Thursday, March 21, 2013

Social Media and the 'me too' society

We live is a wonderful world, full of fun and great experiences. But look again and you'll see a profound lack of originality. Creatures mimic other creatures, fashion copies fashion and artists emulate other artists in an effort to show their skills. And the same could reasonably be said about the online industry... where words like 'best practice' and 'conventions' are typically uttered by us all. When what we really mean is... "This is what everyone else does, says or thinks; so we're gonna do the same".
Sound familiar?

Perhaps the online problem is exacerbated by social media. Do social networks like Twitter and Facebook encourage the herd mentality and actually stifle original thinking?  Quite possibly.

Social Media has been described as the ultimate echo chamber, a place where thoughts uttered are repeated (or retweeted) and bounced around until some become folklore and even cited as fact.
I see it with my own eyes all the time when posts are 'curated' (In other words: stolen, passed off as someone else's or just made to look like the poster has found the work & shared it... rather than simply removing the name or Twitter handle of the originator).

It seems that in the 'me too' society, nobody wants to be left out and everyone wants to claim the credit for everything. And quite frankly... This gets my goat. Social Media has a lot going for it, it's able to be a great source of original thought and innovative ideas. It's just a shame that so many people act like virtual sheep on sites like Twitter. Perhaps that's why they call it 'following' after all.

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