We have all seen the film "The Social Network", right? The one with Jesse Eisenberg playing in the role of Mark Zuckerberg and speaking so fast that even native english people can hardly understand what he's talking about. Do you remember what the film was all about? I'm just kidding! You surely remember it well: Facebook. Why didn't they call it directly like this? It was clear to all of us that the film was in reality a huge advertising campaign but i'm pretty sure there is some marketing reason not to call it with its real name.
Anyway, the film's name is not the issue i'm willing to write about. And the reason I started to speak about it is just because what I'm going to share here is based on the exact opposite vision. The main question I'm trying to find out the answer to is not how to make a fat list of chicks to date next month (Zuck has already created for me the perfect tool). It sounds more or less like this: are social networks really social? Yes, i'm serious! Stop and think about it for a second.
How is the world we're living in right now? When was the last time you truly enjoyed your moment, without the thought of grabbing the phone to take a picture of where you're, what you are eating or drinking, how you are dressed? If you are one of those people who can answer to this question and actually remember the last moment of these, you're one of those few that this post is not addressed to: you are already aware of the issues created by social networks and you're probably trying to live a happier life, staying somewhere out of the cloud. Feel free to close this post and go out jogging or having fun with friends!
Speaking of friends, when was the last time you enjoyed a conversation with a friend or a relative without interruptions caused by that little notifications popping up on your screen? You're already guessing where I'm trying to get you, right? They say that we humans are social animals by definition and that we survive and live better when we're together. Well, I have some bad news for all of us: we're un-socializing! We're not social anymore, not in the common sense of the word. Why so? Well, because we're constantly being distracted from our real lives by The Social Network (sounds like a sort of Big Brother, isn't it?).
There are people out there that are doing everything just to please that Big Brother: they're taking pictures to post them somewhere, they're dressing something just to show it up on that blue page, they're even eating just to be able to post the photo of their dishes on some new fancy social app. Have you ever heard requests like: "Hey, come here to make a Facebook photo with us!"?Or something like: "I wanna be able to check in on Foursquare everywhere i go!"? Well, I have. And I think to be still living on Earth, at least judging from my documents!
When i think about all this I cannot hold myself from being more and more convinced that this is not going to bring us any good. I mean, come on, taking pictures for Facebook? Why? The only reason I can think to take a picture for is to make a memory of a moment that i have enjoyed and being able to access back to that moment later in my life and laugh or smile about it, miss it. And what about that delicious dish you have just taken a photo of? Will that photo remember you the taste, the flavor and the feel you had while eating it? Probably not! So, why don't you take your time and feel that moment, instead of pulling out your phone like a gun in western films? Why loosing that precious moment and that probably unrepeatable combination of millions of variables that have managed somehow to create that instant?
Social Networks are making more important showing off our lives than actually living them, as they're! We somehow feel the need of that 'Like' more than the appreciation of who we have right in front of us. We feel much more closer to someone far away from us than to people and friends who live right across the street or down the hall. We want so badly that retweet that we're disparately loosing time to add complete strangers as friends, instead of trying to make real ones or maintaining those who we already have, dedicating them that time instead.
I'm honestly missing the old school social network: people sitting and talking together, enjoying their moment and looking to each others eyes. I miss the hardware network, the cable connection, the physical interaction, the verbal exchange of thoughts. And I know I'm not the only one!
If I was, this wasn't going to have such a huge success. So next time you go out there, remember to enjoy what this life has to offer you! If you don't post that photo, nobody will notice or care anyway: but for you will make a huge difference.