What social media should be
A conversation with master discordian and occasional steemian @j3dy inspired this post, check him out.
What is social media to most of us?
To some it’s an escape, a way to get lost in the lives of others who are more interesting than what’s in front of us. It helps us kill time and avoid paying attention to the unpleasantries of our family routines and serves as a distraction from our bad moods and an excuse to be lazy.
For others it becomes a way to broadcast the ego, a way to get more attention and feel like we are more important or interesting than we actually feel we are. It may help to enhance our social life or work situation by presenting s certain image. For artists it can serve as a marketing tool to generate interest in ourselves as a product.
So many of us end up competing for attention that it becomes completely oversaturated. Even when it’s about others, it’s reslly all about us. If this is what it’s really all about, it’s just a pointless game. How much do you share because you really want to share it and how much is just a game to satisfy your insecurities? What will be the point when AI takes all of our jobs and we are ALL content creators and content curators? We can already see a glimpse into that future with the monetization of social media. Will they have to program robots to read our work and respond to it when everyone is too busy focusing on themselves to interact? Will we all pay a bit of what we earn to bots to attract more bots to our work? What meaning is there in shouting out into a vacuum?
The other side of social media
I believe social media should be a supplement to our daily lives, not an escape from it and not an advertisement for it. It can serve as a means for us to connect with one another, across borders and despite cultural differences and physical distance. People have the idea that it can connect us, but it can also disconnect us from each other and from our daily lives. It’s really all up to us and how we use it.
That’s why I spend much of my time on discord making friends. **I am not here to kill time. I’m not merely chasing profit. I am here to connect. I want to build something. I want to find solutions to problems together and create deep connections with people across the world in order to make my life better and make your life’s better. I don’t want it to contradict with my physical life or compensate for it nor do I need to become the object of so many people’s obsessions or someone to turn to socthat they can escape their own worries.
I want to share my passion and to experience yours in a two way conversation. I want to see what possibilities are there for us to connect our worlds. I want to inspire you and let you inspire me.
Is it wrong to want payout? Of course not. But if it weren’t for all the opportunities to connect, what would be the point? I truly believe that we are changing our future and the future of all hisenwe interact with, in each and every interaction. Let that thought fill you with a sense of empowerment!
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Confessions of the Damaged - a collection of short stories
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by @skyleap
Yes, to help us learn that we are all human - that it's OK to have different beliefs and religions. Once we can understand that, there would be a lot less violence in the world!
A lot of people underestimate how powerful it is that we are able to contact people in countries with cultural differences so casually. Of course it doesn't fix things instantly, but there is so much good that comes from it.
This is a nice write up. On my own perspective, social media is just like a kingdom far far away we would want to be someday. It is a place where we can create our own world by ourselves.
This is an interesting way to look at it. I don't think it needs to remain far far away though.
My relatives all use the Facebook, I don't see any point in it unless you are not a marketer or selling something in Marketplace, they have a pretty good app there.
The facebook page is also a great way to advertise anything, but otherwise it is a privacy dead end.
I like Discord but lately I am switching everything to decentralized and anonymous apps, and Discord is neither.
i find facebook an awful place to advertise.....but thats probably cause i haven't given them any money....
Exactly, this should be a place where we share what's going on in our lives, what we're working on and what we've learned so that other people can be inspired by our work and our lives and learn from them and so that we can do the same.
PS apologies for being so distant on discord lately, a lot has been developing in my personal life and it's kind of put me in incubation mode as far as interacting.
I feel like the attitude of people is to take social media as entertainment and in steemits case, a get rich quick(actually slow) scheme
i totally understand. I have some days where I'm so eager to interact and others where someone messages me and I can't even be bothered to check who it was, I just squint so all I can see is the red indicator.
Seriously, anyone looking for a get rich quick scheme should stay away from steemit cause it doesn't work unless you are already rich.
Ya, I guess I've been trying to figure some things out, I'm gaining momentum on being more social though.
I think steemit is a great place for self expression and my hope is that one day this will be what jobs look like, with each of us doing the work we love and sharing it with the world in a way that anyone can learn anything and be inspired by the people that already have
Love this post. I agree about the ego broadcasting. Seen it so many times! Not me of course :)
Have I mentioned I can bench 200 lbs?
You get a follow for your profile pic alone, I guess you beat gutsman already if you can lift that much.
Too funny thanks :)
I see social media as a small window to a big world. Admittedly, sometimes I just go online to feel better. Tell myself, there's a bigger world out there that I need to see.
Too much of everything is bad, so I already have at the back of my mind that probably 80% of what I'm seeing is fake (the life, not the places) to gauge me not too overly indulge.
You can actually pull that big world towards you or pull yourself towards that big world. I dont think most things are fake, they're simply transient and fade away as quickly as they appear.