what is Social Media doing to us?

"Unlike the open source movement or Wikipedia, participants of social networks do not seem to follow a common noble goal, or celebrate a community spirit. The focus here lies on the individual." (Dennis Knopf)

The problem is, we no longer live solely among those we know well. We're now forced to refine our personalities by the countless eyes of strangers. And this has begun to affect the process by which we develop our identities.

Social media gives us addictive routine; constantly checking our phones, mindlessly scrolling, endlessly searching for new stimulation. In this way, it keeps us trapped in profane time. Endless cycles without much substance, a timelessness that isn’t full, but empty. Look up from a social media feed and you may have lost half an hour, but that half... See more

I feel like there’s something so soulless about our culture—something deeply, deeply missing in people’s experience of life, a kind of superficiality. Life is so weird and awesome, and there’s so much depth to it, but people, particularly young people, but really everybody with technology and a phone, are sleepwalking through life. It disturbs me... See more

In the 2010s many of our public spaces started to be molded, physically and literally, by the market advantage of luring patrons looking for highly Instagrammable shots. Businesses that once paid large sums of money to have photographs taken for advertisements that cost even more to run now had access to an army of free labor, taking pictures for... See more