SOCIAL MEDIA or ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA

SOCIAL MEDIA IS BECOMING ANTI-SOCIAL MEDIA

Looking back over the last 50+ years of my life, I have come to realize that not all change is good!

When I was a child through my late teen years, we did not have computers, cell phones, smart phones and gaming stations. We had board games, card games, and the yard. When we wanted to be social we had to walk to the neighbor's house and knock on the door. When we wanted to play games we did it with family and real human friends. We had to physically interact in person with others to have social activities.
We had school, church, scouts, school clubs, and many other physical activities that we interacted with others. We were able to talk to each other and even have differences with each other, but we worked them out in person. We listened to authority and there was no entitlement mindset. If you found someone you did not like you just avoided them. If you had an issue with another person, you actually talked with that person one on one or with others who mediated the conversation to come to a conclusion that both parties could agree on. Normally it was resolved without any future backlash.

People were much more humane and treated others with respect and work issues out in person. It was a different world than today's world. Speaking of my life after my teen years it has been a complete reversal of my teen years.

The cell phone (bag phone) and Atari came out, which most could not afford the cell phone at $1.25 cent a minute. The time using the Atari was controlled by the parents and it came after all school work and chores were done, plus it was played as a family, not as an individual.

It was in my 20's that computers with modems came out and those who could afford them used the BBS (Bulletin board services) for email (Fidonet mail) and it was slow and you had limited time using the phone line in your house to dial-up your BBS Service provider. If it was long distance you only did it once a week for a couple minutes.

Then it all changed AOL came out and a few others with the dial-up internet. The first social media live time interaction started. Yes, it was slow but people started using the chat features and the other things added by the giant AOL. Things still progressed fast until the ADSL, DSL, Cable internet service came out and then the social media craze exploded. The main ones were MySpace, FaceBook, and the AOL systems to interact with others from all over the country and the world.

Parents stopped controlling the amount of time the kids stayed on the computer and it took over the lives of the teens and young adults. Only in the last 10 years has text on phones to smart phones with the internet came super popular. Now everyone has a smart phone or tablet to use the social media platforms of their choice. With this comes major problems.

Behind a keyboard and screen, no matter if its a desktop, laptop, tablet or phone some people have found it a powerful tool to just be hateful, evil, and give them the power to just be as nasty as they want. They can lie, cheat and spread all sorts of hate and discontent behind a digital id with no fear. They are personally detached from this digital person they are acting as on the internet and its social media platforms. Having normal human interaction is becoming a thing of the past. People have their hands on the smart phone and on social media every chance they get. Everywhere you turn there is free wifi so people can be ensured access to their social media platforms. BUT is the Social or anti-social. Look around you today in stores, restaurants, buses, planes, trains and driving down the road, people are glued to their social media and not talking to the person they are sitting beside. Families even sit in a restaurant together but all of the members have their cell phone stuck in their face and they are not talking with each other about their day they and the life they live.

So let me ask you, when is the last time you sat down with others, turned off your social media, and just enjoyed the company with others without the digital interaction. When is the last time you actually sat down with a person you had disagreements with, instead of using social media to blast them and create drama? When is the last time you took the family out to activities and said the phones and social media stays in the car or at home? When is the last time you walked over to your neighbor's house just to be friendly and check on how they are doing? I would bet many of you don't even know your neighbor's name and who they are.

SO MY LAST QUESTION IS: ARE YOU MORE SOCIAL REALLY SOCIAL WITH REAL HUMANS NOW OR ARE YOU ONLY DIGITALLY SOCIAL.

My final thought is when humans talk and look in the eyes of another human than real true conversations and interaction can happen, hiding behind a screen is not a social activity, it's only 1/10 of what humans require for real true social interaction. It's easy to fake who you are behind a screen, but in person, you must be who you really are. Let's BE REAL.