Social Media: A Lens on the Best and Worst of Humanity
Wednesday 5th of February 2014 | Category: Opinion | Written by: Leoarna MathiasIncreasingly, social media makes the news. At the same time, news is reported on social media more instantaneously than ever before. The two worlds are ever more interchangeable, blending in front of our eyes, spinning each other around. As I write, my facebook timeline is full of people posting videos; Facebook is ten years old, and it’s present to all users is to allow them to put together a video montage of their time on the site. Today, Facebook’s birthday is the news, and has headlined on every radio and TV bulletin I have caught.
Like most parents, I don’t really mind Facebook. I know it has a sinister side, which throws the worst of humanity into sharp relief. I know that I saw, for instance, the faces of a dozen or so young people who have committed suicide thanks to cyber-bullying (that is mostly conducted via the blue and white pages) on the front of a newspaper over the weekend. I know that staying safe online is going to feature heavily in this family’s thinking in a few short years from now. There’s every chance that one day our kids could ask us why we felt the need to share images of them growing up; a school project on privacy will set off questions in their minds about what it all means, and what it is all for.
But I also know that I heard a woman on Radio 5 Breakfast (who had a debilitating health condition) today describe Facebook as her lifesaver. It enabled her to connect with other sufferers and lessened her sense of isolation. And for every terribly sad story that is fed by social media, like this weekend’s heart-breaking stories of death-by-NekNominations, there is another uplifting tale, like this young man in South Africa turning the drinking game on its head for the greater good.
Social media is certainly now thoroughly embedded in our collective conscious – and our global economy. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s Chief Operating Officer, is the world’s youngest billionaire, and author of the book Lean In, in which she endeavours to argue that with careful family management, women can have it all; the marriage, the kids and the satisfying job. She is married to the CEO of Survey Monkey David Goldberg. The cynic in me wants to say that it is pretty easy to talk about having it all with a salary such as she commands. But one day Sandberg, and others like her, and the new ways of working and communicating they have overseen, will be on the syllabus for Business Studies, and much more besides. I’ll be there, supporting my teenagers with homework and remembering when I wrote this post. My kids’ world, your kids world, will be so very much shaped by the power of social media. I just hope that the best, not the worst of humanity, is what shines through most of all, so that the lesson is a positive one for the next generation.
About the author
