Social Media: The New Prostitution

Wait? What? I AM NOT A PROSTITUTE!!!

That might be your reaction to this title and it makes sense. But before you go off ranting and raving hear me out. Social media is everywhere. From Facebook, to Twitter, even here on Steemit random people, who have never met, share images of themselves and sometimes very personal and sensitive information about themselves. Just putting this stuff out there for all to see. But then something happens. Someone uses that information in a negative way. You are probably saying to yourself 'yeah.. but that is that person's choice to post that stuff and we can't control what other people do with it.' Sure you are right but why do we post this information to begin with? The answer we are all prostitutes.

Maybe the word prostitute is a little strong. Let's look up the definition so we know what we are talking about. According to oxforddictionaries.com the definition of prostitute is as follows:

NOUN

1. A person, in particular a woman, who engages in sexual activity for payment.
2. A person who misuses their talents or behaves unworthily for personal or financial gain.

VERB

1. Offer (someone) for sexual activity in exchange for payment.
2. Put (oneself or one's talents) to an unworthy or corrupt use for personal or financial gain.

Would you look at that! It does seem to be the appropriate word to use albeit strongly negative. Obviously no one on any social media is having sex for payment (at least not that we know of) and it could be said that no one is exchanging their personal, private lives for sex (again, at least not that we know of). But we are exchanging it for something.

So what are we exchanging all of this stuff for? What do I get by posting images of myself, or my personal information? Well, across all social media platforms we get likes, upvotes, retweets, etc. Here on Steemit we not only get upvotes but we also get STEEM. So in our case the literal definition of prostitution does apply. So what do these likes, upvotes, retweets, etc. translate to? It translates to happiness, boosted self esteem, joy, pride. All of the positive emotions you get when you see someone like your post or upvote it. That's what we are exchanging these things for. That is what makes us prostitutes.

To Be Continued

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for part 2 of this post where I will talk about if social media prostitution is bad or not.