According to the documentary, whats different is that social media is far more pervasive, far more addictve than, for example, TV or radio.
Have you ever seen anyone walking down the street with a death grip on their television, hanging on to it as if their very life depended upon it?
Hubby B: I've seen millions glued to the television during the Super Bowl to see the commercials and they were the talk of the town the next day.
I've seen ET launch an incredibly successful new product.
In ancient days there was "Plop plop fizz fizz, oh what a relief it is" and still in our language, "I can't believe I ate the whole thing."
What about Coca-Cola teaching the world to sing?
Back to days some of you may remember, Esther Williams.
Does eating Cheerios really make you a champion?
The death grip on the phone is often just communicating with friends.
I don't argue that there are dangers to social media but the most serious dangers I know are not the advertising, not the promotion.
I remember taking advertising courses and realizing how much certain ads had made it into the fabric of society.
It's ironic that we regulate truth in advertising for products but right now our airwaves are filled with political advertisements many of which are outright lies.
Infomercials got millions to buy junk and telemarketing has led many more to do the same.
Is there any advertising worse the Publisher's Clearing House which hooks people, especially the elderly, into buying item after item by guaranteeing them they are a winner.
What about all the kids we've convinced they need $200 shoes and worse those attacked over such shoes?
The thing is a lot of us don't seem to be very smart or discerning. Gullible is the word. It doesn't matter from what source we receive the information, we believe it. I have a cousin who I don't talk to now but when I did, I remember he was always firmly convinced of what the last person he talked to told him. Never mattered what it was. He was an on the road salesman and it could be a customer or the waitress at the diner or the men sitting around the checkerboard. I was often alarmed by the absurdity of his latest "knowledge" but realized he wasn't alone.
There are a lot of people today who believe everything they hear on one specific news network or from one radical organization.
I'm alarmed sometimes by the drug advertisements on television. Is that really how we're going to choose what medication to take? Then look at the success of Botox and it was without social media.
Technology has made the spread of misinformation, of propaganda, easier and faster and, unfortunately, as a people we haven't seemed to get any wiser. If you want an extreme example, just look at the number of admittances to ER of people deciding to drink disinfectant to avoid a virus. We should be shocked anyone would but I wasn't.
I'm really not concerned about product advertisement on social media, but far more concerned about the thoughts promoted, the radical and reactionary ideas and philosophies, about the untruths perpetrated. More than anything about the hate promulgated. I'm more concerned about those convinced to make poor life choices than those talked into buying lousy products.
May be too late for old people from some of the things I see online considered to be fact but maybe we should start young with teaching our young people to be more discerning on a day to day basis, but then these are the older people who thought it was essential to reopen bars in Florida which have been packed in the few days since and the young people who decided it made sense to have a party of over 1000 people in Tallahassee.
Social media isn't the real problem. The lack of common sense is. Don't shoot the messenger.