Where we used to have a deep conversation with a good friend, or write long letters to initiate a loved one into our soul stirrings, we now only have to log in to social media to inform the whole world of our existence. Are social media an asset of the modern age? Or do they actually show a lack of capacity for human contact?
What are social media?
Social media is a collective term for online platforms where the people who use the platform also provide the content. The editors intervene as little as possible. Interaction and dialogue between users play the leading role in social media. Many different things fall under the heading of social media. Weblogs, forums, Facebook, LinkendIn and Twitter are examples. The people who use these media share knowledge, information and feelings. This is usually done by publishing messages and using comment options that are automatically built into the sites.
Self-profiling
In modern times it has become increasingly important to be visible. Visible to gain opportunities on the labor market. Visible to obtain a social network with fascinating friends. Visible to have a stake in a world full of anonymous strangers. To gain the desired visibility, more and more people are using social media. This tendency is closely related to a phenomenon that many cultural scientists have already examined, namely the contemporary need for self-profiling. Apparently it is important for large groups of people that they can show an image of themselves to others. Social media is the ideal tool for this, it gives everyone their own stage, a place that others can visit where we can paint the image of ourselves that others view. But is that also the true image of ourselves? And is such an image able to connect us with others, who also conjure up an image of themselves?
Wide but shallow
Proponents of social media would respond to the above that true friendships in real life are not hindered by the use of social media, but in fact they make us more social and connected to others. That they open our world, in short, and perhaps our hearts too. Opponents would react skeptically to this. Because how can a medium that glues us to a screen and only deals with imaging approach or supplement the authenticity of direct human contact? In such a contact, a self-designed image would never last long, but would soon be overtaken by reality. The truth may lie in the middle. Contacts become wider through the use of social media, sometimes worldwide, but at the same time they lose a certain depth and attention. An interesting question that now arises is: Why does modern man live so strongly in the self-projected image of himself on social media?
A world full of images
That question can only be answered if we consider that the modern world is a world in which images dominate. Advertising images, billboards, television images and clips fill our daily lives. We are told by the media what we should look like, what makes us happy and how we can become slim quickly, through those projected images. And modern man is influenced by these images, while simultaneously creating an ideal image of himself: the version he would be if he met societal norms. It will come as no surprise that this can be far removed from the person he or she really is. You could say that social media are just one of the many manifestations of our contemporary image society. Perhaps this could be a call to feel more. Do more, and wonder less what others think of us while we do it. Maybe it would be time to think about freedom the old-fashioned way again. And about friendship, and about ourselves. Perhaps we simply need to learn to do something age old again in our busy times. Namely stand still!