Dear Badger,
Almost everything good in my life has come from social media. I spoke to my first boyfriends through Facebook; I’ve gotten two jobs through adverts on twitter from organisations I admire; I’ve cemented friendships and won dozens of contests. But why does everyone vilify it so much?
I completely fail to understand how people see social media as anything other than positive. Vanity has and will always exist, it’s a part of human nature, it’s just evolved with time as all communications have. If someone can get personal satisfaction through a number of likes on a photo, and if that makes them happy, why should that be a problem? We should not judge someone else’s happiness as inferior just because it isn’t the result of unattainable moral standards.
The ability to talk to friends and colleagues across the globe and to see what family is doing is invaluable to someone living in a fragmented world. Work has become fragmented, filing cabinets relegated to back rooms, so why shouldn’t our social life reflect the society we live in?
We should relish the fact that connections can be made and moulded in comfort and spare time, instead of having to donate hours of our time to it. If you don’t understand the appeal of social networks, that is not reason to hate it or condemn it.
We’d criticise someone who condemned evolutionary theory because they didn’t understand it. Ignorance is no excuse for hatred.
Fragments make beautiful things, and Facebook is the best tool we have to connect the pieces.
Frankie Brook
