Every time I hear the term “social media” I feel conflicted. You would think that anything that promotes social activity would be a positive thing.
Social media is social, in that does bring together interactions between people. If you look at the definition of “social”, it fits the check-marks.
The bad part is the type of interactions it brings about.
It seems that as the popularity of social media has increased, the overall effect on society seems to be a downward spiral.
Children from infancy learn how to interact socially from one on one interactions with others. As they grow, we teach them how to be polite, how to have good manners, and they learn right away what happens when they don’t act nice. When you are interacting with someone face to face, you can see the immediate effect of your behavior, you experience the effects in person and this is a natural way to learn how to interact in a social setting. You act rude, the effect is immediate and you have to deal with it, right then and there, in person. You insult someone, you have to deal with it, in person, in real time.
When you are communicating thru a telephone, can hear their voice but you cannot see their face or observe body language. If you don’t like what they are saying, you can just hang up. You can’t cut someone off like that if you are talking with them face to face. You can walk off, but the other person may not disengage. You are forced to deal with it. When you move to phone text messaging, direct messaging or other forms of engagement on social media, normal communication and interaction becomes broken.
Social media is not a natural way to socialize and communicate with others and it has brought about a change in how people interact with each other but not a change for the better.
Social media has trained people that you can say whatever you want behind a screen with no consequences. You can be insulting, rude, and do all sorts of horrible things, things you would NEVER do if you were dealing with that person face to face–with no negative consequences.
But, the worst part is, it doesn’t just stop with the behavior behind a keyboard. Once many people get into the habit of bad social behavior online, this same behavior crosses over into how they interact with others face to face. Why? Because they aren’t used to exercising self-control and thinking about any consequences from how they treat people online.
When you are dealing with people face to face, most people think about consequences before they speak or act.
For developing minds, this is especially damaging. As children engage and observe interactions on these platforms, they are learning social behavior. This is how children learn, by observing and mimicking what they observe, what they are exposed to. Parents should be very alarmed when their child spends hours a day on social media.
Now, here is the real “un-social” aspect of social media. Every minute a person spends scrolling on social media, is a minute they are NOT spending with a person face to face and they may be in a houseful of people.
Here is a real-life example of just how alarming the effect of social media can be:
Three children on a sleepover, each with a cell phone. The children were in a room full of toys and books. None of the children were interacting with each other, the toys or the books. They were each on their cellphone, using social media.
I used to hear children outside after school, interacting with other children, running, jumping, playing. Now, the sidewalks are strangely quiet, probably because those same children are inside, playing video games or using social media.
Many times, when going about, I feel like I’m living in a science fiction story. While walking down the street, riding on the bus, standing in a line, sitting in the restaurant, everywhere, peoples eyes are glued to their cell phones.
It feels surreal.
If we are not careful, we allow technology to control us, instead of being the one to control the technology.
By allowing technology to control us, we are also allowing the ones behind the technology to control us. That is exactly what social media has done to many people. It has actually changed the way they interact with others.
The Honorable Elijah Muhammad wrote,
“Scientists now warn you against gazing into TV sets for any long length of time, because this can produce cancer in the body. This is especially true of children, who prop themselves in front of TV sets and gaze for hours at close range.
We must remember that the new inventions are still in the experimental stage. None of the new inventions in this great modern world are completely safe. Look at TV only when you know there is something of importance to be seen; not for foolishness and sport.”–Message To The Blackman, “Economic Program II”
This was written over 5o years ago and is just as true today as then.
Scientists presently warn about the dangers of too much exposure to the radiation from cell phones.
“Look at TV only when you know there is something of importance to be seen; not for foolishness and sport.“
That sentence is profound. If we were to apply that same wisdom to the technology of today, we could eliminate many of the ills of modern society.
Thank you for reading these words!
