They connect us but at the same time, they create distance between us.
They bind us to be together in the same space, whether it is with people that are of our interest or people that are completely irrelevant to us.
Someone once told me we should engage in conversations and in relationships with people that are in our best interest, depending on what we're pursuing or trying to achieve in life. And there is the belief that if we enter social networks, we have a better chance at doing that, but we don't.
Social networks such as this one, Facebook and others put us in a disadvantageous position because what they want from us is not that we create new bonds with people that may share our interests. What they want for us is total and complete compliance with their data mining protocols and procedures to help them grow as businesses. These entities want us to log into their websites to share what's happening with our lives, knowingly planting tricky User Agreement Terms that they are sure we wouldn't actually read. They trust in our ignorance and our willingness to blindly participate in a sort of data fair that we get nothing away from, in reality.
This year has been one of the most convoluted regarding this subject since the arrival of Facebook more than ten years ago. While trends have changed and now everyone is looking at cryptocurrencies as the 'new normal' in the 2.0 environment, more and more, there are sources and campaigns all over the Internet, crafted by social media analyzers, psychology-driven community managers and others, that vouch for the solidification of the reach social networks now have and should have in the future.
But with the Facebook-Cambridge Analytica Scandal, we're being left to wonder if we have put our trust and our data into the hands of wrongdoers without us knowing in the past, and if we're being done that same thing right now.
So then comes the statement of this article: Social networks are not as valuable as media told us they are. Because when it comes to human nature and human growth, there isn't a single element different from real human interaction that can help us thrive and get ourselves through tough situations.
What I would like everyone to do after reading this piece is to think if you feel safe knowing your private data, your life, is being monitored by all of these entities.
Don't trust your smartphone, don't trust your laptops, don't trust the different devices you have included in your regular life because these are elements through which someone with a decent amount of knowledge can penetrate and invade you, unknowingly to you. They have been designed with vulnerabilities by the same companies that want you to consume their advertising through social networks. It's all designed for the purpose of generating profit to a sort of feedback schematic.
And you may ask: "Is there something we can do about all of these issues social networks and technology present to us?" and sadly, the answer is: There's not much that we can do at this point.
Consumerism has already been programmed in the minds of the members of the middle class, and commodities that make up for the current 'desirable way of living' include all kinds of smart, interconnected devices. Putting it in other words: What a middle class man or woman thinks it would mean he or she has succeeded is the amount of gadgets and tech stuff designed for home application he or she is able to buy.
But by doing this, he or she is going to actually and unintentionally bug his/her own place.
How could we ever forget the importance of the organic aspect of life?
I really don't care about social networks and what the 'most valuable' content structure is.
There's the message, the narrative, and then, there is the people who are going to receive the message and that's what matters.
If you have read this in its entirety, it means that a part of you agrees with me and has been somehow put off by what's happening with the world right now.
I just want to invite you to stop being dormant about all of this. Wake up. And help others wake up too.