Social Media.

The shooting at YouTube was really shocking. It was reported in the news that the shooter spent her whole time online, it sounds like her whole identity was based on her online activity and when  YouTube pulled the plug by filtering her content her identity collapsed, imploded. She was fixated by projecting her persona through YouTube and felt a sense of grievance which could have also occurred through non digital interactions.

Social media can be very addictive; basically they try to keep you on their sites as long as possible to make money. We are constantly checking for updates, interrupting the regular flow of things in the real world; it is the same with videos, you have to constantly upload videos to remain relevant. Nowadays in London you see a lot of people staring at their smart phones while walking, on transport, inside cafes, people are no longer talking or looking at each other, they have their noses peeled onto their screen, oblivious to the surrounding world; the real world is just another interruption from ones checking ones own screen. The irony is the more we seek to connect to others in the virtual world through social media the more we become disconnected from the real world. Isn't social media more ephemeral than real friends in the real world? There have been several studies done on this, where participants were found to feel more isolated after spending more than two hours on social media. Also more importantly people that spend longer times online were found to be less tolerant, less accepting of other people in the real world.

The fact is that interactions online can be of the same nature over and over again and you can ensure that your conversations are brief, but when you go back in the real world interactions may not be quite so easily managed. So being online for very long periods of time might leave you ill equipped to deal with problems in the real world. On the other hand, for some people who are house-bound social media can be an important life line where they can meet new people. 

Also the wanting to be constantly connected, worrying that you might not be answering messages, makes people anxious and leaves them unable to spend quiet time with themselves without feeling guilty or uncomfortable, with their minds somewhere else. We can show to the world a better side of ourselves online, for example with a wide ranging selection of filters on Instagram. Then there is the aspect of monetization; some people spend a lot of time online selling stuff on ebay, uploading videos to YouTube, Twitter or Instagram but how much money are users of these sites making? Some are doing very well but others are not, and they are just wasting time a bit like TV binging. The social media companies are making money with advertisements and people's data. Some people have a lot of followers and make an income but others don't make money at all. If one for example spends three hours each day on social media but one doesn't  make any money wouldn't they be better off just having a minimum wage normal job?

Losing followers and money can produce a negative psychological effect, especially to someone with a fragile identity with no real job who spends most of their time online on their own and whose identity revolves around this activity. This can never be an excuse for going around shooting people. I felt terrible for the poor people at YouTube, what a terrifying experience! And then there is the issue of censorship and where it crosses the line from social interest to social control. 

Social media can also be positive, helping people for example to get connected in a positive way. In one particular case a man from Yemen was able to escape war and death thanks to social media.

On the other hand some people, when their ratings go down do dangerous things, for example posting crazy things online to send their ratings back up again. If someone shutdown social media all of a sudden for whatever reason would people have a nervous breakdown or get their lives back? Some people find Facebook really useful in terms of getting info on events that are happening but are worried about the data breach. I do enjoy using YouTube and I have never had any problems with it. 

Also with other social media sites, you can get to meet people you wouldn't normally meet but it's not good to spend excessive amounts of time on it. But we go back to the addiction element of them; whilst you might enjoy interacting with others online, being connected, or having the impression of being connected, the lack of real friendships can bring problems in the real world. Are we really able to switch ourselves off from them? Also there may be a shortage of well paid, real jobs in the world and that's why a lot of people go online in the hope of promoting themselves, to make money. Some people have the false illusion that online you can become a star, they dream of becoming famous like on the TV show Britain's Got Talent. I mean some vloggers on YouTube do very well, but it is a highly competitive global environment, the bottom line is social media sites are a business with a global reach and when they expand too much they still have to deal with growth problems and other issues like any other business.

Some of this is what I have been addressing in my current work which is about isolation and anomie, a sense of disassociation from society. In an age where people are pushed to be constantly connected through digital media where is this leading us? If on one level we are using social media as a distraction from the things that give our life real meaning on another level social media is changing how we relate to each other. My work aims to highlight this dichotomy.

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