I just heard today on NBC5 news that the addiction to social media like Facebook, Twitter and other networks is much worse than the addiction to alcohol and cigarettes. That’s some news!
In fact at many of the gatherings that I attended, I had questioned my colleagues on the need that pushes them to tweet or on the need that pushes them to write on their Facebook walls or other walls on what they are currently doing, even if it happens to be of no significance. However, the answer I got not only surprised me, but also made me think on the nature of addiction and the remedy that we may have to seek for that in near future.
The reason I am sharing this here is that the colleague I am talking about is from the same generation that I come from. While I do tweet and write on my walls sparingly and only when I have something important that I feel to share, sharing everything that you are doing not only amounts to an addiction of some kind, but also questions such actions when you are at a private gathering.
While we are becoming aware of the cell phone noise on public transportation systems, we need to be equally mindful of texting noises on the social media. While you do have the common sense to ignore, the addiction to that will make you restless till such time you see and respond.
While the arguments can be mounted to say that such conversations have proved valuable to engaging conversations later on and around the world, the exabyte of information that we produce on a daily basis is not only stressful, but also becomes noise that drowns the valuable contributions that can be made with a common sense approach.
While we may see this as and addiction, we know how addiction turns into a disease that may need urgent treatment of totally a new kind that we yet not fathomed. So, can we do something about this before it becomes a social disease that we cannot control? Some of you may view this as an extremist view of the social media, but I am trying to preempt the headaches that future may hold for us.