Social media usage does not come with instructions in order be guided how we use this at the best of our benefit.
This disguised escapism, sometimes dressed in the form of a virtual reality, although can sometimes be beneficial i.e.
* when that is used for knowledge sharing purposes; as an educational mean
* or when that can act as a “different pair of glasses“; as a mean to open our eyes and mindset to different truths
* or when that can connect the world and make it more aligned in trends, with inspiring ideas and areas of common interest, by superseding racial/social/economic backgrounds as boarders and certain concepts exists only in our minds.
it can also become dangerous
* for privacy issues; info that was once personal can seize to be personal and go public
* for being used as a means to perform misguided manipulation; social media can be used as a mean of distortion, intentional or not, of what is real or what is true.
* for being one of the factors that impacts negatively our quality of our lives; as social media can be used as a mean of information that is not always useful but rather harmful and only causes headaches and unnecessary stress.
Areas of our lives are governed by civil or religious laws or unwritten societal laws to establish fairness, discipline and guidance on how to live a good/better life. From the fist steps of our lives, we are trained to obey those. Isn’t this another area of our virtual lives that usage should have come with some instructions? How do we know what is the limit on how to use it, or how exposed we should be? Shouldn’t we have some good practice guidelines? This life that social media promise, can be sometimes only virtual; friends can sometimes appear to have an alter ego that no one had seen with the real eyes and is only visible through the lenses of social media. How can we tell what is real and what is not? Which of our senses should we trust? Should we trust what our mind sees or what our heart feels? There can be sometimes a mismatch.
Five potential do not do this instructions could be the following:
* do not use social media prior sleeping or when waking up; it’s bad for the mind.
* do not use technology on a non stop basis; assign certain times in your day that you check the social media and have a limit on how much time to spend on those i.e. an 15 mins while commuting or when lunch breaking at work.
* do not use social media to reveal internal affairs; don’t wash your dirty linen in public, it’s an ill bird that fouls its own nest!
* do not use social media to share the moment; live the moment to the maximum, share this later. If all moments are shared, then which moment will remain yours? It’s not all about sharing, is it?
* do not use social media to contact real friends; real friends have senses and other feelings that these can not be captured by a “like” or a comment or a picture. A picture is not always 1000 words and if it is use your own emotions and words to express those.
Beneficial or not, we are now in a Research & Development phase or on a continued testing mode phase. Who is the tester and what is the outcome of this research? The impact will be visible in the years to come. Do we need a user manual on how to use social media? Maybe yes. Everything not so simplified can have useful instructions. Use social media wisely to the best of your benefit. Do not sacrifice your personal reality for the sake of the virtual reality. Virtual can not substitute fully important aspects that we need as human beings need like the touch, the smell and how we view the world with all our senses and not just our eyes, how we view the world with our heart and not with just our mind…
With ♥ for philosophy,
Ziuζs
