http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7dLU6fk9QY
A fairly recent viral video made by a young man by the name of Gary Turk that is still doing the rounds on social media sites does bring up some interesting points. The imagery and poetry of the video are clear and very well done. The overall message being that we should not be so addicted to social media. We should get out there and experience the world without staring at our phones all the time. Fair enough Gary.
Surely this is quite a different world we are living in even compared to 10 years ago. People are constantly sharing, tweeting, pinning, instagraming, tumblring, stumbling upon, and using various other newly created verbs to let everyone on the internet know what they are eating and how awesome their gym/yoga/spinning class/latte/sandwich is.
But does this detract from the experience of actually experiencing these things?
Does the fact that I shared a picture of my amazing sandwich on facebook make the sandwich less amazing?
Quite the contrary in my opinion. Whenever there are large amounts of people in a public place, they will always find a way to distract themselves from their commute. Even now some people still read print media like books, magazines, and newspapers in public! I have seen it!
The fact that I can share the awesomeness of my sandwich actually makes the sandwich even more amazing. I want to share the amazingness of the sandwich with the world and by golly I can and I will.
There is another talking point in the video that mentions how kids don’t go to the park anymore because they are stuck inside playing video games or playing around on an ipad. Kids will be kids. It is ultimately up to parents to engage their children and show them all the fun ways that they can spend their time. It is not fair to blame technology and social media for bad parenting.
Literally millions of views on Youtube, who knows how many likes and shares and tweets about a video that says stop using social media. Hm. “Look up” is the title of the video. Maybe look up irony Gary.