My reasoning may blow your mind.
See what I did there? With my seductive and bombastic title, such as –This is just an article, but what happens next will make you wish you were never born. Deny it all you want, but our social media sites have become graveyards for links to quiz results and material that was on Reddit two years ago.
I’m all for reading “21 Questions Asian Amputees Are Sick of Answering,” but at one point does sharing batches of meme-infused acknowledgements become inherently, for lack of a better word, social? What happened to sharing material that provoked and invited discussion, made me think of the world in a different way, or inspired me to act differently?
My hypothesis is that we have fallen victim to the “like.” Why invite potential opposition, share details of your life, or attempt to be insightful when you can share “45 Things My Friends and I Probably Do” and garner over 45 likes? We are so consumed with likes and followers because the unspoken rules of social media are dictated by toxic, toxic behavior.
Always follow less people than follow you. Be someone worth knowing by being disinterested in others. Try to have as many likes on your profile pictures. You have friends who think you’re okay to like at, right? It’s probably not wise to disagree with a post or statement that has a substantial amount of likes. It seems like a good way to become infamous on social media.
I also hypothesize that our sense of social (media) worth is skewed by perceived numbers. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and even LinkedIn have used offshore “click farms,” where a couple cents can buy you a like. That questionable friend request from a middle-aged Sri Lankan farmer that magically has 4000+ friends and likes 8,000 items? He (or she) is being paid to retweet, like, double tap and comment in agreement, and these heightened levels of engagement have added to the values of celebrities, firms and anyone willing to pay for their social value. This type of activity dilutes our experiences on social media and more importantly, dilutes our perceived social worth.
The least we can do is share less of “25 of the College Campuses With the Most Deer” with the hashtag “#sotrue” and engage in social media authentically. Write genuine happy birthday messages, and write less of them if you have to. Disagree with someone once in awhile. Until interactions online become something that resembles conversation, we will always click on the next kitten, the next list of destination weddings and the next sensational title, feeling empty and disconnected.
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Follow Justina Huang on Twitter: @huanderwoman
