Social Media - the 'Dickensian' Comms Tool of the 21st Century

Charles Dickens wrote the memorable line “it was the best of times, it was the worst of times” in his epic novel ‘A Tale of Two Cities’ in 1859. I am interpreting his words in 2014 and applying them to social media and my love/hate relationship with it. I know I am not alone…many of my friends and colleagues, young and old, feel the same way.

The genie was out of the bottle the day the first person popularized using the internet personally in the early nineties. Until that point, the net (it wasn’t yet known as the “web”) was an arcane, slow-speed hook-up for cerebral university professors collaborating on research and, to some extent, the United States military. Everyday people like you and me became the beneficiaries of a remarkably powerful communications tool and a range of users and developers recognized that and set out to harness the internet, coming up with grand ideas…Google, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn are just some of the best known sites in terms of daily usage. But individual and corporate web presence also assumed huge importance in essential ‘one-to-many’ personal communications, marketing, advertising, and news. And it was and is completely interactive. Dickens would probably have called it magic.

That’s much of what I consider as the “best of times” part. The least desirable  or “worst of times” side is visible in the misuse or abuse of this tool. Strategically accessing Google Earth to see if someone in a rich neighborhood has a BMW parked in the driveway so it can be stolen; telling legions of so-called friends about one’s bathroom or bedroom habits; showing the beheading of some poor soul as a perverse fear tactic in pushing your illogical agenda; hacking the database of a large company to steal thousands of credit card numbers in order to rip off as many people as possible; publishing pure venom or screed in Twitter ‘wars’ with those who have made statements with which you disagree; accessing child porn. These are a few nastier uses of the internet that come to mind. I fret most over social media's duality.

I’ve spent the vast majority of my life in communications-related businesses. Radio broadcasting, TV, telephone/internet sales and service, just to name a few. In these businesses, a level of professionalism, proper language, decorum, and legality were absolute musts. Technically, all of these elements of polite exchange should have simply glided into the various internet-based apps most of us use to communicate, but that didn’t happen.

Now, YouTube gives anyone who avails himself of it, a private, worldwide TV station. You don’t need a broadcasting license anymore to create radio that can be heard around the globe. Twitter lets anybody say whatever he or she pleases about anything with virtually no threat of recourse. Facebook does the same, but on a vastly expanded scale as, unlike Twitter, there are no limitations on size of post. Arguments about one’s right to hold any opinion abound…no one believes their own opinion could possibly be a stupid one…and so, we are bombarded by millions of words every day written by the uninformed (I use that word only to be gentle!). I’ve developed several specific approaches for how and when I use social media, just to avoid viewing all the nonsense. First, birthdays aside, I don’t ever put personal information on line. Second, I work hard to suppress emotional responses to the garbage out there...I often tweet back and then nuke my answers before ever pressing ‘send’. And finally, I monitor only the people I choose to and I block the idiot fringe. I just keep visualizing the staggering number of strangers who can and do look at everything and have a burning need to comment, regardless of what they know (or don't!) about any given subject.

What prompted me to think about and address this now is the sweeter side of social media. I felt great warmth yesterday as literally hundreds offered me heartfelt birthday greetings; a pat on the back; a word of encouragement; or a positive acknowledgement of something I’d once done. I posted a thank-you that said in part:

“You took a moment to send greetings or just make a nice comment. So, I think that the quid-pro-quo for getting older is the great good fortune of having all of the people who are or ever have been in my life out there. It is your interest and your friendship, sometimes your challenges, and always your affection that make me look forward to the next birthday...hopefully, interspersed with exchanges and get-togethers with many of you for no reason at all other than because we want to.”

Now that is the social part of social media. It allows the privilege of ‘one-to-many’ communication in a sincere way. It reflects an aspect of personal contact often absent from daily life and it informs my Dickens quote applying to social media as sometimes being part of “the best of times”. Be well everyone…and use this amazing tool wisely.

Peter