The Shift In Social Media
Source: Business Intelligence Forum http://domo.com
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“Sometimes I miss moments in my attempt to document them. That is a bit of an epidemic right now and the reason is that a significant shift happened in social media a few years ago. We used to use social media to document moments we experienced. Now we use it to create moments so that we can document them.”
(Jon Acuff, “How to Look Good on the Internet”)
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It’s disturbing to admit, but it increasingly takes more and more to get my attention on the Internet these days. The endless scrolling through feeds, passing beautiful image or interesting link, one after another, feels akin to some sort of numbing drug, when I actually stop to give it thought, that is. Every site, video, Instagram, link, etc screams for attention, to the point where I find myself wondering what it would be like at times to simply ditch a cell phone entirely and join the 12% of Americans who do not own a cell phone at all.
In this continuous partial attention, I was skimming through a recent Jon Acuff post, “How to Look Good on the Internet,” identifying with a story he was telling about a moment he wanted to Instagram of him taking his daughters shopping at a doll store, largely to convince the digital world that he was a good father who spent quality time with his girls. As I nodded my head in agreement, proud of a man I have never met for stopping himself from using his daughters to build his profile online, a stray thought of his at the end of his post stopped me cold:
“Sometimes I miss moments in my attempt to document them. That is a bit of an epidemic right now and the reason is that a significant shift happened in social media a few years ago. We used to use social media to document moments we experienced. Now we use it to create moments so that we can document them.”
“We used to use social media to document moments we experienced.”
“Now we use it to create moments so that we can document them.”
Moving beyond the insane reality that these sentences would make no sense to my 18-year old self in 1998 (“How is media social?”), there is a hauntingly prophetic truth to Acuff’s confession. Not only do we far too often fail to be present in the experience as it unfolds around us, we increasingly find ourselves motivated by the creation of experiences mainly for the purpose of documenting them – to which I would add, not even solely to document them, but rather for the satiation that comes with receiving the social affirmation others give us online.
I have mixed thoughts on this tendency within my own life, especially given the reality of having my family living half a world away, unable to be physically present the vast majority of the time. I am realising, however, how unhealthy this desire to document the life of my daughter so that others will affirm my own soul.
May we be increasingly mindful of the contentedness available to us in the present moment, the presence of loved ones physically in front of us. May we spend time with them – good, quality time – free from the distractions at our fingertips.
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“I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.” (Philippians 4:11b, NIV).