SEN
It's been a while since the last time I went out in Warsaw (Poland). Long awaiting catch-up and a goodbye drink, an all-in-one, was a great occasion. My friend booked a table at one of Warsaw's "where to be on a weekend night out" places, and honestly, the experience was quite disturbing for me...
Disturbing because of the people I saw there. Disturbing because the technology's impact on humans hasn't felt so strong and visible since we were all hunting for Pokemons a few years ago. Disturbing because this impact expanded into further aspects of "humanness" and we, people, seem to be quite powerless, even when fully aware and conscious of the influence.
Redefining human interactions.
The place where we went was quite the "instagrammable" one - full of people taking pictures or videos all around. I mean, there is nothing wrong with that, most of us, including myself, do it at many places, but what really struck me were the ladies from the table next to us. They arrived nearly at the same time, but as we had a drink, a starter, a main course, and a final drink, all they did during this time was taking pictures. 1.5h of taking photos. One and a half hours! In the same spot, with the same view - just the different angles. Those different angles required some work which meant that my friend's personal space was constantly interrupted and invaded without any word, without a simple "excuse me" or "sorry". As we ordered another drink, the ladies finished the "official photoshoot" and moved on to taking selfies and posting the results on social media. During all this time there was not much conversation going on between them, or overall not much of any human interaction as by the current definition.
What really hit me that evening was the extent of the tech / social media dominance over human interactions. What was quite unacceptable, rude, or weird some years ago, seems not to be perceived as such anymore. It was the redefinition of spending time together - the replacement of the "old, typical" interactions with the new ones. The interactions that used to satisfy human social needs through contact with another person, conversation, and establishing a bond, were replaced with the interactions that aim at satisfying the social needs by creating, as a joint effort, the idealized versions of self, spreading it across the network, bumping up dopamine, and receiving the validation, acceptance, and sense of belonging from there. Of course, this is not something new, something that emerged recently, but it's the extent of it, the vastness of it that really surprised me last Saturday, as these ladies were not the only ones.
The whole place was full of "this kind", and - even though being a millennial (or nearly Gen Z) representative, I really found it disturbing. And I don't want to be criticizing anyone here. The disturbing part for me was how much power and control the tech / social media has over us and that so many of us are going with the flow. The quest to be present, visible, and popular and the quest to create an idealized image of our lives seem to become so important and dominating for some that the most "basic rules of humanness" started to be disregarded. Technology, once again, interfered with human lives so greatly, it awakened and promoted narcissism and turned so many of us into slaves of the continuous creation of idealized narratives. Many of us are so deep into it that it has become an integral part of us - the prolongation of the self-definition.
Which syndrome/disorder do you have?
There is so much written and so much research about the negative impact of social media, how it affects our mental health, how it contributes to elevated stress, anxiety, depression, and so many different syndromes and disorders like phubbing, Facebook depression, Snapchat dysmorphia syndrome, Social media anxiety disorder, Phantom ringing syndrome, Nomophobia, Cyberchondria, Google effect, or the well known FOMO (Fear of Missing Out). What a list!
Personally, I am actually a big fan of social media as a tool, and a big fan of the opportunities they give to us. But we should be more aware, "strategic" and human-friendly with the ways we use them, and try to control certain behaviors that are being activated by them. We, people, can get so easily manipulated and controlled by the tech because of its design and mechanisms that understand and target our particular instincts, needs, and behaviors. We so often accept it and go with it, we let ourselves be drawn into it. Even when fully aware of those mechanisms, even when not really wanting to adhere and conform, we play by the rules and keep coming back. And we keep building and adding to this universe of fakeness, which with the current offering becomes even more and more fake.
The LinkedIn Fakeland
This is, however, not only happening in the space of the photo or video apps. LinkedIn is another example of the spreading fakeland and sometimes it really feels like it needs a pest control treatment. Is it just myself that finds all those posts about being so grateful or overly excited about a new position or recently completed project, or the extremely emotional goodbye essays too exaggerated, fake, and cringe? I think it's fine to be proud of own accomplishments and it is fine to share them with the network, however, it doesn't have to be done in this manner. The truth is that most of us don't like our jobs that much, we most likely would rather be somewhere else than in our corporations during those contractual 160 hours per month, so why do we create the content that smells like fakeland from very far away? We really need to stop conforming to what we see around us on social media, reflect on whether this is really something that we like and appreciate, and stop spreading and promoting this bullsh*t. If we however decide that this is all okay and we want more of it - fine as well. A lot is actually up to us - the users. We decide what and who we promote, we define the trends, and we spread those trends. Tech and social media are just the means to enable it. At least for now.
Let's BeReal.
Coming to the trends, their definition and promotion by us - the users. Maybe more of us could stop raging about how bad social media are and instead alter the ways we use it?
Given the rising popularity of influencers like Celeste Barber or Rianne Meijer, and the fact that new apps like BeReal. started to emerge recently, this signals that more and more people are getting really sick of the idealized fakeness and that there's a rising demand for the real. So instead of adding more fakeland content - let's just not do it, or at least let's try to resist the urge of posting exaggeration and of using filters and enhancements. Let's be more true. Let's educate ourselves and others about the mechanisms used by social apps and what impact they have on us. Let's try to get out of the comfort zone and let's try to be less controlled for the sake of maintaining our humanness and for the sake of future humanity. It is and will be so important especially when we talk about the wider adoption of the emergences such as AI and metaverse (which I plan to write about very soon given the quite disappointing experience at the Metaverse Summit 2022). It is, at the end of the day, one of the very few things that we actually have control and power over - we still can decide which tech solutions we use and HOW we use them. At least to a certain extent. ;)
PS. The BeReal. app has really been growing the user base despite many technical design flows. I started testing it out around a month ago, and to be honest, at first, it was a bit uncomfortable to be taking and posting the "raw" pics, but you really get adjusted to it quickly. The biggest "problem" for me is that no one from my crowd wanted to join the app so far, therefore here's my plea - if you decide to use the app (consider all the privacy aspects), please add me, and let's contribute to the promotion of the real.
https://bere.al/izabellasobieraj
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