Professor claims social media has turned us into vain, self-obsessed ‘children’.
It’s not very often that I would find myself on the Daily Mail website, or indeed writing about it, but a recent article on there caught my attention straight away and drew me in further. The article is titled : ‘Facebook and Twitter are creating a vain generation of self-obsessed people with child-like need for feedback, warns top scientist’. The ‘warning’ is a pretty stark one for users of social media and in it, the professor – Baroness Greenfield – continues the argument that using social media has lead us into an identity crisis, with a childish mentality of requiring constant praise and attention. For many that use social media, the subject is likely to be slightly worrying, as it calls into question everything that we use social media for. For those that don’t use social media, or view it suspiciously, it is likely to confirm a lot of worries people have about how we’re connecting via social technologies. Is there any truth in the article?
The “evidence”
The article goes through the particularities of Facebook and Twitter to support the argument, but rather worryingly (though not surprisingly) the writer doesn’t seem to really have used the social networks herself. The ‘evidence’ starts with the assertion that Twitter is a place to share short text updates and pictures about yourself. No mention of the fact that it has turned into one of the most valuable sources for news and discussion, or examples such as where Twitter has proved invaluable in life or death situations, as was seen with the Taliban prisoner who tweeted about his plight via his captor’s mobile phone. Rather she chooses to use examples of people tweeting about what they had for breakfast as the total representation of Twitter.
The ‘evidence’ then gets even more extreme, as the article goes on to state that people are actually living their lives purely by doing things that are ‘Facebook worthy’, so they have something to tell their friends about. Interesting that this is the assumption, as opposed to seeing it as people simply wanting to share experiences with friends. No, instead we now make a decision to do something as if its popularity on Facebook is the deciding factor. The professor ends her argument by asking ”Think of the implications for society if people worry more about what other people think about them than what they think about themselves.’ As if being self-aware and conscious of other’s perception of ourselves has only just been introduced into society as a result of social media. Hint – it’s not, that’s always been a fundamental of society and the way we function as human beings. Social media cannot be blamed for this.
Social media as a scapegoat
It’s probably fairly obvious what I think about the article, and it may seem odd to even reference it when it’s likely been produced as an attention grabber (credit to them – it worked). But the problem is that this line of thinking isn’t just confined to this one article. Barely a day goes by when there isn’t an article blaming social media in general for some kind of disaster, crime, impact on children etc.. It’s a pattern that repeats itself throughout history and is typical of moral panics. First it was TV, then videos, then computer games, now social media. There is a worrying tendency to pick on the latest medium and use it as an excuse for wider problems in society, often with gross misreporting or one-sided analysis.
The problem is that social media becomes a scapegoat, and individual cases that are reported on that blame social media for xyz use social media as the sole contributing factor, instead of looking at the wider context. This is dangerous for the evolution of social media, as a fundamental communication channel and connecting system for individuals and communities all over the world. Is it turning us into vain, self obsessed-children? No more than email or the office water cooler. The fact is that there has always been a channel for ‘feedback’ and we have always sought it. How long could your story keep the others in your office entertained, how many replies would you get to the group email sent out, how many people will turn up to your party?? Social media is a vital form for feedback, but this is only one of many functions. The fact is I spend a lot more time reading through other people’s updates on Twitter or Facebook than I do on actually sending out my own updates. This is a consequence of the vast amounts of information on there, that improves my day to day life.
While my reaction to this post might seem typical, given that I’m writing a blog and there is a link to my Twitter account on the right hand side of this page, this is based on my knowledge of a trend that consistently repeats itself and is continued by mainstream (usually right wing) media. The history of moral panics is such that the majority of the media has always jumped on the latest form of technology as a contributing factor in some way and it’s worrying as it can seriously impact how technology and human communication develops. I’m not against this article purely because of the argument alone, but because of the lack of evidence to back it up. The power of a major news outlet like the Daily Mail to influence its readers on something like social media shouldn’t be underestimated. I’m not against it because as a backlash against being forced to think of myself as a self-obsessed child, but because I don’t want others to view this as the driving force of social technologies.
The democracy of social media
What seems to have been ignored in this article, or other reports that look at the ‘self-obsessed’ nature of social media, is the democratic nature of social communication. The argument that social media has given us all a platform to turn us into mini celebrities is seen as a bad thing, like we shouldn’t all be allowed our own stage on which to communicate publicly – rather that this should be the reserve of a privileged minority in the world – celebrities, politicians etc.. This is the number one reason that shoots down all the arguments against social media as being a time waster, or simply a hangout for narcissists. People are going to have to get on board with the fact that society and the fundamentals of human communication are changing. Now we all have access to a place to communicate publicly, and this is going to see very different people command a public audience than would have found themselves granted space as newspaper columnists. Clearly, this is a good thing.
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