The Social Fallacy of Social Media

Picture taken by Jonathan Acuña at Hyde Park, London, UK (2018)

The Social Fallacy of Social Media

Just an opinion

By Prof. Jonathan Acuña-Solano, M. Ed.
Head of Curriculum Development Academic Department Centro Cultural Costarricense-Norteamericano	Senior Language Professor School of English Faculty of Social Sciences Universidad Latina de Costa Rica
Thursday, July 23, 2020 Post 348

Opinion Prompt

What’s your experience and opinion on if all media are social? Is your local media outlet open to two-way conversation?

If a two-way conversation is a means to exchange news and ideas, social media is not exactly meeting this condition. A conversation implies two individuals (or more) ready to engage in sharing points of view or presenting facts and opinions that can be discussed. Behavior in social media sites is not directed to the underlying reason to have a conversation with someone; there is a lack of engagement and sharing among users. It is needless to mention that unethical algorithmic “manipulation” of data within the media site.

There are plenty of things happening on social media that users just shrug their shoulders in an “I-don’t-care” attitude. This behavior just shows the lack of engagement people in social media can have when someone is telling others they do not even know what was eaten for breakfast, lunch, or dinner. If people want to have attention from other individuals in this world, it can be simply stated that others will not follow them behind in chase to know if what was eaten had a burping effect on someone else. Sorry, but the current conception of social media does not meet the principle of engaging people in discussing ideas. The thousands of banal, trivial posts do not take people into sharing and discussing.

Is then social media “social?” The word “social” next to “media” can be rather tricky when both are juxtaposed with one another. This combination of terms is rather lumpy and boisterous when together: lumpy because the creation of social media sites are much more but social, especially when users are sanctioned for posting comments that, in the eyes of the social media site, do not contribute with the sharing of ideas. This means there is already an imposition to what the site believes a two-way communication should be. It looks like like-minded individuals are paired with one another not allowing other users with different ideas to disagree with the posting made by people who think alike. The combination is also boisterous since social media sites are used across a full gamut of reasons that are not exactly the sharing and discussion of ideas.

Is social media a place for collaboration and cooperative work? Now that I think about this, it gives me the creeps … Let me be clearer, I am certain that social media sites can be used for collaboration and cooperative work; I am sure of this because in university courses I took before with Laureate Faculty Development, social media was used for collaboration and cooperative work among the course members, including the instructor. However, how many people who are not studying do use it for the same exact reasons? Could it be possible that these other users who are not studying are misunderstanding the connotation and denotation of what these two terms mean? Is this misunderstanding triggering strange behaviors when “interacting” with people in social media?

To sum up, my experience and opinion on if all media are social, I must confess that I do not see it this way. Media sites exist but are not exactly social. Media outlets do not exactly foster and strengthen an open two-way conversation among users. First, social media people do not seem to be ready to engage in real exchanges of news and ideas to discuss. Secondly, the fallacy of like-minded individuals permeates the whole idea of social media. Web archaeologist will tell us much more about this in the future when users have met their ordeal with a duckface in a social media post.