Social Media: The Media We Love to Hate

2010-05-21-Devil-FB-logo

Published Previously on Psychology Today "Positively Media" What is the media we love to hate? Right now, it's social media. As a society, we hate pretty much anything new or that we don’t understand. I’m sure the mass media execs and video game developers are beside themselves with glee to see so much attention on reports of social media addiction and controversy surrounding Facebook’s privacy issues. Yesterday’s devil-child is eager to jump on the bandwagon and skewer the next guy. Social Media is an easy target. Not only is it new, it's acceptance varies widely by age.  The enthusiastic adoption of social media technologies and tools by young people worries older people who don’t really get it. The digital immigrants are not willing to trust the judgment of digital natives; just like most generational belief schisms. You can just hear the collective digital immigrant response: “That isn’t the way I did it.” That point of view leaves only two … [Read more...]