There is a saying;
Great minds discuss ideas
Average minds discuss events
Small minds discuss people.
There is another saying;
Curiosity is ill manners in another’s house.
The parent company Meta – home of Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp – have exploited, “curiosities of small minds” to pry into people’s lives. They are worth half-trillion dollars.
Curiosity is a good thing, an essential human tool to “kill” mysteries and get solutions for humanity. But, unfortunately, there are few people who get opportunity to use “curiosity” purposefully. Many are left curiously watching other’s lives.
The human tool – curiosity – needs a medium to operate. Like, if you are curious about heavenly bodies, you need telescope. Germs – microscope. When paper was invented it gave rise to knowledge thru books.
Curiosity->stars->telescope, curiosity->germs->microscope, curiosity->knowledge->books.
The last one, books, needs contents to be created for it. Books as medium fulfills many curious interests. Experts create contents for books and with time, this evolves and becomes varied and complex.
Again, with the coming of radio, cinema, TV, the medium gave birth to content creators who fulfill the needs of the listeners/viewers. Societies evolved to ever more complex technologies and contents.
Come computers and evolution was fast-tracked. Mr. Moore said in 1965 – computers gonna speed-up double and its cost halved, every two years. Similarly, contents for computers, the experts and the users, all evolved into a new species – in a way, from what humans were half a century back.
So, we can say, down the history, curiosities in the mediums helped the medium to evolve.
Now we are at a stage, where we apply our curiosities to feed the social media. Can we imagine what is the next step in this evolution?
Taking only one instance; over the years, curiosities in space have led to improvements in telescopes. Recently a powerful telescope of enormous size was sent to space. It’s a commentary on evolution – not only on the makers but also of its users.
There is also value in reading, movies, music, art, architecture, design, or writing – expressing plain simple thoughts and trying to analyse things in more pages than a paragraph. Evolution of the human mind, so to say.
What is the next step for users on Facebook?
Why are the users forwarding, liking, sharing, trash?
What will they hope to achieve after a few years of trash-pushing?
How many pictures will anyone put on Instagram before realising that a picture is an art form and should have some taste and aesthetics?
Social media has dumbed down individuals to a “No Evolution State.”
In gaming, perhaps, one can foresee evolutions, that tomorrow’s computer and online gaming will be better than todays – more complex strategies and scenarios. Besides these, what else can one expect from any social media? Will rehashing contents bring evolution or a dumb breed? Who do we think we will grow up to?
Will spewing venom on the time-line cause all the venom to dry up?
Or have we reached a stasis, social-media-wise?
Over time, the instruments we hold will get ever more powerful. But can we claim the same for our minds, when all it does is scroll?
neerajshrivastav 