Those old enough to remember the AIDS crisis in New York
City will recall a ubiquitous public service announcement poster: SILENCE =
DEATH.
The viral campaign drew parallels between the Nazi period and the
AIDS crisis, declaring that “silence about oppression and annihilation of gay
people, then and now, must be broken as a matter of survival.”
It is in this spirit – if not with the same visceral threat
to the spread of near-certain death (although even that may be up for debate) –
that I propose a companion PSA sticker:
SOCIAL MEDIA = STRESS.
Social media billionaires would like you to think that more
time online will make the world a safer, more democratic place, and lead to
happier more informed social and consumer choices.
Not so. As President Obama elegantly said in his farewell
address to the nation, “The rise of naked partisanship, increasing economic and
regional stratification, the splintering of our media into a channel for every
taste – all this makes this great sorting seem natural, even inevitable. And
increasingly, we become so secure in our bubbles that we accept only
information, whether true or not, that fits our opinions, instead of basing our
opinions on the evidence that’s out there.”
Consider this from Time magazine. In an article published
Feb. 17, the Old Media giant reports: “Virality is a David myth obscuring the
fact that the Internet is [still] run by Goliaths.” (Those are my brackets on ‘still,’
which Time editors should have axed; I mean are we proposing that there stands
a ghost of a chance that the Internet will ever NOT be run by Goliaths?)
This reportage lets print readers in on a little secret.
These facts are done by social science-based (read not business, rather
nonpartisan information providers who can no longer feel sanguine about
continued federal funding) organizations regarding how going viral is a myth
perpetrated by those who would have us devote more and more time to social
media.
So look for it – SOCIAL MEDIA = STRESS. Or better yet, get
your nose out of your phone and breathe a little. Like the bearded guy from those
old Men’s Wearhouse ads says, “You’ll like the way you look, I guarantee it.”
Next: Running for Your Life: It’s Spring Already
