Social Media - Good or Bad?

When the world, well most of it, emerged from enforced incarceration during the Great Pandemic of 2020 and started to breath again without artificial aid, it was publicly declared that we, the people, had to look forward to a 'new normality'.  Quite what that meant at the time is a matter of conjecture but whatever the intended meaning one thing is for sure - normality is no longer normal, which could of course beg the question .... 'what is normality?'

Getting up in the morning, going to work or play, going back home for dinner, going back to bed?  More of a routine than a normality.

In this the 21st Century can any of us claim normality without knowing what that normality is supposed to be?  It's normal for a parrot to hang upside down but not all parrots practice the death defying act of aerobics - does that make them abnormal or just quirky or just lily-livered - or bone idle?  Is it normal for someone to willingly jump out an aircraft at 5,000 metres above terra-firma or to murder a stranger or rob a bank?  Looking at it like that it would appear inhabitants of planet earth are all abnormal - a little bit psycho.

But what of the future for humankind?  

Technology and the internet are already making leaps and bounds towards dictating a new life on earth - a new normality but how do we challenge something beyond our individual control?  Answer?  We don't, or more to the point we can't!

Anyone with knowledge of life before the advent of the internet taking over will be aware of the importance of control within our own domains, that basic instinct again to look after ourselves, our own and the need to survive - can that basic instinct be preserved when machines are due to take control?  That is what is happening today and it doesn't look like it's going away.

Already children, teenagers and adults are indoctrinated by technology, things that potentially horrify older generations will be normality to the younger generations, they don't seem to care much if news is fake, if suicide is on the increase, if all ages are sharing intimate images of themselves (and frequently doctored images of someone else), if Willy turns up at school the next day as Wendy.  The younger generations can't see any problem in the way the future is moving because to them it's today's normality.  We've all been there no matter what age, in early days of television some thought the onscreen would jump out and murder them, a mechanical device but nonetheless a threat to life?

The human race is losing the ability to speak, simply because it no longer need to speak, communication is all through electronics or abbreviated to such an  extent it becomes incomprehensible, a regression from the now to the stoneage when communication was restricted because of the illiteracy of early civilisations - by modern standards.  Life on earth for the human race is fast moving towards 'nightmare' proportions - microchip brain implants, are we to look forward to micro fish and chips, genetically modified, for Friday night supper?

Of course as always there is and will be good v. bad, the evil will make good into bad and the good will make evil into good but the wider implications bend towards concern about evil.  To so readily accept what appears at present to be a trend, that Willy wants to become a Wendy (or vice-versa) so must therefore have body adapted to effect that change?  Not just a one off freak of nature but an accepted way of life?

Throughout the centuries civilisations have come and gone, moved forward by radical changes in every aspect of development and society, which on balance can only be seen as good but will the eradication of a true life on earth, in accordance with the laws of nature, be beneficial for humanity?  New generations of electronically engineered people and mutations to look forward to?

Largely technology the internet and social media is a serious danger to society, it allows propaganda to be easily spread, it generates and propagates fake news, it turns fact into fiction and fiction into fact.  It encourages self-hate and hatred of others - often complete strangers.  The internet is said to be the cornerstone of 'free speech' but is it?   You can pretty well say whatever you like without censure, you can interfere with police investigations without reservation, you can bully to the point of fear and self-loathing .... is that type of behaviour acceptable under the global umbrella of 'free speech'? It also allows childish cowardice when the victim of bullying or attack is unable to defend themselves when banned or blocked or silenced in some other way - tantamount to playground warfare.

'Grow a pair' you hear people say in response to your well measured arguments fore and against - should society be cajoled into growing a pair because there is little or no control over the internet and social media?  Still, it might a least save the likes of the NHS (National Health Service) if you can grow your own.  At the end of the day a human being - if it's not an electronic being, is the victim of someone else's bad behaviour, okay this is nothing new but it is nurtured by the internet and social media.  If it was possible to ignore social media and the growing problems created by it's very existence, like a political party manifesto, then all well and good but contemporary life is making it impossible to ignore.  You are unwittingly swept along and caught up in the debris without any control over your own life.

The new normality?