and I don't use SM. But I use it for my business to manipulate consumer behaviour (with good intention) and I use the SM data to target those consumers and then manipulate them again (still with good intent).
Is our pill for emancipation from social media & control over it a self-finding event?
And I must admit, my 'social media use' does take a lot of effort & practice to avoid me behaving like a random engagement monkey wasting my time, while I actually want to grow my business! But I don't believe we can blame the social media companies, nor are they the culprits and neither do I believe they have real bad intent, they just do their business.
It is us, the users, like you and me or the Russians with an ulterior motive, or us just being stupid, unable to detach, not alert, inconsiderate or non-empathetic that causes the damage.
We should rather look at ourselves and our inability to filter information correctly, and our inability to switch off from it. Why are we unable?
"Are we seeking, … trying to find ourselves in it, … or maybe just trying to avoid to try and find our true selves!"
Quite ludicrous actually! My hopes are, and that is what I am about, that we can find our self-worth, self-appreciation, self-love so that
- we know who we are, and when we know that,
- we know what our talents are, and if we know that,
- we know what our purpose is, and if we know that,
- we know what our vocation is, and then we can build a business around that.
Purposing our talent into a business, by the nature of our very genetic creative intent, can only do good to others. This again means that following our vocation, is to serve God's providence and that means we would be too busy doing this important purpose than being willing to spend an excessive amount of time on social media.
And here the big question again! Is social media causing the damage & should be rebuked with consequences (comment SM below), or are we, the users, causing the damage and we should stop pointing fingers at the social media companies (comment WE below)? Choose either SM or WE.
Wolfgang J. von Loeper
You have clearly made it this far, so I am sure you like what you have heard and read. So, subscribe to my Blog & Podcast for regular updates and share this with others below - Wolfgang
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