Friday, November 7, 2014

Anti-Social Social Media

Social media in its very nature is not social!  The fact that I am sitting here alone in my study writing to the unknown audience is in essence very anti-social.

Having worked in television media before entering the ministry, has allowed me to sit back and see the effects of media and social media on our society.

The power of the professional media is dying.  Whether this is good or bad depends on the way you perceive how the power benefits or hinders our society.

Media in it's very nature is a medium, a bridge, as it were, between people.  In our age we have become very sceptical of the  media because they have not functioned as a medium without seeking to control people to conform socially, economically, politically and other ways to the ideals of those who want to control for whatever reason.

So with this scepticism the birth of social media has allowed people to side step the media.  The dying media are dying because they no longer function as the medium they should be.  This has happened for two reasons; the unravelling of our society through rampant individualism, and from the overbearing control of media moguls and advertisers.  (Which of these came first is chicken and egg stuff!)

Yet when our society needs a medium to be social, surely we need to question the very fabric of our existence, especially when social media just drives us even further into anti-social, introverted, and individualistic activities like posting on the web rather than talking to the person standing next to us!

We need a Saviour to save us from our Anti-Social selves, and restore us to community; a common unity through a truly faithful Medium, Jesus Christ, the son of man and God the Son, the only Medium really worth listening to!  And the Word of God, the only Media needed to be read to know what is really going on in the world and within ourselves.

Grace, Mercy, & Peace
Friarpuk