The emergence of the internet has given people the opportunity to become as visible as they want to be. Visibility means people can spill their guts and reveal themselves in so many new ways. We can post our opinions on blogs, update our ‘status’ as often as we want on Facebook, Tweet about things we like or dislike and put up our photo’s for people to rate. Why do we do this? And is it good or bad?
I would say that this desire to be seen online mimics our need to be seen offline. Why do most human beings want to become celebrities? It’s simple, for love and for power. All of us need and want love and many of us want power (to varying degrees). Take for example sites like hotornot.com and soyouthinkyourecool.com which allow you to put up your picture and something about yourself for others to rate. This way strangers can weigh in on whether you’re pretty or cool, but why do we care what strangers say? They don’t know us or impact our lives in any way. Perhaps that’s the key. Since they don’t know us they’re not like our family or friends who have a biased opinion. However while these ratings may be more truthful, they’re totally superficial. This is where the fine line between wanting love and vanity emerges. Seeking social approval from friends and colleagues is natural and healthy (to a certain degree). Seeking approval from strangers over the internet is like a call for help.
In fact in our quest for social approval what seems worse than a good or bad rating, is no rating at all. Having your blog, profile or photos ignored is like being banished into the desert or sitting by yourself in the corner of the classroom. The instances where it’s worse to be poorly rated than ignored is in those unfortunate cases where bullying and ostracism have occurred. In general however we want to maximize the number of comments, ratings and friends we have on Facebook (even if we barely know these ‘friends’). Building our ratings and friends simply to have them is a façade that shows we are important and loved. This again is a call for help.
Of course there are legitimate benefits to social media. The ability to connect with people, share ideas, promote our businesses and so on via social media is great. What is not so great is our society’s obsession with rating and being rated. The internet is a powerful tool and many people in the world are now on it. Therefore we should expect every corner of human thought and behavior to manifest itself there. However we should take care to spend our time and direct our thoughts to positive ideals and not worry about how we’re viewed by people we will never meet.
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