What if Mark Zucherburg and Jack Dorsey had been idiots?…. Would we actually have to talk to each other?
Does writing a witty tweet or choosing the perfect instagram filter improve our lives in the same way a bag of drugs helps a hobo?
Slowly, and to be honest without much resistance on my part, social outlets have been bottle necked to those served via the wonderful, world wide web. Is it healthy to be so engaged by such an impersonal way of communicating and expressing ourselves? Or is it just an easier way of shamelessly self promoting, sharing and speaking freely to everyone and anyone who will listen, and are also fixed to their holy web windows. I’m afraid we are all slowly becoming that Chinese couple you see in a restaurant. You know, the ones who take pictures of themselves next to their plates instead of building up the strength to actually talk to each other. No one needs to see this offensive sight; let alone live it.
Social media fast: Day one.
One would argue that communicating with your flat mates via twitter when 6 of you live in a big open warehouse with barely any doors, screams (or maybe just CAPSLOCKS) social retardation. Well, one would be right. I can’t say I have suggested what my flatmate should cook in the toaster for dinner over twitter when he was less than 5 metres away… Yep. That has definitely never happened. The way we are heading, Gen Y are going to produce a bunch of mutes who are incapable of giving any kind of immediate response. Instead they will need at least 6 minutes to conjure up amusing responses deserving enough for a twitter conversation.
But without these social media outlets how would we make our old school friends jealous of our crazy, amazing lives that we are so involved in that we have the time to stop what we are doing every 5 minutes, so we can make the right decision on which picture to post on Facebook. Come on people. Pipe down the crazy. Surely someone who uploads pictures of every #organically sprouted, perfectly ph balanced, vegan, gourmet meal they have ever had and has to update the world on their new overpriced jeans they are wearing that day, has a better sex life with their computer or smartphone than any living, moving human being. “Oh look at that, in these jeans you can see all that weight I lost over summer. How embarrassing.”
Moving swiftly on. Creative industries. Yes it’s what us youngness are all about these days. Who needs to know about nuclear weapons and world hunger when we’ve got the power to Dreamweave our way to quirky websites telling us about something creative, represented by logos which somehow integrate an ironic moustache or a vintage bicycle. Help or hinder I hear you ask? Good question. It’s fair to say that a lot of magazines, brands, artists, and musicians rely on social media sites to pimp themselves out to make a bit of extra moolah. And if your dignity tank is empty enough to post a video of you dancing like a mutant on youtube or you can convince enough people with as little self respect as yourself to dance around with you, then I guess you could say it’s easy to make money out of advertising if you use social media in the ‘right’ way. But, I’m fairly certain most musicians, especially those exceeding the ripe old age of 40, would argue through their mahogany smoking pipes, that the internet and social media have completely and irrevocably crippled musicians traditional way of making money. I’m pretty sure HMV have proven that no one buys CDs anymore. Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud and youtube have made it far too easy to share music for free. I can’t quite decide whether this is good so that any ‘musician’ can get their music out there, or if they are just giving out their hard work for free with nothing in return.
What about that basement dwelling, headset wearing, brand of ‘humans’ who live ONLY through the internet. Who needs friends when you can socialise with a computer or an Xbox right? What would happen if we snuck into their dingy, pot noodle smelling basements and took away their lifelines? Would they end up dying a horrible death after masturbating 42 times in a row in the first desperate 20 minutes? I like to think that technology withdrawal would encourage them and anyone else socially disabled by their computers and smartphones, to venture into the world and see what’s out there. Maybe we could meet new people without having to stalk them on Facebook beforehand. We could all make our own world news by actually seeing what’s going on in the world instead of reading tweets and searching for hashtags written by our fellow social retards. Then again, for this all to be possible we would all need jobs to pay for these crazy adventures, which, lets be honest, 90% of the English population are lacking at this moment in time.
After much deliberation and sleepless nights spent on Facebook and Twitter, I have concluded that this generation just don’t have big enough balls. Let’s strap on a pair and spend more time in the pub accompanied by spoken words and beer instead of in our beds with our hands… for typing. Then we’ll see which cocky bastards decide it’s OK to celebrate the death of an old lady with alzheimer’s who was in government when they were 2, without a computer screen to hide behind.
Words by Joanna Broomfield.
Image source: http://dailykimchi.com/buzz/signs-that-you-are-extremely-addicted-to-computer/
(Source: dailykimchi.com)
