Day 267: The Social Mind

Today I went to a series of discussions organized by the Chicago Humanities Festival about social media and it's impact on humans and society - The Social Mind. 

As one who doesn't use social media a whole lot, the realities of how things really work are quite disheartening. Despite this fact, it's been super interesting to learn more about this topic.

The first thing I learned was that the fuel of social media is: outrage. Specifically, when it touches on morals. Maybe this should have been apparent to me already, but it wasn't.

The second fascinating thing I learned is that our brains have not evolved to handle the mass interaction that social media creates. As it is now, our brains can only handle interactions with a max of roughly 100-150 people. But social media throws us into pools of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands)!

The third thing I learned is that during the very early years of social media, companies in Silicon Valley knew exactly how it affected and targeted frailties of human behavior and they continued full steam ahead anyway.

Wow. That fact gave me chills - and not in a good way.

The biggest takeaway from the first discussion was that social media should be looked at like a cigarette company. Because that's basically what it is. A money making monster that is bad for human health.

I was curious to see what these panels would reveal and how, if at all, they would impact my current view of social media.

Not surprisingly, it doesn't make me want to use social media anymore than the little I already do.

More surprisingly, it kind of highlighted (in a VERY roundabout way) the need for what I do.

The need to help people strengthen their skills of discernment in order to pursue what will sustainably fuel, energize, and contribute to their well-being.

The need for coaching.

No matter what we are facing - be it natural or man-made - coaching provides the tools needed to navigate any situation in a way that is true and beneficial to each of us (individually).

 

So, come at us social media! We've got a secret weapon.

(And if you're reading this thinking, 'huh?', we need to talk!)