Do social networks serve any purpose?

garybilbao (62)in Project HOPE • 5 months ago

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Tim O'reilly,.... once wrote:

"The enemy of the author is not piracy: it's anonymity. "

While the above phrase is directed at writers, we can adapt it to any creative, artistic or social field. If we paraphrase it, it could read:

"The enemy of the human being is not imitation, it is anonymity".

People are social beings. We cannot be without relating and communicating. At any time and place and in any way we will find a way to express ourselves. Since the beginning of the world, we have evolved by creating different ways to do so: writing, painting, dance, music; in addition to the great and revolutionary inventions that allowed us to expand and become what we are today as a society. Inventions such as the papyrus, the photographic camera, the printing press, the radio, the television, the Internet and within this last great invention, the hyper-present and super-utilized SOCIAL NETWORKS.

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And they have this name precisely because these websites or applications are used to establish or maintain interpersonal relationships just expressing and sharing what we feel and think. Social networks are an evolution of web 1, or what is known as the one-channel internet. Web 1 allowed only publishing content, but not responding to it with comments or reactions as we know them today. Social networks, on the other hand, allow you to interact and connect with others, they are part of the so-called Web 2, that interactive, social and reciprocal Internet in the field of communication.

That is one of the reasons why sites like Facebook, Tik Tok or YouTube are so popular and so widely used. That is what they are for, to communicate, whether as content creators (senders) or consumers of that content (receivers). At their birth, social networks exploited that innate desire, that imperious need of human beings: TO COMMUNICATE. And we do it using channels and languages and with extreme ease.

Social networks allow us to do it in different ways: writing, speaking, acting, through an image designed or captured with a camera. We can also do it by singing, dancing or performing any nonsense, because at the end of the day and taking the initial phrase as a reference:

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"The enemy of any creator is anonymity ".

(Sorry Tim O'reilly for changing your sentence so much).

That's why we see any number of absurdities in the networks, because first dead than ignored. The idea is to be famous no matter what, no matter how much it costs or how long it takes to achieve it or how long it takes to maintain it.

The networks also took advantage of another desire in us: to have a leader to follow, to admire those who dare to be, do and say what many would never risk.

We always want to communicate, to share and for people to react to what we communicate. We want to broadcast or receive, and social networks cover both. That's why and what they are for.

I would like to know your opinion on this matter. Do you think that social networks are useful? What do you think is their real usefulness? Do you agree with my reflection? What do you agree with and what don't you agree with?

I'll read you in the comments.