This subject is a main personal topic of mine. I cannot stand what has become. Seeing the transition of "pre-internet" to what we have now in such a short period of time is mind boggling. We are evolved to work within and receive feedback from small groups. Then POW, you can now be criticized by literally thousands of people within minutes. I go up the damn wall when I'm having a conversation with someone and they pull their phone out to check something or Google what we're talking about. "Oh I can multitask."
Now to hand a Critique-ilizer 9000 (phone with access to these thousands of people) to a young individual at some of the peak impressionable years of their lives...scary. The dopamine rush they feel from the instant gratification of endless information that's catered to their interests by way of tracking their usage has them constantly wanting more and constantly receiving it. They become to cherish the feedback - both good and bad - as a way for something new. It has developed an unrealistic approach to human interaction to the point that you see people pinch to zoom on REAL pictures and unable to hold face-to-face conversations because they're unable to Google for fact checking in the real world. Not so smart now, huh?
I feel hypocritical in that I am sending this over the internet and I would consider this platform social media as well. But I don't do the others - SnapChat, Instagram, FaceBook, Twitter... What I like about the OT is that even though there are thousands of people on here, there's a relative handful that actively participate. It's a quick way to blow off a few minutes for a break from work, but most importantly
there isn't an infinite scroll like on the other other platforms. There is a stop measure in that you can actually catch up instead of being sucked in for hours.
My wife and I were setup by mutual friends with our first "date" being at the mutual friends' house. Things were going well with great conversation and we were really enjoying ourselves. My friend had asked her to pull something up on FaceBook for us to look at. Her response was "I don't have FaceBook." Here we have a total babe in her 20s that has zero social media platforms? I had tunnel vision and was in awe. As simple as that might seem, it was a huge deciding factor to push for the many dates to come. That simple sentence gave me a peek into what kind of person she was right out the gate. Now, here we are married with a newborn.
We're hoping that the next wave of hipsters will think it's cool to not have this garbage and stop being assholes to one another. Until then, contingency plan is to move up in the hills.