"Social" Media

I just read a long article about a social disaster that happened at a high school in the Bay Area of California.  The Instagram Account That Shattered a California High School - The New York Times (nytimes.com)  Someone posted something foolish, and there were only 11 followers of the post, but the results of this post, and the fact that many other people found out about it, were massively disruptive to the high school class, and the high school, involved.  It was about immature high school boys being immature high school boys, and making racist cracks.

The fact is that if you follow enough of the news, there are many stories about the damage and disruption caused by "social" media, especially regarding younger people.  I don't just mean the scams.  I mean the ill tempers and maladaptive influence, and intent, of the people who post there.  Adults very much get caught up in this, too.  The glaring examples of sociopathic posters are people like Donnie Trump and Andrew Tate, but there are lots of them.  I bet the Kardashians have "social" media listings, too.  If you give a shit about the Kardashians, you can contact me for an appointment.  You need a life.  And people follow this stuff for a reason: they're susceptible.  Weak minded, poorly grounded, and lacking perspective?  Sure.  This is what gets them caught up in it.  They don't have any other reliable center of gravity.

There was a time, years ago, that I had a facebook "page."  My late brother had started a band, and he told me that if I wanted information, or to see the band play, I would have to subscribe to facebook.  So I did.  I'm not sure I ever posted anything there, and I finally deactivated the "page" when I got sick of reading the posts of other people who just liked to hear themselves talk.  My daughter has a facebook "page."  I think she posts a lot of photographs and other stuff there, because from time to time, someone I know, who presumably knows her, will tell me they noticed something about my family, or about me, from my daughter's facebook "page."  She does not, by the way, ask my permission to post something about me.  Frankly, I think she should.  So, when I go to visit my daughter, son-in-law, and grandchildren in Massachusetts, photographs of us, or of me and my grandchildren, will appear on my daughter's facebook "page."  And at some point, I'll hear about that, or about some other matter pertaining to my family.

There are lots of "social" media.  There's "X," that used to be Twitter, until the Big Twit acquired it, and "Threads," which is a product of "Meta," which used to be facebook, and Instagram (that's where the California problem was), and others.

And the point is that there's nothing remotely "social" about any of them.  They're antisocial, narcissistic, and predatory.  Instagram featured what amounted to ads for various things, among all the other things it featured.  Some of them were very intriguing.  I actually bought a few things from the Instagram posts.  I'm not sure even one of them worked well.  So, I deleted that "app," too.

I'm social, in that I like interacting with, you know, people.  But once you add the word media, it's not "social" any more.  It's mechanical and highly impersonal.