Socrates would hate social media, and he’d be wrong.
The Internet has forever changed the way we communicate.
Today we have instant access to almost infinite information on nearly everything that exists. We can also be in constant contact with our friends, co-workers and even strangers.
But while social media websites like Facebook, Instagram and Snapchat are revolutionary portals to limitless people and information, they also reflect an unrealistic version of reality, and provide empty social gratification through “likes” and comments.
Many people see the new, digital forms of interaction as a kind of lesser version of communication. It feels somehow empty to them, like some fundamental part of the human experience is missing.
This kind of thinking about new technologies is almost as old as thought itself. Socrates, one of the greatest minds in Western history, did not like the written word.
He worried that reliance on writing would erode memory, and that reading would give people the false impression that they had knowledge, when all they really had was data.
Socrates was right. Writing did create a society where people remembered less. But you will be hard-pressed to find many still arguing that reading and writing have ruined the world.
Today, we see a very similar conversation happening, except about the Internet.
In the past, reading and writing dramatically changed the way we operate and communicate in the world, and we’re better for it. The Internet and social media is also dramatically changing the way we operate and communicate in the world, and once again, we will be better for it.
It’s easy to look at our friends’, and especially our children’s use of social media with distrust and fear. If you see two people sitting together at a dinner table engrossed in their phones, not looking at each other it’s easy to scoff and complain about their lack of human interaction.
But if you looked at what they’re doing you might see a completely revolutionary and in some ways much better kind of interaction. Maybe they’re texting a friend on the other side of the country; or maybe they’re checking in at an online forum, adding to a conversation that spans hundreds of people from across the globe.
Just because it’s a new way of communicating, doesn’t mean it’s a bad way. Yes, it’s different. Yes, we might not understand it. Yes, we will probably never communicate that way. But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s bad.
Those two at the table aren’t talking to each other. They are hunched over tiny screens seemingly oblivious to “the world around them.” But on that screen they have access to people and information from the entire world.
Today, the “world around us” doesn’t just mean our town and the 50 or so kilometre circle around it. Today we carry countries, cultures and near infinite information and experience in our pocket, and can access it any time we like.
I don’t blame anyone for living in that world.
Trevor Nichols
