A friend of mine said to me, “I don’t really use Facebook, well, I mean, I’m on there, just to keep up to date with my mates, you know, so I have a look at what they’re up to, and that’s all I do on there.”
It struck me because I realised that instead of phoning or at least texting many of his friends to stay in touch, he chose to watch them anonymously on Facebook.
Is this the world we live in now?
In the olden days, that I’m old enough to remember, friends had to meet each other or phone each other to stay in touch. Then came text messages, then came, ‘Just checking their Facebook page’.
Sure, social media has brought some people together, some of it is being used for good. But studies are showing that overall social media is leading to the degradation of social interaction.
It all comes down to the quality of social interaction people have via social media. And to a large extent, people don’t actually interact at all — they don’t actually communicate — they aren’t actually being social. A click on a like button or a retweet is usually the extent of ‘social’.
And often what people post on social media isn’t anything that truly represents their own values and interests. It’s become a virtue signalling charade of conformist opinions and system speak. People just parroting what the matrix wants them to think and say, and then people retweet and share the same opinions.
Just like in the real world, people tend to want their opinions and beliefs to be validated by others. And that is what drives so much of human communication these days, as people are often too insecure to hold their own individual beliefs. They are too afraid of being rejected by others. So, they crave acceptance and ‘like’ buttons to reinforce their opinions and beliefs, which frequently aren’t even their own opinions and beliefs to begin with.
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and many others have the same system. They provide users with a ‘feed’ that basically churns out a selection of posts from whoever the user follows.
But hang on… who controls which posts you get to see on this feed? Well… that’s down to the algorithms. But who controls the algorithms? Well… no one really knows.
But what we do know, is that any information deemed to be ‘controversial’ is discriminated against by the algorithms and censored. In other words, social media has mostly become an echo chamber of mainstream memes and government propaganda.
It’s very insidious when you realise its vast influence. It is homogenising much of humanity — leading them towards the same information that is often scripted by social engineers in the shadows, who have a vested interest in the masses thinking in certain ways.
Social media is being used to reinforce conformity and the hive mind. And unless you are bypassing the censor approved algorithms and accessing alternative information — then you are being suckered further and further into a false hyper-reality. And this is exactly why these ‘social media’ systems were designed in the first place. Conformity. Control.
I recommend you socialise with people in the real world as much as possible. And if you interact with people electronically, do it directly via phone, messaging or email.
Verdict: The claim that social media is social is mostly false.
© Adrian Connock
