Remember when Rock n Roll first appeared on the music scene? That ‘music’ was going to corrupt your children! It must be stopped! Do not allow your children to hear the Devil’s music! Elvis Presley is the personification of evil!
For you youngin’s that think I’m exaggerating, I actually lifted that from some uni notes I stumbled upon while cleaning up yesterday. And I was struck by the parallels between the hysteria of parental concern that responded to the emergence of Rock n Roll then and the hysteria that surrounds social media now.
(Hat tip to Doug Craig at ANU, who was an awesome lecturer and is largely to blame for my capacity to simultaneously see the big picture and the small picture and how the whole world interlocks… yes, I kept your course notes. Economics and Organisational Behaviour hit the recycling tip long ago – but Electronic Citizens, American Voices and American Sixties aren’t going anywhere. I still use them!)
While the mainstream press needs a slap upside the head for its demonisation of Facebook and Google, I can understand parental concern. For those who aren’t online, don’t use Facebook or Twitter, and for whom even the process of Googling something can be confronting, the whole social media thing would be scary. They hear stories on A Current Affair about kids being bullied and committing suicide, and they worry about what is happening to their kids.
Social media is really just the latest in a long series of media changes that drive cultural change. And there will always be a percentage of the population that oppose that. The fact that so called Christian leaders are usually in the bunch that oppose whatever the new media thing is saddens me, but is probably not all that surprising given they’re conservatives. Conservatives don’t like change. And when they don’t understand the change their response is to demonise it.
My advice to anyone who doesn’t get or are fearful of social media is this: play with it. Facebook is an unbelievably intuitive website – you don’t really need to know much about computers or the internet, just set up a profile and have a bit of a play. Look up some old school friends, family members, and have a look at their pages and see what they’ve been up to. See how easy it is and how much everything is in your control.
(Of course, someone fearful of social media is highly unlikely to be reading a blog, but you can pass it on.)
Social media has such amazing potential to deliver good for our world. It allows real voices on the ground in any disaster or war zone to tell their story. It allows friends and family to stay in contact even though our lives are increasingly busy. It allows random people to connect and make new friends, the socially isolated to feel as though they are not alone, new ideas to spread and be discussed with a much broader cross section of the community than ever before.
Plus, if you prefer an economic argument, it creates literally thousands of jobs and millions of dollars in what is, for all intents and purposes, a completely new industry (or part thereof if you prefer to think of everything online as one industry).
Are there things you need to be cautious about online? No more so than offline. There are predators offline, there are conmen offline, there are child pornographers offline and there are bullies offline.
On Friday I was listening to the first hearing of the Joint Committee on Cyber Safety and got to hear straight from the mouths of the concerned just how inherently evil they considered social media to be. Their main concerns were around cyber bullying – like that is somehow different and new from any other type of bullying.
Their refrain was simple ‘it is such a powerful tool’… well yes it is. Because it empowers individuals. And there are lots of individuals. There are few or no gatekeepers – just all that energy from millions of individuals creating a virtual community with millions of subgroups and subcultures.
But it is a powerful tool. And unlike bullying by phone, by mail or in person, you can just hit block on anyone bullying you (or anyone you just don’t like, or your boss, or your mum, or anyone else you don’t want to see what you’re up to).
The fear and hyperbole about social media being at fault for this apparent surge in bullying is only propelled by those who don’t get it. They simply don’t understand just how easy it is to block people, just how easy it is to filter the nastier aspects of our real world out so that your online life can actually be better and safer than offline reality. I sincerely doubt that bullying is a bigger problem now than it has ever been, if anything it’s just more visible and documented when it is online, therefore it is easier to catch and punish the culprits.
Privacy is a more real concern for the casual user who gets social media but doesn’t know what happens with all that data. To them I would say the following: you’ve figured out how to use the site, now figure out how to use the privacy settings. (Yeah ok, FB screws around a bit on this one, Google less so but they certainly do have issues in the privacy sector, but they usually correct after they’ve done something wrong…).
Secondly I would say that honestly, how many people on this planet do you think really gives two hoots what games you play or what school you went to? If you are putting very personal information on to any kind of website then perhaps you should rethink that?
Again, social media is a very powerful tool. You decide what you put on there. You decide who can see it and who can’t. You can block individuals. You can block everyone and just allow some people to see it. You can even create a completely anonymous profile and enjoy all the benefits of social media without having to disclose your real identity at all (although it works better when you are just yourself). You are completely in control.
And every time you hear someone handwringing over cyber bullying or the dangers of social media, just think of Elvis, and lock up your daughters.
End Rant.
Begin Rant: 