Posted by If aliens were to land on the planet earth today and observe what we are doing with our technology, I’m sure they would be baffled beyond belief.
Alien: “Let me get this straight… You people have developed portable supercomputers that have wireless and instant access to all the accumulated history, knowledge, wisdom, science, literature and arts of your civilisation… and you use it primarily to watch cat videos and read Kardashian tweets…”
Hipster: “No, we repost and share memes as well…” Proceeds to type on his smartphone and tweet “? Ayy LMAO” #chillingwithaliens…
Alien: Gets a notification and looks at the tweet on his aPhone (alien iPhone)… “Back to the spaceship boys, no intelligent life here.”
Social media is a misnomer; unsocial media is much closer to the truth. The term “phubbing” (snubbing social contact in favour of your mobile phone) was coined several years ago in Australia. And it is a global phenomenon. In Chinese, we call it Di Tou Dang (低頭黨) or “lowered head gang” in homage to the fact that everyone’s heads are bowed down to stare at their smartphones.
And what the heck is Twitter about? How can you seriously convey anything of substance in 140 characters? I assume it is an attempt to emulate the brevity of the old-style SMS text messages on second generation mobile phones that were capped at 160 characters. In those days though, it was technology, or more specifically the lack of data bandwidth on wireless networks, that was the real constraining factor. It makes sense to be able to SMS your friend that you’re going to be 15 minutes late. It makes little sense to me why anyone would “twit”… ooops, Freudian Slip… “tweet” to a huge audience that they are “eating pizza ?while sitting on the loo ?… #inoneendouttheother #twobirdswithonestone”. I am glad to see that Twitter usage seems to be flatlining but saddened to hear that Snapchat is rising. I guess that makes sense though because if a picture tells a 1000 words, that’s still a heck of a lot more than 140 characters.
Let’s be clear. I’m not one of those technophobes who bemoans the lack of direct human contact today and pines for a return to some mythical “Leave it to Beaver” past that never existed. Sure people today have their heads down on the bus and subway, deeply concentrating on their smartphones. But how different is that to what people used to do in the past (the real one, not the imagined one)?
Put it another way, I would rather strangers on public transit be looking at their little phones and tablets (which is already a vast improvement on a fat businessman trying to read a huge broadsheet paper sitting besides you) rather than try to talk to me. Experience tells me that most people who want to chat up complete strangers on the subway tend to be either insane or annoying beyond belief.
But unsocial media does have its downsides. It probably does reduce direct personal contact and may be resulting in a generation that is more desensitised to social norms and common courtesy. Some sociologists are also concerned about things like – Is phubbing ruining your relationship? But the internet as a whole is the culprit for many of these things, not just smartphones and social media. Hiding behind the perceived anonymity of the cyber world, people tend to say things and post things that they might not in the real world. The repercussions are also high because, as we all should know by now, once you throw something out into cyberspace, its hard to take it back or delete it. Things you post today might come back to haunt you years from now because the storage and recovery of digital data is so cheap and easy to do these days. But knee-jerk reactions and temporary spur-of-the-moment stupidity is the new law of the jungle on the internet mainly because the feedback loop is not instantaneous like face-to-face contact. In the physical world, if many people were to say some of those things that they post on the internet, they might get their ass kicked on the spot and thus hold their tongue better.
A few weeks ago, I was playing golf in Phoenix with an older couple that we know from our club in Calgary. After the round, we had dinner at a local restaurant in the “retirement community.” I was all sarcastically indignant that I am ineligible to purchase a home in that community because I am too young. “Isn’t that like reverse ageism?” I half-mockingly asked. But as the meal continued and the wine flowed, the discussion moved onto politics and with Trump’s inauguration fresh in everyone’s minds, I basically went on a rant about how insane everyone was. Left-right, black-white, Democrat-Republican, Christian-Muslim, American-Mexican, it doesn’t matter. They all have their own narrow views and beliefs which are only partially true and nobody likes to critically look at facts, analyse the situation and the big picture and come out with real solutions to real problems anymore because that would be too difficult. It’s just easier for politicians to pander to pre-existing prejudices and beliefs and vested interests. Just then, an older lady with a strong Texas drawl came up to our table and asked, “are you American?” Uh-oh, what’s the correct answer to that? After an uncomfortable pause, I decided to go with the truth, and reveal that no I was not, I am Canadian. Her reply was, “oh that’s too bad, if you were American I would vote for you.”
It reminded me of the previous year when we were golfing in Hawaii and got paired with a mormon father-son two-some from Utah. During the four hours, I learned they were in the mortgage broking business but they were fascinated by my views and knowledge about the global and American economy and markets. “We’re all basically broke”, I told them. “The US has a $60 trillion actuarial shortfall for its entitlement programs (mostly Medicare and Medicaid) which is 400% of GDP on top of the over 100% debt it already has on the books. Financial collapse is a mathematical certainty – It’s only a matter of when. To avoid this, we would have to make some huge and very unpopular decisions such as slashing entitlements and/or moving retirement up to 80 because, contrary to the beliefs of the liberal “Occupy Wall Street” crowd, raising tax revenues in most of the West is pretty much impossible given how high marginal tax rates already are. Unfortunately, you are asking the very same baby-boom bulge demographic (which also has a higher propensity to show up to the voting booth), that is now approaching 65 to give up their benefits and retirements. Political suicide at its most obvious – so the conclusion is that we will keep kicking the can down the road until the road runs off a cliff.” The son, who I guess was in his mid-30s asked me in all seriousness, “why don’t we have politicians like you?” The answer, unfortunately, is that people like me generally don’t do well in politics.
One of my favourite unsocial media pastimes is debunking bad life philosophy that is increasingly what passes for wisdom and thoughtful discourse in the internet age (that and pithy memes but that’s a topic for another day). Below is a great example that was widely circulated and shared on Facebook purporting to be a letter from a school principal to parents before exam time. I think it is obviously fake as it is not on official stationery, written in a childish font, and is poorly written with numerous grammatical mistakes. I mean, who signs a letter “The Principal” instead of with a real name? Whoever wrote this missive probably thought they were being clever and making an insightful modern liberal dig at traditional education and its emphasis on grades and exams. If I had to hazard a guess, I reckon it was authored by an incompetent liberal teacher (who else would use a politically correct term like sportsperson instead of athlete) who probably had bad grades in school himself – especially English.
I posted this reply which seemed to strike a chord with many of my Facebook friends many of whom shared and reposted it their social network.
Dear Principal:
Our children’s exams are starting soon and we hope you and your staff have taught them well so that they can succeed at them.
But please remember that there is an artist that is sitting the exam and doesn’t understand basic sums because you were busy trying to tell him to investigate and discover instead of teaching him actual math. Unfortunately, he will have difficulty making change and calculating his tips in his waiting job that he will have to take while trying to make ends meet as a struggling artist.
There is an entrepreneur whose business has failed because he did not learn from history and was therefore doomed to repeat the mistakes of the past and did not get proper funding because his English was so poor he could not write a decent business proposal that potential investors and the bank could understand.
There is a musician who destroyed a vintage Stradivarius because he didn’t know the adverse chemical reaction that would happen between the old wood and the caustic varnish he used.
There is a sportsperson who failed to make the professional league because he couldn’t understand the physics behind the impact of the wind on his ball velocity and trajectory.
If our child gets top marks, its because we probably ended up tutoring them ourselves or payed for outside help from places like Kumon, or they are naturally gifted to begin with. If they don’t, they can take solace that they will join the leagues of over-indulged youth with a sense of entitlement because high self esteem, no matter how undeserved and unearned, is what you think is most important thing in education now as our children fall further and further behind other kids around the world.
The rest is probably decent advice because we love our children unconditionally and wish the best for them and their life. I guarantee you we do a lot more than you do having given birth to them, changed their diapers, fed them, clothed them, played with them and generally raised them for a lot longer than you have.
And in all professions including doctors and engineers, there are happy people and unhappy people. Just as there are many unhappy teachers and principals.
With warm regards,
The Parents
There is a reason that I went through the trouble to start up my own blog even though blogging is not de rigueur anymore. The blog format allows me to control and format my content the way I want to and, to a certain extent, keeps my data under my ownership, not some giant social media company. It is also more conducive to writing and editing more in-depth analysis and opinion pieces which is pretty much impossible to do on something like Twitter or Snapchat. Even on Facebook, most posts shouldn’t be so long that you actually have to scroll down to keep reading. Moreover, I like to keep my social media for exactly that purpose – being sociable. I use it to keep in contact and update friends and family about what’s going on in my life and to keep up with what’s going on in theirs. Facebook really should have another category other than “friends” like “acquaintances” so you can better separate private posts from more public ones. I don’t enjoy being bombarded by politically charged propaganda and engaging in flame wars with total strangers which is what large portions of social media have become. If you wouldn’t be comfortable saying the same things to me in person, you shouldn’t be posting it on social media that will hit my daily feeds because it basically has the same effect. In the case of social media, the Care Bears were wrong – sharing is not necessarily caring. Posting and sharing extreme views on a plethora of hot button topics from politics to religion (and that applies to all sides, not just the one you believe in) is, in fact, the exact opposite of caring. Sure my blog is opinionated and, in some cases, I take extreme views on a myriad of different issues that may offend some. The difference is, you don’t have to read it if you don’t want to and I’m certainly not pushing it onto your daily newsfeed in some sad attempt to get clicks, views, likes or followers. Read it if you like it. Agree or disagree if you want to. The choice is yours.
Update 1 (31 March 2017): Our unsocial media has been hard at work. This time it was against professional golfers who deign to play a round of social golf with the President of the United States. South African golfer, Ernie Els was the first to be beat down by the raving hordes of liberal anti-Trumpers when he played with Trump along Japanese Prime Minister, Shinzo Abe on 15 February. Afterwards, Els told reporters that, “A lot of my own friends were not for him,” Els said. “They kind of needled me a little bit, saying I was a suck-up. I just said, ‘Go eff yourself. I played with the president and you haven’t.’ You can’t please everybody.” In the professional tournament that followed, golf reporters ran an anonymously poll which revealed that 90% of the professional golfers said that they would play a round with President Trump if they were invited. They are correct to do so.
This was followed a week ago with a tempest in a teacup when current world #3 golfer from Northern Ireland, Rory McIlroy played a round with Trump prompting another round of scathing internet comments. The outrage on social media was such that McIlroy released a statement last Friday saying the claims that he was a “fascist and a bigot” were “quite ridiculous” and that “playing a round of golf” was not “a political statement” or an “endorsement”. The 27-year-old was in a more conciliatory mood when entering the media centre at the Club de Golf Chapultepec, but his message was the same: “I have no regrets.”
“I was a little taken aback [with the reaction], although we all know how the campaign went and how divisive it was,” McIlroy said. “I just approached it as a round of golf. And to go there and see 30 secret service and 30 cops and snipers in the trees… well, it was just a surreal experience for me. That was part of the reason I wanted to go and play.
“If it had been President Obama I would have played. I’ve played with President Clinton, I’ve spent time with President Bush. I just wanted to have an experience that I might not ever get again – playing golf with a sitting president. It’s not as if we discussed foreign policy – we talked golf all day. Yeah, I actually enjoyed myself and had a good time. So I’m sorry if I pissed people off, but I felt I was in a position where I couldn’t really do anything but say yes, respect the office even if you don’t respect the guy that’s in it.”
Good for you Rory and Ernie. Who you want to play a round of golf with is your own goddamned business. Some people, in their zealous hatred of the new President have seemed to forgotten that on top of freedom of speech, one of the foundations of our relatively open society is freedom of association. So screw the judgemental frothing mob of liberals and their holier-than-thou attitudes and tee off with whomever you want. It’s your right.