I just read "Here Comes Everybody" by Clay Shirky. It is a terrible book and horribly repetitive, but it convinced me embrace social media and stop hating it. The most important idea that stuck in my mind after reading it is that personal restraint has to be a part of social media. The public nature of social media exposes the author in ways they never have been before. What they write is available to the whole world and is not likely to go away any time soon. Where does your Facebook status go when you post it? Facebook's servers, i.e., out of your control forever. Anyone interested in learning about you now knows that you think your cat is adorable.
I have always seen social media as blogs with no substance or grammatical correctness, the Wild West of the Internet where anything goes because there are no rules. Facebook statuses like "chilin wit my homies" make me cringe because they are completely unnecessary! The only people that care about my status updates are the "homies" I'm "chilin wit". Social media is a way for an individual to publish for a audience that is genuinely interested in their life, but the broader audience of the Internet must always be considered. You might think that your boss is an idiot, and it might be important to your immediate audience to know about it, but remember that what you say is very public despite any illusion of privacy. Find your niche, be creative, have fun, express your unique perspective! Show the world the best of yourself, but be responsible.
Applause.
ReplyDeleteI agree. Whenever someone's status pops up on my wall and the word 'yummy' is involved I feel like my intelligence has been demeaned. People need to remember who can read their publicly published opinions. That being said, I had never thought of blog posts as being intended for small audiences. This point of view makes me feel less judgmental of the trash that I see on the internet.
ReplyDeleteI got a different message from Here Comes Everybody: people can form groups in previously unavailable ways because the cost of group formation has lowered. However, one's publicity is completely adjustable, i.e., through privacy settings. As a result, social media does not expose the author, in ways out of his or her control.
ReplyDeleteTo Warren
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on the point of the book, but I didn't really care for the point the book was making, this was just what I got from it.
I also agree with you on privacy settings, but there have been instances where Facebook's privacy settings have changed, or been so complicated that people haven't understood exactly what they were revealing to the public. Thus everything a person publishes on the web must be thought of as "public despite any illusion of privacy". The same thing could happen at any other social media hub.