Well here we are on this friends social network, and we ought to ponder for a minute how much our society has changed in this last decade. In many regards it hasn’t necessarily been for the better, and I’d like to cite the example of online social networking, as it seems to have invaded our Internet lives to a large degree, often making a mockery out of the important issues and the challenges of our time. The social networks have caused the over throw of governments, de-stabilized civilization, and changed the outcomes of elections. Our elections in the United States included.
Still, is it a net negative or have these social networks actually brought us closer together in other ways thus, it is a net positive? You see, the reality is there is always good and bad in any new technology – social networks included. Today on this program I will argue that social networks are a big problem for human societies, and if this continues in the current direction we will pay a dear price for it in the future. Currently, we are watching productivity drop as employees are too busy text messaging friends and playing on Facebook while at work to be of any real value to a company’s bottom line.
The billions of hours wasted each quarter are hurting companies’ profits and revenue, it also causes challenges with workflow, customer service, and mistakes. We are killing people on the road as users attempt to access their social networking sites, send tweets, or text messages while driving. Indeed, as a bicyclist, I am afraid to ride anymore – too many close calls, and it seems those text messages are more important to people than my life or even their own safety. In fact, I saw a bumper sticker the other day, it read; “Honk if you love Jesus, Text if you want to meet him,” and that about sums of that problem in a nut shell doesn’t it?
Indeed, I can remember when I received my first text message, I thought it was rude, as I’d sent detailed instructions and explanations to a fellow associate, and he sent me back a one-sentence email, I hadn’t realized it was a text message sent from his mobile phone to my email address. I was so turned off I cancelled my deal, and called another associate. Only later did I realize that he was just texting me with his new technology – still, the shallowness of his comment was the deal breaker, so I moved on.
It amazes me sometimes the number of people who wish to state their opinions about things they know nothing about. They critique, chastise, and show their ignorance at every turn. They mistake comments made by achieved persons to mean something else because their attention span is so low. Further, any attempt to correct them is just “pearls to swine” as they don’t get it or even care to understand. You see, they are so interested in notoriety and self-validation, that they work so very hard to promote the most socially responsible and politically correct argument, even if it is untrue or a white wash of reality.
One of the biggest and scariest things I’ve seen is how people who’ve done nothing in the world ever in their lives are busy trying to gain friends and figure that once they get a lot of friends on their social networking page, they have arrived. The problem is very few of those people are actually friends, and some of them are not even real. It becomes even worse as they run around complimenting people hoping to get more friends and followers, and follow others in order to hope to get a reciprocal friend, or join someone else’s circle of influence. The whole thing has now become a big, fake, sick joke.
Still, these folks feel they are now something special with lots of pictures of so-called friends and followers, but to what avail? Some who have attained thousands of friends by hook or crook have worked very hard to get folks to “friend” them back by use of false praise. Indeed, they assume everyone needs pre-validation. They read one book such as “how to win friends and influence people” or take one psychology class in college and assume they can complement their way into someone else’s life. What they don’t understand is the really achieved people don’t care what anyone else thinks, actually any sort of trite compliment is a turn-off, and it’s immediately seen for what it is and what it is worth; nothing.
