More and more, I’m coming to believe that the primary impact of social media, far from connection, is to increase isolation and separateness.
Note, I say impact not intent.
In the us-and-them discourse that drives High School cliques, we seek and express identity that conforms and doesn’t grate, we seek like minds, so that our weirdness seems less strange. And we demonize those who are not like us, as a sop to our self-indulgent narcissism.
Social media is this dynamic writ large – and much interaction here and elsewhere reads like arrested development – like High Schoolers jostling for social position.
The primary impact of social media is to increase isolation and separateness.
Loneliness and fear of “I’m not good enough” drives most marketing spend, and purchase dollars.
This capitalist dynamic to a social medium does not bode well for a change in the short-, medium-, or long-term future.
So, to my question – where are we to come together if not hunched over our phones, alone and avoiding each other?
