Are you old enough to remember the game where someone would yell, “Apple core!” and someone else would respond with ‘Baltimore!’ Then, someone would say ‘Who’s your friend?’ and the name called out got an apple core tossed at them? Yeah, I know, life before the Internet was strange indeed.
If we were to play that game today, guess who is not your friend? Social media. It’s not that there is inherently anything wrong with Zuckerberg et al. (except that maybe, in Mark’s case, has is really a cyborg), but let’s be clear about why tech companies produce the products that they do. Here is a piece that I did at The Stream meant to remind us that when we rely on technologies to do for us what we once did ourselves, like genuinely communicating and connecting with each other, our ability to do these things goes numb and atrophies. And that is just what big tech and social media are hoping for.
Who is your friend?
