On social media, isolation and morality

This was my response to this week’s assigned readings in my Social Media: Content, communication and culture class. I wanted to post it here to share with anyone out there (feeling a little paranoid about the isolationist thing – you’ll see). I might tweak it as I re-read it from here on out.

Neil Postman’s keynote address sparked a deep internal debate about the role that social media is playing in the development of our culture and the evolution of society as it partakes in it. I can’t help but notice that, even though this speech was delivered almost nine years ago, Postman’s point is even more dramatic now that young people (and some adults) are so engrossed in exploring their identity via social media.

“A medium was defined as a substance within which culture grows.”

To this effect, and I’ve often wondered whether social media equates culture, I can see very clearly now how those who chose not to participate in it might not understand where the relevant aspect of this new media environment is.

I’m a bit torn as to whether one must take a more neutral look at this social media phenomenon, as Postman suggests McLuan would’ve done, and take it for what it is, rather than try to peg it as a negative or a positive element in society. I can’t ignore the fact that there is a moral question (as we’ve discussed extensively in the past week) that relates to youth, for instance, and how they engage in this social media environment. Obviously, this isn’t by any means the only moral question posed by these technological advances in communication.

I’m also not sure whether in Postman’s eyes, this social media phenomenon would encourage rational thinking, as he argues writing or print does, or not, as he suggest television doesn’t.

If we go back to the beginning of the course to recall Ong’s secondary orality discussion, it’s an interesting contrast since Postman himself offers the Socrates example, as he spoke against the written word because it would weaken our memories.

I don’t think there’s any doubt, however, that this secondary orality is a bit superficial and it relies too heavily on technology to “strengthen” our memories (how many times do you Google a word to check its spelling?).

On the question of isolation versus community building, I cannot ignore the fact that even though these social networks do create a sense of being “around” people, it’s an undoubtedly solitary practice. I appreciate the opportunity to go to school at the New School online, but one of the things that I appreciated even more from my undergrad was the communal aspect of being on campus and being able to see people out and about.

But there’s something to be said when people use social networks to physically meet (which does happen), and when they rely and maximize these social media tools to build actual, real life communities.

The last point is something that’s been floating in my mind and that ties into the Susan Barnes reading (A Privacy Paradox): Information as a commodity or as garbage.

Barnes makes the argument that with this social media environment, people are offering up vast amounts of information willingly and marketers and other companies are buying and selling it, essentially commodifying it. And we have Postman’s suggestion that the explosion of media in the past 170 years has effectively turned information into a heap of garbage because there is no efficient way to find anything that is truly “significant.” The idea of information being so abundant that it becomes meaningless is somewhat of an economic paradox, but I think it’s true to some extent. I believe, however, that it’s up to us to discern what’s good and what’s bad (the media literacy issue).

Finally, this quote struck a chord:

“It seems to me that there is something shallow, brittle, and even profoundly irrelevant about Departments of Communication that ignore these questions, that are concerned to produce technological cheerleaders, and even neutralists who offer little historical or philosophical moral perspectives.”

I’m not sure what others think, but I happen to find our dear Online Media Studies program as completely the opposite of that.

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Coincidentally, last week’s “On the media” from NPR and WNYC in New York had a segment that dealt exactly with this topic: The Net Effect.