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Saturday, February 16, 2013

Anti-social Media

It occurs to me that with computers, and tablets, and smartphones, people interact more, but not in a helpful or social sense. At least not the sense of 'social' that I think of. 

That's one reason why I resist the term 'social media'. To me, social media is sitting in a coffee shop on Sunday morning reading the New York Times, with your good Conservative acquaintance across from you with the Wall Street Journal and the two of you debating the merits of each side's positions over good coffee and the promise to do it again next Sunday, just as you have for years. And to keep it social, and civil, when the coffee's done and newspapers folded under arms, you shake hands or swap hugs and off you go, each having taken a little and given a little, compromising and trying to understand, and becoming the better for it, social-izing.

I think I have a new term for this medium on which I'm hypocritically communicating: Anti-Social Media.

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