Social Media is Making Us Anti-Social

Like many others, I have jumped on board the Timehop train. Timehop is an app that presents itself as “a time capsule of you,” and digs up social media activity from years past on that day from connected apps—Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, etc.

Normally, these posts are funny or cringe-worthy—let’s just say I was a big fan of posting song lyrics as Facebook statuses during my teen years—but today I saw one that gave me pause:

My first thought was, “wait…who do I know that died six years ago today?” Eventually I figured it out: it was a patient I had met while volunteering over the summer at a hospital back in Maine. The girl had cystic fibrosis and developed a cancerous tumor in her chest during my time as a volunteer, effectively going from “sick-but-doing-okay” to “deathly ill” in the course of two months. While she fought valiantly against her illnesses, she passed away in January 2009 at the age of 12. She was the first young person I had ever known who had died, and I was devastated when she passed away during my senior year of high school. Now, six years later, the anniversary of her death is merely an afterthought. This is not okay.

While Facebook, Twitter, are Instagram are all seemingly useful tools for keeping in touch with friends and family (especially for people like me, who live a solid 500 miles away from their nearest relative), social media might be causing us to forget the value of memory. What’s the use of remembering someone’s birthday or anniversary or whatever if Facebook is going to tell you anyway? Facebook now has notifications for when someone has a child or gets married. This may be cheapening relationships, in a sense. It’s an information overload. Gone is the meaning of actually going out of your way to both remember and wish someone a happy birthday. After all, it’s right there for everyone to see. Facebook will even auto-fill the "Happy Birthday, [name]!" post to save you the trouble of having to physically type out a personalized greeting to someone you may or may not care about.

I’m not sure there’s anything that can be done to reverse this trend. While I have definitely noticed a sense of “Facebook fatigue” of young people abandoning the social network in droves in favor of comparatively stripped-down and less personal information-heavy social media sites Twitter, Snapchat, and Instagram, my generation of recent college grads people is still fairly reliant on Facebook. We need to end this reliance—but not necessarily delete our accounts.

Facebook has diluted the real meaning of “friend.” While I may have over 2,000 “friends” on Facebook, I talk to maybe 20 on a fairly regular basis. “Friend” has been transformed from someone whom a person has a fulfilling relationship with into someone who lurks in the background of life, occasionally liking pictures or statuses and wishes them a “happy birthday!” when prompted to by a website. That is the opposite of “fulfilling.” Furthermore, divorce attorneys are reporting an uptick in the number of couples citing “social media” as the reason for their divorce. It’s no wonder my generation has become a cynical mess. This isn't "social" behavior at all--this is antisocial behavior.

The awkward irony is that despite being equipped with tools that can tell us exactly what we did online on this date seven years ago, we have no real reason to actually work hard to remember anything that’s happened. It’s a bad idea to rely on technology to maintain a record of personal life events: Facebook and Instagram probably aren’t going to be around forever. While I’m not advocating becoming a digital hermit and deleting all accounts on every site, I think it’s a good idea to take a step back and actively try to remember meaningful things.

Don't get me wrong: I like Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter. They have their place. When used appropriately, they are great outlets for creativity and sharing news, pictures, etc. They should not, however, become a substitute for the human brain or a failsafe against having to actually remember something about someone else. If our grandparents and parents could remember things without an app telling them, we should be able to as well.

As a person that was camera shy, I regret that I have so few photos of me as a child or teen, and virtual no videos. Anything I come across is worth more than gold, so I envy kids today that will have years worth of memories at their fingertips. My niece has more video and photos of her in 4 years than I do in 36. She will never have to strain to remember what she was like as a kid.

Today it does seem like overload, but as time goes by and photos get lost and destroyed, the value in all of this will become much more important.

We had a great inservice last week about social media and the child’s brain. Children are addicted to social media, which is making them less social, to fill a void in thier lives. The void is the lack of a father. Also, MIT and Stanford are doing studies that indicate social networking is causing a drop in analytical skills.

Last year I took my kid that skis to Keystone for 4 days of skiing with my brother and his family. We were all sitting around a huge table at a restaurant for dinner, the kids were all talking, we were all talking, having some good food and company.

I looked over at the table next to us and there was a whole family all jacked into their devices, except the dad. He didn't look happy at all. He looked sad and lonley, surrounded by his family on a vacation that had to be costing him a considerable sum.

I was at a restaurateur and while waiting for my order I looked around and saw 8 people looking at their cell phones. Why go out if you do this? There is a Simpsons episode where Moe the bartender comes up to a guy at the bar and starts to talk to him about what is he drinking or about sports and the guy points at the cell phone he is on with the expression that you are bothering me and Moe, as he turns away, mumbles you are in a crowded place with all these people to talk to and you are on your phone.

5 years ago, my roommate and I went to a party a college friend of his was having about an hour away. They had a fire pit set up in the back yard and Iwent out to mingle... not knowing a soul... sat down and there around the fire were 8 people... and they were all busy texting people not at the party on their cellphones.

I just don’t bother trying anymore as a result... it’s just gonna be me and my kitties for the rest of my time on Earth it seems.

And making kids stupid too.

How parents who use iPads to 'pacify' their children are impeding their speech development with some starting school at five 'unable to talk' as a result

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2933988/How-parents-use-iPads-pacify-children-impeding-speech-development-starting-school-five-unable-talk-result.html#ixzz3QRqjNF8v

Also, MIT and Stanford are doing studies that indicate social networking is causing a drop in analytical skills.

And we'll know what they'll "discover." The twitter generation is going to be extremely easy to manipulate for the rest of their lives. Because, or course, if you can't get it into 140 characters, it's not worth knowing.

If our grandparents and parents could remember things without an app telling them, we should be able to as well.

They had a paper month-by-month calendar hanging in the kitchen with all the notables written down. They didn't need an app because the calendar was always there, hanging right in front of their face.

In addition, my Mom used the calendar to record significant family events. Thus the calendar became a family diary. My Mom, RIP, would save the calendars.

Consider EVERYTHING you did as a kid.

Now consider that today’s kids have an electric record of much of what they’ve done good or bad that will never go away.

Every employer, every possible love interest, law enforcement, etc can peek into your child’s past in seconds.

Really think about that. That isn’t an improvement.

...”a whole family all jacked into their devices, except the dad... He didn’t look happy at all. He looked sad and lonely, surrounded by his family”......

I think all parents can relate to this happening these days. Heck I was with my son and his wife for a visit and they were busy texting ‘each other’ while sitting ‘next to each other!’.....I attempted ‘face to face conversation’ but felt like I was intruding on their private conversation which continued. So I left for home.

I’ve been around people who pull up their cells while we’re conversing ...I stop and walk away if they begin texting or whatever.

I had a cell phone for about a month or so and hated it. So I stopped using one. I have a phone and if they want to talk “call me”. It’s worked.

....” The twitter generation is going to be extremely easy to manipulate for the rest of their lives”....

That is the idea of technology today......

I remember the first time I used a computer....I took a class and right away said to the lord...whoever gets control of this is going to control the world one day...and people.

They think it’s new. I was sending msgs on computers at work in the 80’s. It was funny, I’d frequently send horrific looking made-up error messages to friends who were not that savvy with computers, you know, right before I sent them a message asking if they wanted to go to lunch.

XM04-EE-107: SYS-211-CLEANERR. Write error, files purged at logoff.

Then I’d call and say what’s up, they’d describe the strange msg, I’d go talk to them, ha-ha, etc. Only works once or maybe 5 times per person. Invariably some moron would ignore an important message and lose their files.

Nowadays I guess I’d be put in jail for such stuff.

We used to send all sorts of NUTTY msgs to each other.

By the time the 90’s rolled around, the novelty had worn off. Everybody (I thought) pretty much worked with computers in their job in one way or another, and they pretty much got what they were supposed to do.

Now we see people from 7 to 70 playing games on their phones - and paying LOTS of money to “play” the games. Like buying virtual farm animals. It’s like aliens invaded and stole everyone’s common sense. Much of the world turned into morons, and they think computers are a “new thing”.

I have zero interest in games on phones, other than to be on the money-making end.

That was a fun read! LOLOL...

My brother was using computers when they first came out....was it “Dos” or something of that nature...I have no computer lingo skills so we'll leave it at that...

At any rate he shared the things he could do on his computer as you mentioned,... showed me some of the messages from his home office secretaries. (he was a sales man for a bottle manufacturing company at the time), they were indeed pretty nutty.... Trouble is I didn't see them as nutty because even then they used shortcuts so it made no sense to me, but he'd be cracking up!

My brother gets calls from all over the world and business's now to help them solve computer problems even though he does not do so as a vocation.... Couple years ago a Middle Eastern Billionaire tried to hire him away from the company he's now with because he helped him to troubleshoot one of his problems. He declined the offer though it wasn't easy to turn down the dollars and perks he was offered. The guy would get him anything he wanted...

So since you've been doing computers from the 80’s I imagine you have a great handle on these as well.....BTW he gets really frustrated with all the “stuff” that gets in the way of what could be far more streamlined and efficient ways computers should be operating ...but aren't. I bet you can relate!

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