Social media sites are everywhere today. These platforms influence human interaction on many levels as people use them daily to connect with others. Many are great venues encouraging people to share photos and the activities of their lives with family and friends.
Others however could best be called “antisocial” media and are not built to nurture social connection. Instead they promote competition, judgement and the shaming of others as well as spreading hate and promoting rigid belief systems.
What started as an idea to bring people together has now changed dramatically. Data collection is now the primary objective of social media platforms. Data collection and the monetization of that data. With detailed knowledge of people’s likes and dislikes these platforms develop algorithms designed to create desires. Fulfilling these desires of course costs money. Your money. With intimate knowledge about your beliefs you can now also be specifically targeted. You can be told what you want to hear and therefore be motivated to act on it.
We live in a culture that values the superficial over the substantive. We are urged to believe in what external sources say rather than trust our own inner knowing. We are asked to place more faith in what someone else thinks than what we think. This is no accident. The modern world is designed to offer you endless opportunities to distract yourself, to pull you away from your inner landscape. If you are disconnected from your true nature, you can be easily led.
If we wish to have a more authentic experience of life and to change our communities and our world for the better, we need to connect to who we really are. Not to the catch-phrase of the week, not to what the latest “influencer” is telling us. What do we really believe in? What are we passionate about? Do we even know? Isn’t it time we found out?
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