The good & bad side of the social media revolution

We have heard it said many times before, and predicted by those who have studied the effects of the social media on the behavior of man. When it was just a toddler, the introduction of the new technology was welcomed with open arms. And, indeed, there were many good things it brought. For one thing, the best thing about Facebook is that it brought people together, like finding long-lost relatives, and in times of need, sharing information of a medical nature that a sick person needed.

A Las Vegas realtor Jim Snyder helped a 74-year-old homeless man find and talk to his daughter by using both Facebook and Skype for which both father and son were most grateful. In times of crisis, like during earthquakes and hurricanes — a tsunami in Japan, Hurricane Katrina and Sandy in the US, not to mention Supertyphoon Haiyan or Yolanda in the Philippines — the social media made its presence felt.

The social media facilitated charitable donations, helped in reaching out to people with suicidal tendencies, helped 13-year-old Talia Castellano with cancer forget her ailment and her baldness. The best ending of the story is when “she began keeping a video blog of how she uses make-up to draw attention to her facial features instead of her chemotherapy-induced baldness.” Cosmetic giant Cover Girl took notice and made her the face of Cover Girl that attracted 40 million viewers to her YouTube channel.

But of course, all is not sweetness and light. There have been cracks in the pavement as we have noted from several stories filed in the regular media of newspapers, magazines, as well as some from the social media. A reporter has written that for many, the thought of parting from their cell phone, tablet, as well as Facebook and Twitter will render them useless. There is that story of a 20-year-old girl who gets a fever every time her mother confiscates her mobile phone.

How many times at a party have you noticed more people texting or carrying on a conversation, sometimes even having a lover’s quarrel using the cell phone? Can’t this wait for a more appropriate time? We also spend so much money buying these gadgets, replacing them when a newer version comes around. No wonder we earned the title as “Social Network Capital of the World” in 2011.

Slowly, the gadgets have come to replace humans in the hierarchy of importance in a person’s life. It had almost become a running joke of how friends facing each other across a table would text each other instead of talk to one another. People have slowly begun to lose the art of conversation. In a survey of almost 3,000 respondents in the US, it was revealed that online users were less polite than the none users.

We are sharing an advice sent to us, not that we are the greatest believer or unbeliever of the social media phenomena. “Don’t get caught up in storing and sharing memories.” Phone cameras, image and video-sharing applications like Instagram, have made it easy for anyone to capture special moments for posterity. However, you may get too caught up with the act of recording the entire event that you could end up the spectator. You are more concerned with how the picture or video will turn out than you are about being truly interested in saving memories.   

(Send your comments to [email protected] or text us at 0917-8991835)