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This cheerful image comes from Despair.com, a site that offers a useful if somewhat mordant critique of the current rush to be on every social media site at once. I’ve been working on a piece for the journal Flow on this, which will come out sometime this November — entitled I’m Not Here — but in the meantime, here’s a brief taste of how I feel about the whole “social media” mania. If it’s the latest, is it the greatest? Not necessarily.
As Chennai Social Media notes, “Social networking has become inevitable in the modern life, with many people using it, to stay in touch and companies using them to market themselves. However, the negative aspects of social media are:
Loss of Productivity
Individuals who spend a lot of time on social networking lose valuable time that can be devoted in doing something creative and useful.
Lack of Prioritizing
Checking other’s comments, messages and statuses can result in not focusing on one’s own task, which can lead to poor performance in office.
Diminishing Social Skills
Communicating solely with virtual friends can result in people not finding enough time to socialize with people around them.
Social Media Overkill
Social media, being viral and possessing the potential of reaching out to millions, instantly carries the risk of being abused. Any negative information or content about anyone or anything can be circulated faster through social networking platforms.”
Could this be you? Me? Anyone you know?
Tags: Despair.com, Social Media
