~ Martin Luther King Jr.
This quote from Martin Luther King Jr. almost seems to predict the massive network so many of us now belong to, the world wide web.
After looking into the social networks, I TRULY can not say if I am any more convinced that social networks are entirely bad. I DO BELIEVE that like all things there are good and bad directions being pursued. I believe in some of the ultimate good to have come from digital online social networks. I myself met my partner online. I can honestly say we are happier individuals for having made use of an online network that was specifically designed for lesbians. I believe it is fair to say, meeting the kind of people we would like to have a relationship with is difficult in general. When you add in an invisible classifier, such as sexual orientation, it made finding the right person more difficult. We do not walk around with visible buttons that note all of our hobbies and preferences. Had it not been for an online social network that provided a safe place for my partner and I to identify similar goals in life, we might very well still be searching.
My thesis and reason for pursuing this route for my final project came from my brief online experience with social networks. There is no denying the fact that social networks are growing rapidly. I don't know if I could now say I believe that social networks are breaking down the quality of our communication (completely). Gossip and games, popularity contests, doodling and silly notes have been a part of life for many youths. Perhaps the growing numbers of adults creating pages on facebook would signal it is an activity many adults still find entertaining. While many of the applications are fun, witty, informative, creative, curious, and even gratuitous, I believe there is some truth to the notion of social networks potentially contributing to the decline of our own sense of self. I say this only because the social networks largely interact on a very surface level. Of the three major sites, I can honestly say I had fun interacting with others, but in the end, I was left wondering... where did all my time go? Did sending virtual flowers really brighten up someone's day? Is anyone better off for knowing my "have done it" list and my "have not done it yet" list. It is silly and fun, but was my time well spent? If I look at it from being on the receiving end of virtual plants and good wishes, I must say, they DID brighten my day. I don't know if it is far removed from saying hello, or sending a thank you card in the mail. The point is that someone took the time to compose a message or send you a virtual thought. It is not so bad. I received some virtual cilantro from a TWC student last week and it made my day! It started an entire conversation about my love of cilantro and fresh salsa. I think the "big" social network sites are fun, but I also must warn, it is easy to get swept into time consuming reading, looking, shopping, and banter. I can tell you that now having experienced the "virtual reality" interaction with my sister students of TWC, I will not be pulling my page of facebook anytime soon. It does not replace face to face (F2F) contact, but I believe it enhances our relationships and helps us connect. We know when events come up, when someone is feeling happy or blue, when they received a promotion, the list goes on. I don't think digital social networks will ever replace F2F interaction.
The growing popularity of digital social networks are peeking interests globally across various age groups and will continue to do so. This rapidly growing form of social communication is attracting record numbers of users across a wide range of age groups. All of the major social network sites promote and market on their pages. Some of the page applications are like taking a product survey. Corporations are able to solicit the publics response to various products without stopping a person in the middle of a shopping mall to fill out a time consuming survey. The marketing giants have created fun games to compare your taste with the tastes of your friends. Users like learning about what their friends like, while the manufacturers and marketing companies record the trends.
While many of the social page applications are harmless, I hope that users do take the time to reflect upon their own online interactions. While some activities may hold some value, we should really be asking ourselves, is this the best way to spend the time we have. I believe some of the features of the social network pages do had some value to life. I am still not able to answer the issue of whether social networks are subtly eroding the humanity of our communication. I would not lump social networks into the only way to socialize and communicate through the internet. I believe the digital age of communication may usher in a new level of human development.
My personal notes from my online experience with social networks and this blog:
In our society, historically we have learned through physical experiences. In general humanity assesses life by what we see with our own eyes, hear with our own ears, or feel by our own skin. Perhaps we as humans are learning something through online communication that we would not otherwise have the opportunity to learn.
--Bare with me while I try to find the words to articulate my thoughts.
A section from one of Ralph Waldo Emerson's essays comes to my mind, the essay titled, Uses of Great Men.
Senates and sovereigns have no compliment, with their medals, swords and armorial coats, like the addressing to a human being thoughts out of a certain height, and presupposing his intelligence. This honor, which is possible in personal intercourse scarcely twice in a lifetime, genius perpetually pays; contented if now and then in a century the proffer is accepted. The indicators of the values of matter are degraded to a sort of cooks and confectioners, on the appearance of the indicators of ideas. Genius is the naturalist or geographer of the supersensible regions, and draws their map; and, by acquainting us with new fields of activity, cools our affection for the old. These are at once accepted as the reality, of which the world we have conversed with is the show.
We go to the gymnasium and the swimming school to see the power and beauty of the body; there is the like pleasure and a higher benefit from witnessing intellectual feats of all kinds; as feats of memory, of mathematical combination, great power of abstraction, the transmutings of the imagination, even versatility and concentration, --as these acts expose the invisible organs and members of the mind, which respond, member for member, to the parts of the body. For we thus enter a new gymnasium, and learn to choose men by their truest marks, thought, with Plato, “to choose those who can, without aid from the eyes or any other sense, proceed to truth and to being” (Plato’s Republic, book 7, chapter 16) foremost among these activities are the summersaults, spells and resurrections wrought by the imagination. When this wakes, a man seems to multiply ten times or a thousand times his force. It opens the delicious sense of inderterminate size and inspires an audacious mental habit. We are as elastic as the gas of gunpowder, and a sentence in a book, or a word dropped in conversation, sets free our fancy, and instantly our heads are bathed with galaxies, and our feet tread the floor of the Pit. And this benefit is real because we are entitled to these enlargements, and once having passed the bounds shall never again be quite the miserable pedants we were.
Our society has preyed upon our human attraction to the physical, to what we can see, and understand with our eyes. Yet, there is something greater than what we can perceive with the human eye. The various intellectual properties of humanity are countless and are waiting to be developed in the same way we train our physical bodies, let us also train our intellectual bodies.
Plato's remark, "to choose those who can, without aid from the eyes, or any other sense, proceed to truth and to being," brings pause to my usual way of thinking. To choose something without judging it with our eyes or any of our other senses would require humanity to change the way we approach EVERYTHING. It is to not rely on the physical skills and traits we has humans depend upon. It is to ask of us as humans to forget our physical bodies altogether, and dance with the unseen, the mental, the emotional, the invisible parts of what make us each uniquely who we are.
Emerson elaborates on the freedom and the unlimited potential to be unlocked within each person, "When this wakes, a man seems to multiply ten times or a thousand times his force. It opens the delicious sense of inderterminate size and inspires an audacious mental habit. We are as elastic as the gas of gunpowder, and a sentence in a book, or a word dropped in conversation, sets free our fancy, and instantly our heads are bathed with galaxies, and our feet tread the floor of the Pit. And this benefit is real because we are entitled to these enlargements, and once having passed the bounds shall never again be quite the miserable pedants we were." Emerson reveals a new way to live that cannot be executed in the physical realm, but only within the unlimited space of our mental capacities. There is no limit to our visions, our dreams, our own creations of thought. To say we are as elastic as the gas of gunpowder, I see humanity growing in untold directions without limits - "and a sentence in a book" is wrought with what ever your own personal understanding and life experience will reveal to you. What would Emerson say about a sentence in a blog? Would it not follow his very train of thought regarding indeterminant size and the idea of our heads being bathed with galaxies!?
That being said, I feel it is likely digital communications itself was born from the intellectual greatness, from the invisible organs of human kind. I believe it continues to grow and change as more contribute to the creation of our digital age of communication. Like all things, it has the potential to be misused and I believe humanity's tendency to drift back to the physical stimulus is made apparent within many of the social networks, the spam, and the sensationalized news. If we don't allow ourselves to become distracted by the misuse of this amazing technology, I believe we will find we have a tool which can help humanity grow the intellectual properties of themselves.
When Emerson speaks of human kind finally awakening to the ideas to be birthed from the imagination, he spoke of our growth - "a man seems to multiply ten times or a thousand times his force." I believe reading and writing have always been tools used to create and express from this unseen place within each person. After looking and creating pages on the social networks and starting this blog - I find I do not entirely agree with the sentiments of Birkerts. I believe if he were to give blogging a try, he would find his words and work will reach a greater audience, and perhaps his own thoughts and beliefs would be challenged in such a way as to grow and evolve from where he has safely resided. I have stumbled across some amazing blogs, expressions and revelations of self and of life! I find them absolutely beautiful and I look forward to reading the new posts as they are birthed into the digital realm of communication.
I encourage everyone to search around a little, see what you may stumble upon. I have met some amazing people through the social networks. Incidental meetings on the pages of what I call fluff, but meetings and interactions with other individual souls which will have a permanent effect on the way I see myself both in the digital world and in the physical world. For as Emerson said, "once having passed the bounds shall never again be quite the miserable pedants we were."
