How to avoid being personally hurt by all the flotsam and jetsam that is awash in the social media sea today is a potential concern in modern day life, let alone worrying about what it is doing to overall culture. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, WhatsApp, MySpace (well, scratch the last one) are inescapable in today's cultural engagement professionally, with friends, family and community.
With all this engagement in the social media, rules of social conduct are not firmly in place, since it still feels like we are in the frothy part of the innovation as far as interacting in these new media are concerned.
A few stories from the recent part have raised my own sense of alarm that for no fault of ours, (or a small fault or innocent remark, perhaps), a disproportionate social response awaits each of us. Thus, my label above, 'there, but for the grace of God, go I.'
The most recent story was from the NY Times, which is one of the most emailed stories on its site, and I believe it is so, not only because it is a horrifying read, but also it touches a cultural nerve that I am referring to above. How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life. Beyond acute empathy for the subject's plight, the reader's reaction will surely be, what in the world did I put on social media that can boomerang on me?!
And if Twitter sounds like a free for all, whereas LinkedIn is for the more sober professional, say a Monday morning Facebook perhaps, then this story is worth reading as well. Nasty LinkedIn rejection goes viral. Again, one need not feel like being questioned on whether they were explicitly offensive to another which caused a story to go viral. One only need to ask, could something be perceived as being offensive, that went viral - and therefore what are the consequences of such an 'outbreak.'
Facebook horror stories abound as well. Here, we are perhaps all tuned into warning teenagers and high schoolers to be careful about what they post. But in these instances, we are thinking about eggregious behavior that we would not tolerate in the non-social media world. But the key question is, what is the new-line in the social media world, which if crossed, could cause a story to go viral? Facebook Horror Stories: How A Post Can Cost You Your Job.
One might remark, that they don't use any of the social media, but only email! Let us set that notion of safety to rest as well, and recall any number of friends who have written to us that 'their email has been hacked.' The Atlantic: Hacked!
These stories above, along with what we may have read, discussed and thought about in this regard, probably gives us pause to ask, how does one engage in the new social media. Or does one disengage?
The latter reaction is tempting. An analogy is eschewing credit cards to use cash, as some folks are wont to do. But the downside of this approach is for example, one cannot build up a credit history to qualify for a mortgage. Besides, one has to carry a wad of cash around all the time! Similarly, it is perhaps not possible to live a productive 21st century life without engaging in social media.
So if the hypothesis is acceptable that engagement is inescapable, then how might we proceed?
I (tentatively) posit these three thoughts as ways one might proceed to productively engage in the the brave new world of social media:
1. Would you put it in a memo to your boss?
This seems fairly silly. If there is a personal post on one's facebook account, what does work have to do with it. But is seems like a simple enough guideline.
Are we able to say about a facebook post, 'Boss, the picture you see is our vacation in Greece, when we took a boat ride from Athens to Hydra. We had a great time.'
2. The 3 questions of Craig Ferguson
Craig Ferguson, the comedian with a CBS late night show, had a hilarious riff talking about adjusting to living with his spouse. Painfully, he says, he has learned to ask himself these three questions, before saying something.
- Does this need to be said?
- Does this need to be said by me?
- Does this need to be said by me now?
Well, thank you Craig!!
3. Is it from one's core?
The above two guidelines sound like one's wings are clipped. Once in a while, the caged bird yearns to sing. So when might we, ahem, 'tweet'?
While the Upanishads say we are made of 5 layers (kosas), why don't we simplify it here into two layers. The core and the surface layers. At the core, we are who we are, and that core needs to express itself, regardless of consequences. Great examples of these of course would be Martin Luther King Jr or Nelson Mandela. They were willing to accept the consequences of what they said, even if perceived as offensive to those in power.
On the surface layer we are reacting to events, and this is what perhaps can get one into trouble that one does not want. While any number of examples here will do including the ones at the beginning of this post, a particularly good one is when Andre Agassi made a disparaging remark about Pete Sampras. He once joked that Sampras looked as though he had swung out of a tree. And then had to apologize. (via fax in those days!!). This third guideline, if not tempted to be completely bland, suggests that the post better be from the core, so one can stand up to it, should there be heat.
The amplifying effect of social media is here to stay. Our culture is still evolving in terms of how to deal with this frothy new development that is affecting our mores in significant ways. We can't probably be productive citizens by not engaging in social media. But perhaps, a wise course is to be engaged but prudent.
Every time we rubber neck at a story about a social media crash and recall John Bradford's 16th century line about, 'there, but for the grace of God, ...,' perhaps we can resolve to traverse what Al Gore termed the Information Superhighway, with great care.
A few stories from the recent part have raised my own sense of alarm that for no fault of ours, (or a small fault or innocent remark, perhaps), a disproportionate social response awaits each of us. Thus, my label above, 'there, but for the grace of God, go I.'
The most recent story was from the NY Times, which is one of the most emailed stories on its site, and I believe it is so, not only because it is a horrifying read, but also it touches a cultural nerve that I am referring to above. How One Stupid Tweet Blew Up Justine Sacco’s Life. Beyond acute empathy for the subject's plight, the reader's reaction will surely be, what in the world did I put on social media that can boomerang on me?!
And if Twitter sounds like a free for all, whereas LinkedIn is for the more sober professional, say a Monday morning Facebook perhaps, then this story is worth reading as well. Nasty LinkedIn rejection goes viral. Again, one need not feel like being questioned on whether they were explicitly offensive to another which caused a story to go viral. One only need to ask, could something be perceived as being offensive, that went viral - and therefore what are the consequences of such an 'outbreak.'
Facebook horror stories abound as well. Here, we are perhaps all tuned into warning teenagers and high schoolers to be careful about what they post. But in these instances, we are thinking about eggregious behavior that we would not tolerate in the non-social media world. But the key question is, what is the new-line in the social media world, which if crossed, could cause a story to go viral? Facebook Horror Stories: How A Post Can Cost You Your Job.
One might remark, that they don't use any of the social media, but only email! Let us set that notion of safety to rest as well, and recall any number of friends who have written to us that 'their email has been hacked.' The Atlantic: Hacked!
These stories above, along with what we may have read, discussed and thought about in this regard, probably gives us pause to ask, how does one engage in the new social media. Or does one disengage?
The latter reaction is tempting. An analogy is eschewing credit cards to use cash, as some folks are wont to do. But the downside of this approach is for example, one cannot build up a credit history to qualify for a mortgage. Besides, one has to carry a wad of cash around all the time! Similarly, it is perhaps not possible to live a productive 21st century life without engaging in social media.
So if the hypothesis is acceptable that engagement is inescapable, then how might we proceed?
I (tentatively) posit these three thoughts as ways one might proceed to productively engage in the the brave new world of social media:
1. Would you put it in a memo to your boss?
This seems fairly silly. If there is a personal post on one's facebook account, what does work have to do with it. But is seems like a simple enough guideline.
Are we able to say about a facebook post, 'Boss, the picture you see is our vacation in Greece, when we took a boat ride from Athens to Hydra. We had a great time.'
2. The 3 questions of Craig Ferguson
- Does this need to be said?
- Does this need to be said by me?
- Does this need to be said by me now?
Well, thank you Craig!!
3. Is it from one's core?
The above two guidelines sound like one's wings are clipped. Once in a while, the caged bird yearns to sing. So when might we, ahem, 'tweet'?
On the surface layer we are reacting to events, and this is what perhaps can get one into trouble that one does not want. While any number of examples here will do including the ones at the beginning of this post, a particularly good one is when Andre Agassi made a disparaging remark about Pete Sampras. He once joked that Sampras looked as though he had swung out of a tree. And then had to apologize. (via fax in those days!!). This third guideline, if not tempted to be completely bland, suggests that the post better be from the core, so one can stand up to it, should there be heat.
The amplifying effect of social media is here to stay. Our culture is still evolving in terms of how to deal with this frothy new development that is affecting our mores in significant ways. We can't probably be productive citizens by not engaging in social media. But perhaps, a wise course is to be engaged but prudent.
Every time we rubber neck at a story about a social media crash and recall John Bradford's 16th century line about, 'there, but for the grace of God, ...,' perhaps we can resolve to traverse what Al Gore termed the Information Superhighway, with great care.
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