Social Media is Simultaneously One Of The Most Incredible and Terrible Inventions of the 21st Century

Hi, O. (How are you?) For me, Social Media is the coagulation of a two streams of human dysfunction: narcissism and voyeurism. No matter how we dress it up, posting pictures of yourself or updates about your life to hundreds of people to read and see is narcissistic behaviour. And on the other side of the coin, taking pleasure (or pain) in observing the private lives of others, sometimes sordid, or scandalous is voyeurism.  Technology has served as an amplifier, allowing Big tech to engage in personal data monetisation and the sale of advertising space, while at the same time providing private companies with a new market of psychologically primed consumers.

It's a Society which has abandoned Christ and made itself God.

It's a Society which has abandoned Christ and made itself God.

Totally agree with this - motivated by my Catholic faith, I have come to both realise and I now firmly believe that the influence of social media and the internet/mobile phones is incredibly socially harmful, which just as our grandparents generation correctly and accurately predicted, would lead to our current situation and which they also were totally opposed to us children back in the 80’s before they passed, being allowed anywhere near computers or mobile phones and learning anything about them, with very good reason, as we have seen in the space of 40 years - not only do I share such opinions of my grandparents generation as an older gay man, where I do not agree with any child under 21 being allowed anywhere near the internet nor mobile phones, I also have found it utterly bizarre over the years that no limitations on the use of the internet nor mobile phones were ever put in place such as a licence system, the only real limitations were the costs of obtaining computer and mobile phone equipment and/or contracts with mobile phone providers, ISP contracts, where the only opposition at the time was from our grandparents, concerned police officers and council landlords at that time - over time, even as more companies and state bodies moved all their operations exclusively online, as we saw with Covid, there was a deliberate intention to make us all totally dependent on the internet and mobile phones while censorship also crept in, partly as a result of 9/11 - we see with the inception of 5G to replace the current internet with something that can be totally controlled as incredibly dystopian as part of the Great Reset and Agenda 2030 - it’s no accident that so many big tech companies are now HQ’d in my native Ireland without the consent or even knowledge of the Irish people in the Republic - all of it is very disturbing, especially for the actual babies of today, who if they are allowed to grow up through their childhoods and if they reach adulthood, will never be allowed to have the (relative) freedoms that we once had