Social Media Frenzy: We Are What We Post

by Cwynire Thursday, September 02, 2010 0 comments Mama

I sign in to Facebook everyday and view all kinds of morning statusses ... from 1-line greetings, to a paragraph of whines, to fancy emoticons, to words of wisdoms, to calls for business deals, to CAPITALIZED shouts of anger and frustration. The Internet has evolved into a venue for self-expression where 'no one is a nobody'. This loud frankness is prominent among especially the new generation ... youngsters who mostly grow together with the new media itself. "How could you not have a Facebook? A Twitter? Everyone's got one!"

source image: India Stand

Despite resisting to become a slave to trends, I find myself sinking into the whole social media frenzy, mostly out of curiosity. I just realized that what people share very much describes the people themselves - the bold, the shy, the humorous, the pretentious, the over-transparent, the optimistic, the pessimistic, the nonsensical, the stupid, the opportunist, the arrogant, the thoughtful, the ignorant. We're opening a huge opportunity for others to judge us and we must ask ourselves if we even care about this or not. Even the seemingly insignificant posts can be crawled by the search engine and stored well in Google's memory for all to read about us. Try searching for your name in Google ... you'll discover so much about you is available on the internet, from crucial data to your dear-diary posts!


NOT A HYPOCRITE ... JUST PARANOID!

I sometimes find myself deleting my unpublished statuses a little bit too often. There are times when I just want to type "HUWAAAA!" ... but end up deleting it - when you think too much before posting, or don't think at all ... then it's best to not post at all. I am glad that at least I can still write a thing or two on my blog, but still never managed to be too loud & all-exposed. Call me a hypocrite all you want but I think that it is not too bad to be a bit reserved and not strip ourselves entirely on the web. I am a little paranoid about ignoring consequences as I believe that our virtual presence can impact our physical presence. The new media can create new relationships, strengthen existing bonds, build reputations, discover hidden talents, inspire hearts, empower minds ... yet at the same time can damage credibility, destroy characters, pollute minds, and waste gifts. I'm not suggesting we put on masks, just don't strip!


DO SOME JUSTICE

Frustrated with my failure to use these platforms to my 'absolute freedom', I limit social network sites for business networking, technology research, a little catching up with tight family & friends & some fun playing online games. I treasure Internet more as a knowledge bank rather than a venue for self-expression. After all, the Internet has been my 'guru' in PHP programming from the very beginning. If the newspaper is my mom's 'breakfast', then Google Search is my 'morning meal'! I began to realize that I should do some justice by giving back - I should contribute to the knowledge bank myself. I've written a few entrepreneurial articles in the past but now I want to get serious into writing ... taking advantage of the 'no one is a nobody' era. I think that the Internet would be even more fantastic when we contribute to the knowledge bank. I think that the minimal filter the internet offers is a shot to be taken for positive causes instead of negative ones. It is not the Internet that feeds us content but us feeding one another with content through the Internet. If it's garbage in, then it's garbage out!


BEING CALLED A LEECH!

I am not a fan of copying others' works as I value originality very much, but I recently got criticized on Reddit for my one-time repost - A Message by George Carlin copied from my inbox onto my blog. I was called a "zero-value-adding leech"! How disturbing :S My intentions were decent ... the article inspired me and so I decided to share that inspiration but ended up with a spit on my face ... OMG! No more reposting for me (!) except for retweeting on Twitter & reblogging on Tumblr where reposting is a feature. Even so, I'll try to minimize it. Imagine Twitter cluttered with mostly retweets ... the same content goes round & round and you & I would be lost in a pool of cliché!


WE ARE WHAT WE POST

Funny how social media has changed the way we communicate with one another. It has given us more space & authority for freedom of speech. It is thus up to us how we wish to use this space & authority. We can continue to believe that useful content is only for the certified intellects, and do nothing on the internet but shout and yell our hearts out day & night on Facebook, on Twitter, broadcasting our cries and anger ... if that would ever do anyone any good, other than our temporary personal satisfaction ... or ... post decent (if not useful) content that not only better represents our state of mind, but help enrich our lives and others'. I'll have to remind myself this often :)


CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT SOCIAL NETWORK

I discovered the following video and find it amusing how it has made social network frenzy appear silly ... maybe because it is silly! Watch this video ... it's about most of us :)