Pipes vs. Pumps
Are you a platform or a personality?
Twitter is a platform.
You are a personality.
Twitter is pipeline that people like you pump their personalities through for various ends: politics, education, startups, marketing, foodies, love, hate — it’s all there.
Is plumbing neutral?
Can plumbing be neutral?
Pipes bring fresh water in and waste out of your house. So, that’s nice.
But, what if those pipes brought your waste to a landfill next to a pre-k worsening its air quality for playtime? Or, what if that fresh water brought to your house was piped in from a fresh water source because your neighborhood could afford it and a poorer one was left with a polluted source? Flint, Michigan anyone?
There are two schools of thought on social media:
Social Media as an Amplifier
Social media is neutral piping that we pump our personalities through. It will just make your more of less of what you already are. Guys like Gary V and other evangelical social media pundits proclamate this.
The big tech companies like this. Under this heuristic they are not the problem. Human nature is.
Social Media as a Reprogramming
Social media fundamentally altered how people communicate with one another. When you change how people communicate you change human culture, values and norms.
No matter your intentions, the medium is the message: You cannot have a nuanced discussion on abortion in 280 characters, truly empathize someone’s pain by posting a black square for Black Lives Matter or blue square for Blue Lives Matter and when was the last time a SnapChat streak fed a homeless person?
The question is this:
Does social media change us or simply make us more of what we already are?
I still haven’t figured this one out.
