Social media : are we really that important?

So here is the thing. I was walking through the shops this afternoon; Sandton City to be precise. And a thought dawned on me as I watched everyone buzzing around; “What makes us think that we are so damn important”?

This particular blog is going to move away from my usual writing for a little while and talk about a social issue, which can tenuously link back to social media as well. For the most part though, this is truly just a social commentary tainted with my own social thoughts and ideals…

So here is the deal… While walking through the shops, I took note of a few things :

Now I realize that there are a lot of generalizations in this article, and I realize that it is completely tainted with my own bias – but that is what makes an opinion!

I believe that we are very quickly coming to a point where our very humanity is coming under threat. I use the term flippantly, but where the very thought of “Ubuntu” is foreign in whatever language you phrase it.

We, particularly the current generation of “up and comers” are so lost in our own self importance that we forget that there is a world that lives and breathes in spite of us and not because of us.

With the technological developments of the recent years, the “always on” lifestyle, and the access to an audience of eagerly listening followers, who would not get an overly inflated ego?!

But at what cost have these developments come? What have we had to give up and lose in the process? I am not asking that we go back to a time when we could not connect with peers in distant lands, where we were forced to listen to what “the Powers” told us to listen to…

Having an opinion is excellent… Having a voice is brilliant… But merely having a view on something does not automatically make your view the right one…

I am certain of the fact that we can all stand to learn an inordinate amount from being connected through social media and from each other in that way; but I am equally certain of the fact that we need to be incredibly careful that we do not forget what brought us here in the first place.

Steve Jobs, Donald Trump, Richard Branson, Barack Obama; these are all great men who have achieved extra-ordinary heights in their own personal lives and in the community at large. They grew up with values and ideals that do not date. Honesty, hard work, respect, loyalty and trust are no less important today than they were when these leaders of men were still at school.

This is the crux of what I am trying to say here. We must not allow access to a voice to share our opinion to change who we are as people, to forget what it is that makes us human, and how those were not as privileged as we are today learnt the value of hard work and earning the right to be heard…