A recent Fort Lauderdale Sun Sentinel column by Seth Liss: “As social media usage expands, how will it change us,” dissected social media’s impact on our culture. While the piece did a great job of showcasing positive results, it hardly touched this phenomenon’s negative cultural impact.

The article stated users age 8-18 are focusing on social media approximately 7.5 hours a day and possibly 11 hours a day when you count multitasking. The article optimistically cataloged the benefits of this lifestyle: an increase in online reading means that literacy rates will increase since knowing how to read is essential to social networking; more interactions with a wide variety of people will enhance a child’s communication skills; and this leap in multitasking (such as simultaneously managing Facebook, iPod and doing homework) will improve critical thinking. While promising and thought provoking, its results fail to notice how these same benefits can severely wound our culture.

Conversely, British newspaper, The Guardian, article “Facebook and Bebo risk ‘infantilising’ the human mind“ warned: “children’s experiences on social networking sites ‘are devoid of cohesive narrative and long-term significance. As a consequence, the mid-21st century mind might almost be infantilized, characterized by short attention spans, sensationalism, inability to empathize and a shaky sense of identity.’”

While shocking, this is still only theory since barely any hard research has been done on the subject. However, The Guardian claimed there were other ways to show how critical thinking and attention are negatively affected. It stated prescriptions for methylphenidate, an attention-deficit hyperactivity drug, have gone through the roof for young people in the last five years, roughly the same stretch of time the social media phenomenon has taken flight.

In addition, this piece argued that an 8-18 year old social media fanatic’s communication skills will not be enhanced, but rather diminished. “Real conversation in real time may eventually give way to these sanitized and easier screen dialogues, in much the same way as killing, skinning and butchering an animal to eat has been replaced by the convenience of packages of meat on the supermarket shelf. Perhaps future generations will recoil with similar horror at the messiness, unpredictability and immediate personal involvement of a three-dimensional, real-time interaction?”

While both viewpoints agree it’s still too early to definitively understand the benefits and dangers of social media interaction, they both state our culture is shifting rapidly. The question is, which direction is it headed?

Patrick Roland, March 4, 2010

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