Facebook and America's "Status"
by GABRIEL GARNICA, ESQ.
November 2, 2010
America’s greatness has always stemmed from its ability to combine independent self-interest with unselfish dedication to service. Our nation was conceived by people looking out for themselves who also felt the need to help others as well. The early colonists and pioneers undertook great risks and challenges to find a better life with greater horizons, but were able to help and protect each other along the way. Western expansion was certainly not an every person for himself free-for-all; there was some cooperation and teamwork involved. Had such expansion been a jungle of selfishness, one wonders how limited its success, if any, would have ultimately been.
Obviously, one cannot pretend that this expansion and growth was a pure, peaceful, and compassionate exercise. The ultimate road West was littered with abuses of all kinds and injustices of all degrees, not the least of which were the mistreatment of Native Americans and general disrespect of others’ way of life. Integration in those days was often more suggested at the edge of a sword than encouraged at the edge of a peaceful negotiation. Lands were “obtained” more through violence than business savvy. As has always been the case throughout the progression of the world, noble virtues of courage, determination, and a search for freedom have often shared the pages of history with cowardice, disrespect, arrogance, and blind ambition. More often than not, what makes us great rubs shoulders with what makes us less than noble.
Typically, our greatest achievements have been obtained when our sights are set, at least partially, on how the good we do can serve others. Conversely, our lowest points have often resulted when we become obsessed with our own interest and agenda to the exclusion of others.
It is no particular revelation to say that people can sometimes be generous and serving and other times selfish and self-absorbed for that is what makes us so complex and at times mysterious. It is likewise no discovery to argue that technology has facilitated both our service and our selfishness as well. Medical breakthroughs that change lives go hand and hand with computer crime and identity theft, for example.
Into this progression we throw social networking such as Facebook and Twitter and ask ourselves what this development says about our society and ourselves. While one must admit that these sites offer some benefits such as facilitating career networking and keeping people in touch, it seems to me that they mostly serve our society’s collective and individual superficial narcissism.
After all, what kind of a person finds it necessary or worthwhile to tell the world that he or she is going to do the laundry or is on his or her way to see a Broadway show. My favorite is an acquaintance who thought it helpful to tell the world that she was having a garage sale in front of her home, as if all but a few nearby friends and neighbors were likely to be able to take advantage of that situation. Somewhere along the line, we started to think that telling everyone we are pregnant, having a few drinks at a local bar, or really happy at college is something most of those people really care about. It seems that we are suddenly increasingly assuming that people really care about the most minute aspects of our lives. At some point in this conversation, emails become boring and limited and contacting half of this universe at the same time became the cool thing to do.
We argue about privacy, but what has become of privacy in the face of Facebook? What does “mind your own business” mean when we are telling our business to everyone from our best buddies to Bin Laden? My constant contacts with our youth tell me that with notable exceptions, most have never been more self-absorbed, oblivious of what really matters, and obsessed with what is most superficial. These kids think that the world revolves around them and their adventures. I think that this is all based on some deep desire to matter, to make a difference, and to be wanted which has somehow stopped being satisfied or achieved through their own lives and homes. Everyone wants to be a celebrity, and what better way to be a celebrity than to have public awareness and interest in our most trivial and minute life details? Magazines and the paparazzi may not care what Joe and Brittney X are doing after school, but they can still post it all on Facebook assuming that any more than a handful of people who need to get a life really care.
The worst part of all this, by the way, is the fact that many adults encourage young people to become more involved in Facebook by posting sites for their various organizations and causes on that and similar places. A review of the Facebook pages of a handful of teens I know revealed that most boast hundreds of “friends” and very often include the most superficial, mundane, minute, and even once private aspects of their lives. I guess this all goes hand in hand with the aforementioned good and bad that goes with technology.
My discussions with many young people with differing degrees of involvement in these sites reveal that, rather than shrinking in extent and scope, these sites have expanded and multiplied with increasing superficiality being the norm, such as the comparison of Facebook and Twitter which, more than the former, seems based on the belief that most people really care what one had for lunch.
Our elections increasingly seem centered on what society can do for us rather than what we owe to society and future generations. Political rhetoric increasingly resembles some micro-blog more designed to trash opponents with superficial swipes than encourage a general, open-minded and, more importantly, in-depth discussion of issues and consequences. Until we begin voting for our country and ourselves instead of just our micro-impressions, we will just be continually playing into this unfortunate progression.
What does all of this say about our society, our young people and, hence, our future as a nation? Sadly, it seems that future generations, beginning with the one now progressing toward adulthood, will be and already are so self-absorbed, superficial, and narcissistic, that notions rooted in others such as sacrifice, service, compassion, and generosity will either become extinct or distorted beyond recognition or repair. Between a media that frequently pushes self-obsession and this kind of technology that facilitates it, we are creating a society of people so much in love with themselves that they will be incapable of truly loving others or what really matters in this life. “We the people is quickly degrading to “Hey, people, I just used the restroom!”
blog comments powered by Disqus