Disenchantment with “Social” Media
I’ve taken some time off from posting. As I wasn’t exactly lighting it up before, this means that it’s been a while. However, I’ve been trying to unplug a bit from the “always connected” lifestyle that I’ve been leading.
The onslaught of the words “Social Media” in my everyday life have caused me to rethink my involvement in the whole thing. While my job at a FORGE means that I need to understand the effect that social media has on our business, I also am aware that social media and social awareness are not guaranteed to be in agreement. An implied equality between a “friend network” and a friend is proving to be a strain on the fabric of our social circles. Technology, so long thought to simplify our lives, it beginning to intrude on our lives in a profound way. As this is happening, it is not introducing a clear division but rather a blurred line between our person, professional, and past lives. The feelings of disconnect have never been greater.
Cognitive Dissonance
As I was thinking about this issue, I wondered if the theory of cognitive dissonance was relevant. Cognitive dissonance proposes that people have an emotional desire to feel complete. The unrest that comes from things being left incomplete feeds our need for products such as checklists and to-do applications. Entire productivity industries such as Getting Things Done (GTD) from David Allen have risen up from the need to escape the feeling that we’ve missed something. GTD proposes to reduce the feeling that you’ve missed something by organizing your life.
While I’ve spent some time with the GTD system, and the Things app by Cultured Code, feelings of disconnect haven’t entirely been solved. Both my personal and professional life is full of unfinished thoughts and disconnected emotional items that continually present me with feelings of mental unrest. And no part of my life introduces cognitive dissonance to a greater degree than social media.
The assumed goal of social media is basically to communicate using technology. Since media is defined as “the main means of mass communication”, then social media would be utilizing media (web, print, tv, radio) for the dissemination of social communication or relationships. The suggestion here is that communication in person is the same as communication over the web. This is obviously not the same, and I have experienced an ever-increasing feeling of disconnect. The very opposite of the main tenant of social media.
Babies and Bathwater
So does this mean that I think social media is a waste? Honestly, I’m probably not going to use social media as much as I used to. I have truly hit the wall as far as how I use social media in it’s current state. I still get requests to “use Facebook more” and “hey, you haven’t tweeted in a while”. I will certainly reconsider if the direction that social media takes seems interesting, but at this time I’m not interested.
I’m more concerned with being a good husband, father, co-worker and friend to the people that I really care about. I have for too long neglected the people in my life that I have a real connection with in order to absorb myself in fake relationships and meaningless activities. I needed a change in my life. So I’m no longer going to tweet every interesting thought that I have (I never really did much of this to be honest), or update LinkedIn every time I gain a new skill. My blog will get some attention because I love to write, but my Facebook friends will have to be OK without my participation. Those networks will live on without my attention. As for my friends, I’m sure they’ll be OK. Besides, they all have more “friends” than me anyway.
October 27, 2010
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