The Homebound Symphony

If anything, social media is a counterweight to the ongoing devaluation of human lives. Social media’s rapid rise is a loud, desperate, emerging attempt by people everywhere to connect with each other in the face of all the obstacles that modernity imposes on our lives: suburbanization that isolates us from each other, long working-hours and commutes that are required to make ends meet, the global migration that scatters families across the globe, the military-industrial-consumption machine that drives so many key decisions, and, last but not least, the television — the ultimate alienation machine — which remains the dominant form of media. (For most people, the choice is not leisurely walks on Cape Cod versus social media. It’s television versus social media).

Social Media’s Small, Positive Role in Human Relationships – Zeynep Tufekci – Technology – The Atlantic. I’d like to think this is true, but a number of studies have shown that television-watching has not gone down recently but has remained steady or risen. Perhaps we watch now while interacting with laptops, phones, and iPads, and perhaps that makes a difference, but I haven’t seen any evidence that social media are displacing TV.