Expectations of Mass Media, Oh and Culture!

With each culture you have a silent rule. It is an understanding of how things work and flow within your community, family life, and social life. With the new age technology, sometimes that can get muddled in with all the extra things life can throw your way over time. 

For example, instead of meeting Shawn for lunch via a face-to-face invite, you now have to send an instant messenger or even an invite via Facebook, just for a simple luncheon among friends to catch up on everything going on, just in case you missed all of Shawn's Facebook and Twitter updates every other hour...?

It seems that we as a culture are being reconditioned. Reprogrammed and re-adapted in the ways of media and our culture. Now we are always asking is this appropriate to post, or will so-and-so view and like my posts? How many "likes" can I get? Where is Shawn today? Is he at the mall? With Sandra from Economics Class? What is Cindy's love status? Has her and Brad broken up yet, or again, or are they still madly in love as they proclaim to be every other month? 

It seems that there is less privacy, and more airing of our dirty laundry or lives on social media. We seem a lot more prone to really obscene and proactive ways of life and how we share this life. We see more couples meeting on social dating sites and less courting to win someone's heart. We have less time to chat with people one-on-one and without distractions like mobile devices, Netflix, and so forth. Do we really and truly need all the technology we have today? We have iPads and iPhones that basically do the same thing, and we have computers that are desktop or laptop and become smaller or bigger with each person's preference. When it comes to life, we should be living it like they did back in the 60s and 70s, minus the drugs and orgies, but more vibrant fulfilling lives that do not rely fully and totally on electronics to get up by daily. Becoming drones and electronic zombies lazily walking to the gigabyte beats of the 21st century.

So, along came technology. Turned what our social media used to be, newspapers, word-of-mouth, news on the television, VHS, DVDs, CDs, landlines, and so forth, and spoon fed us to be reliant on such things. Don't get me wrong! I love technology! I have an iPhone, a touch screen Dell desktop, and two tablets, two tvs, and my car is a smart car with SYNC installed. Yes, I am a fanatic about the newest and truest devices along with fiber optic internet that can take me around the world at the speed of light, or the speed of a megabyte. Either way, I am just making a point that we should not let such things rule our lives, even though I work 40 hours a week in front of a computer and stay on the phone about 80% of my day-to-day interaction, I still find the time to really unload and let it all go. I drop the iPhone, I drop the tablets, and the desktop that I was 70% of my movies on via Netflix and Google, and I take my child and I go out into nature to return to my roots. Because without my roots, I become that zombie in the above paragraph treking through out each day, eyes clued on the phone, watching "Once Upon a Time" and "Along Came Polly". 

Now, our social media has caused us to be impatient. We want it quick, fast, and by yesterday. I know I am guilty of this, and at times I catch myself becoming a brat!

 

We don't seem to notice it at times and we end up seeing or viewing things that we really shouldn't or don't care about at times and we can become insensitive, or detached from others when they are going through issues and instead of sympathy we become harder on others and what they are going through, and then there are times we find ourselves coming together as a community on social media and binding together to make things happen, like fundraisers, or charity events, just different things from time-to-time.

So, it has become a challenge to the human race. We can adapt and grow like we have never imagined with technology and its many facets, and at the same time, keeping in touch with our roots, ourselves, our higher purpose in life and our higher interests in why we are who we are and what we are meant to do or become. So, take the challenge to not loose yourself in all the social media noise, grab hold of your ancestors and your culture firmly and take note that life can be a great mixture of both technological and cultural growth.