Op-Ed: Social Media and the Great Apes That Use Them
2015-01-28 18:15

Op-Ed: Social Media and the Great Apes That Use Them

When I tell people that I don't use social media (seriously, none of it), I have usually been met with two responses, usually voiced together.

First: Why don't you have [WeChat, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Tumblr, etc.]?

Then: Get it, you need it.

The instruction makes the question unnecessary, or at least changes the question to why don't you have it yet? Social media are tools, but they have also become a norm and expectation for people who live in the 21st century.

What follows is the first of a short series, a collection of thoughts that I have been writing in my head since I first deleted my Facebook account in 2008, about social media and the people who use them and the people who do not.

All I offer is observation. To be honest with you, I do have a bias against social media, and this bias will come through and I won't apologise for that. But I won't try to justify it either – I'm not here to tell you I live a fuller life because I'm free of social media.

And so, without further ado...

The advent of smart phones has changed humanity irrevocably.

Even factoring the (diminishing) populations of those living beyond network coverage without mobile phone technologies (no lolcatz? poor sods), social media seem to have permeated most societies, and have practically become a given to human communication.

People (stereotypically, older people) often complain of the ills that mobile social media use yokes on society. You know these well: "people don't talk to each other anymore," "people aren't engaged with the world anymore," and simply "people spend too much time on their damn phones!"

I am no curmudgeonly old hater with an axe to grind against how the world has bloody changed and it's all going to hell. I do think the world has bloody changed, though, and it's certainly going someplace hellish, and why for the love of all things good can't you get off your damn phone a minute and smell the roses?

This brings me to my first point of investigation in this series: how I, a social media-less human, view social media and the great apes who use them.

How I, A Social Media-less Human, View Social Media and the Great Apes Who Use Them (and How I Feel About It).

It's a well-worn complaint that people these days focus too much their screens instead of the world outside. I think this comes from a golden-age nostalgia – the notion that when times were simpler we all interacted with each other more, cared for each other more, and took a genuine interest in the wider world around us.

I have my suspicions about nostalgic sentiment. I live in Beijing, and while parts of this city are beautiful indeed, I have encountered a scarcity of roses to smell (in fact, none) during my hour commute to work.

beijing smog.jpg

"There is literally nothing to see here folks, just go back to your smart phones and pretend you live someplace that isn't trying to kill you!"

Social media let people instantaneously interact with potentially the most awesome people in their lives, and see these 26 hilarious pictures that perfectly capture life. How many of us would honestly choose a group of weary-eyed, dispassionate strangers invested in avoiding the fact of our existence over the most awesome people in our lives, or over this pug and cat who love each other?

Social media: ∞, Reality: 0.

Same time, complaints about how social media change society speak to deep-rooted, deeply felt concerns that they are changing how people interact with each other, and these new interactions are unprecedented and unfamiliar. This is a more palpable concern.

Bemoaning that things aren't what they were means longing for a static, idyllic past. Expressing fear over things as they presently are means people are confused by what they don't understand, or are angered by what they do understand, and either way may not be able to negotiate their own lives and interaction with others – the latter a fundamental part of every person's life.

The transition to a social media society is all the more difficult because the transition has already been made. We have changed. There is effectively no turning back. In ways, I imagine religious folk felt similarly about the changes brought about in the Age of Enlightenment and all the new, faith-shattering ontologies being espoused and adopted.

This is the 'irrevocable' part I was mentioning. It's permissible to not have Facebook if you have Twitter instead. And if you don't have Twitter, well maybe you're more professional and use LinkedIn, or your more artsy and use Instagram or, if you're a young person in Asia you use one of the many multi-functional do-it-all platforms like LINE, WeChat, KakaoTalk or WhatsApp.

But to have nothing? Backwards at best, psychopathic at worst, because social media are how people see people doing things. Being the social and aesthetic animals humans are, this means social media to some degree are how people do things.

Because if no one can see you doing anything? Well, you're not really doing anything, are you? If you aren't networked, you're no one.

The visibility of social media use is one aspect that turned me off right away. Call me selfish or a hermit, or a selfish hermit, but when I read something I enjoy, I do not need everyone I know to know that I've read it and enjoyed it.

The principle holds ad nauseum for the innumerable content people share – I say 'innumerable', but even the most devout social media users can't ignore that an overwhelming number of social media profiles drown in food photos.

Nevertheless, this is a stereotype that I and other non-social media users hold, that the majority of information spread on social media is shallow and self-absorbed, an annoying tooting of one's own horn.

It's time to begrudgingly acknowledge that this is not in all cases true.

In fact, the first step for me to reconcile living in a social media society was to acknowledge that social media are real phenomena. Unlike moonwalk shoes or peanut butter Coca-Cola, social media play an integral role in people's lives. Choosing to live without those tools is all well and good. Failing to see that they are a real dimension of real people's experience of reality, now that would just be ignorant.

What I have struggled to recognise is that people who use social media do have meaningful experiences with them. In fact, because social media allow you to be so connected to friends, loved ones, interesting people and engaging ideas (and lulz), this accounts for why they consume so much of people's daily lives.

Some people treat each moment of life as a gift and cultivate love for the earth and the sky and the flesh-and-blood humans around them. This is perfectly valid. But for many others, the day-to-day world just cannot compete with a pocketful of their favourite people, of interesting or important news and, of course, lulz.


(Part One, "How I, A Social Media-less Human, View Social Media and the Great Apes Who Use Them". See Part Two, coming soon, "People Are Idiots, Existence is a Sham and Everything is Meaningless.")


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