Mikkey Halsted

TWII

            As an avid Twitter user (Thickyricardo, for those who tweet) I often go online to exhibit my daily frustrations and moments of enthusiasm.  I also communicate with many friends and relatives via Twitter.  Recently, I was asked how a friend was doing by another friend and I explained that the friend in question was cool and ran down her latest exploits.  However, as I started rattling off what was new with her, I realized that I had not spoken with that friend at all and that everything I was repeating, I read on Twitter.  It seemed like we spoke, but in actuality, I had not spoken with that friend in over three weeks.  That’s when it hit me; social media has begun to replace actual conversation and interaction.  Social networking has truly evolved.  It seems like just yesterday when I was getting geeked by someone responding to my first electronic (“e”) mail.  Now, an email address is as common as a physical one and from a networking perspective, we have come a long way from Black Planet (some of us, anyway).  As a society, we have gone from personal ads at the back of local newspapers to the real-time streaming of ourselves in an attempt to communicate.  The twenty-first century has indeed fulfilled many technological promises regarding societal interaction but has it all been for the better?

Believe it or not, there was once a time (not so long ago) when we were not instantly accessible.  Although many of my peers had pagers while I was in high school, many more were incommunicado.  During the early nineties when I was in high school, if you missed your friends before they went out, it was basically up to you to find where everyone was at that night.  I know, sounds incredibly archaic, right?  With all new technologies come those who knowingly or not, abuse the advancement.  To this point, we now hear of people who are “addicted” to social networking, whether it be My SpaceÒ, TwitterÒ, FacebookÒ, or other.  I recently read about a guy getting fired from his job because after reporting the time workers spent on various websites, his MySpaceÒ usage totaled somewhere around 23 hours a week of work time.  Now, this can be misleading, as he may have just had the sight up on his desk and not actually using it but it does point out a seemingly alarming trend.  Computer social networking is beginning to outpace “real” networking.  The term “real” used to suggest actual live or phone conversation. Now that we have entered into the second decade of social networking, I believe it’s time to put all of these “advancements” into perspective.

            My biggest fear is that social media and networking will eventually deteriorate the writing and literary skills of our youth.  If it sounds as though I am being a little worrisome, think of how often u text like ths 2 mke quik pts.  Well, that’s cool because you’re in a hurry and may be charged for longer texts, but overtime, we begin to lose that formality that makes literature so great.  With many kids beginning to text as early as 11, we are stifling their compositional growth.  I’m not saying that everyone has to write like Hemingway but habitual texting is not helping our writing skills.  A second concern of mine regarding social networking via computers is that we are no longer meeting and greeting in person.  People are beginning to be hired and fired by email.  By using my computer, I can now order groceries, pay bills, print postage, conduct video conferences, buy music, and trade stocks among a plethora of other activities.  What this essentially does is limit the amount of time required to interact with actual persons but does it also represent our further isolation from one another.

            A good friend of mine only picks up women online.  Not dating websites, but on social networks.  He asked why should he go to a club, spend money on drinks and may not come up when he could stay at home in whatever he wanted to wear and talk to honeys online.  Now, I am not judging where anyone likes to meet their potential mates, as I do know a few cats that use online dating websites.  However, there is a difference between “dating” websites and just typing “greasy” to get it easy.  Of course, it takes a bit of skill to pull either off correctly but still it undermines intimacy (if you were looking for it in the first place).  At the end of the day, it is far too early to know the exact impact that online social networking will have on our society but I wager that we will trade off instant communication for literate communication.  Then again, maybe blogs are undermining the reading community as well, if so, then I guess that’s just what it is.

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