Social media is a virus: step away

Lately, I keep thinking of Laurie Anderson, more specifically, a particular line in one of her songs.

I had grown up, an angst-filled teen of the 90's, listening to Anderson's classics "Language is a Virus" and "O Superman." You wouldn't recognize her, I'm sure (you're likely too young to know who I'm talking about, hipster). A performance artist, composer and violinist who was married to the now late, Lou Reed, Anderson hung in the camp of Brian Eno, David Bowie, Devo, Kate Bush and other eclectic, ambient musicians. Often a commentary on the overabundance of industrialized growth and the irony of "success" and society, her music had a message that fed my 20-something brain; her songs often dissects societal norms while interjecting small tokens of sarcastic humor.

In a gripping performance in 2005, she brought tears to my eyes during the encore when she performed the 1995 classic "Same Time Tomorrow." If you care to listen/watch it, click here.

I often think of the lyrics to that song now, 10 years later. It is amusing when she refers to a VCR in the beginning of the song - clearly dated. But in an eerie, thought-provoking recording, the trill of a morning dove is played repeatedly along with the beep, beep, beep of what is ostensibly a VCR or an alarm clock. And the lyrics poignantly ask tough questions, most notably,

What I really want to know is 
are things getting better or are they getting worse?

Lately, I think of these lines in reference to many things. But, more often than not, I think of them in reference to social media.

There are many who have waxed poetic about the disadvantages of social media, ironically on social media. The idea of social media is fantastic. We can "connect" to friends, family and like-minded people from across the globe. Social media has been a fantastic tool, helping so many people and organizations raise money, spread the word about important causes and news, and connecting those whose relations are far away.

But there is a darker, insidious side of social media, and it's one I have been thinking a lot about lately.

Social media allows us to only present to others the personae we want to present to the world. And, many times, that personae isn't entirely based in reality. This has happened recently with someone I know who has been outed as having fashioned an almost entirely fictitious reality in order to swindle people. Not cool.

On the flip side, social media also gives fodder to our every passing whim and thought. We all have that one friend who spouts off on Facebook about highly personal details of their life, details that probably should be kept private. And social media is often used for darker purposes: stealing identities, trolling for sex or, even worse, trolling for sex from teens, and virtual bullying. And how many stories have we seen in the media lately where lovers post photos of their murdered spouses on Facebook, or teens post angry threats of violence on their Twitter sites before committing such atrocities.

Last night, as I was flipping through my Facebook newsfeed, an ugly side of me started coming to out. Like Sigourney Weaver in the 1986 James Cameron classic Aliens, a repulsive monster started to rear its hideous head, a cynical, flippant nastiness that snorted at what it perceived as naivete and pretense.

"Oh aren't you loving life," it quipped sarcastically.

"Freaking narcissist," it scoffed. It jeered at the annoying, inspirational memes.

It rolled its eyes with contempt at your political leanings, thoughts on abortion, God, the death penalty, the weather...

Ugh. Normally, I am hopelessly optimistic and positive-minded. But not last night.
I had to put it down, step away. And lately, I have had to put it down more often than not.

If I'm being honest, life was better before I knew the intimate every thought of the people in my life, or every political/religious belief they had, or every self-righteous proclamation.

What I really want to know is 
are things getting better or are they getting worse?

Has Social Media Gone Too Far?

I suppose I am an idealist.

I moved to the country because I wanted my children to embrace a slower, simpler and ostensibly safer way of life. Cows are our nearest neighbors. Country music is played on school buses. People wake early and go to bed the same. Out here, I wanted to believe in some idealistic tenets of Americana.

While my role as a professor of writing and literature is to teach, my students at the college never cease to alert me to various (ahem) other things as well. Today during class, a vibrant discussion about racial profiling and how the events of September 11, 2001 have changed our view of society and people in this country led them to enlightening me about a video on social media where a man believed to be from a Mexican village beheads his wife for cheating. Facebook won't remove the video, stating that people are "sharing the video to condemn it" and a spokesperson for Facebook said "Facebook has long been a place where people turn to share their experiences, particularly when they're connected to controversial events..." A BBC article offers an excellent discussion here.

The video shows a woman in a hot pink tank top and jeans on her knees outside in the dirt, hands bound behind her back, with a man - assumed to be her husband - holding her head up by her hair. Another person presumably is filming, and there are others around. She does not struggle or fight; she seems to accept her fate, only wincing at the first cuts of the knife. Within 15 seconds, she is gone. The last seconds of her life taken from her by her husband in such a gruesome way, recorded and put out on the Net for anyone with a connection to the interwebs to witness. A warning to other women, perhaps. A misogynistic hallmark that says boldly: cheat, and you will face a similar fate - a fate of humiliation, domination and control.

Social media has changed our culture (says the blogger), and not always for the better. Sure, it's made marketing to many different audiences easier, connects us to loved ones far away and is a source for information and entertainment. But at what expense?

I remember in high school, back in the days of VHS tapes, a buzz circulating about a movie called Faces of Death. We have a morbid curiosity for pain and hurt in others, and while I didn't see the movie, I know it depicted real and graphic scenes of death and dying.

In the early 1990s the Net - the "Information Superhighway" as it was called - was unheard of yet. There were computers, but not in every American household. I learned how to type on a typewriter.

Today, one can conjure up real and graphic scenes of not only death and dying, but torture, rape and mutilation in a 10 second Google search.

I am angered and disturbed about multiple elements of this particular video, which has spawned a debate (ironically, across social media and the Net) about how social media has or hasn't gone too far. Where do we draw the line? Has social media gone too far? Is freedom of speech worth exposure to such graphic forms of violence? Or, more importantly, worth potentially exposing our youth to?

And while these issues are certainly key, this video has me thinking a lot about other issues, like control. Like the insidious nature of domination and control. Like the control of men over women, or even people over other people; the control of a culture which is still so obviously rooted in archaic and barbaric means; and our own lack of self-control with regard to social media.

I am a mother to two daughters. I am a sister, and an aunt. And I shudder with rage and disgust to think that my girls could be exposed to such graphic images. Some things should be left to crime scene investigators, not exposed on social media.

Call me an idealist, but I want to insulate my daughters, sisters and nieces from a world in which such hatred for women exists.

And yet, they must learn sometime the realities, that life isn't always good.

I hope they learn that through me, with my guidance, not through their Facebook page.