The Impact of Social Media BY OLUWASEYI EROGBOGBO
negative and critical perspective. One of the most common criticism of social media is its effect on the way people think. Social media is rife with misinformation, and even when there is beneficial content to be engaged with, engagement is often shallow and superficial. Important subjects are reduced to sharp one-liners, depriving the reader of depth, nuance and complexity. The effect, people often argue, is the dumbing down of public discourse.
In Discourse on the Origins of Inequality Among Men, Jean-Jacques Rousseau condemned socialisation as the cause of man’s depravity. The more we engage with society, Rousseau argues, the more we lose touch with ‘the self’, and with knowledge. In his assessment of socialisation, Rousseau distinguishes between two types of relationship one can have with the self; amour de soi and amour Propre. Whilst both can be translated as self-love, the former describes a self-love which allows one to follow their interests without harming others, and without the individual being the subject of other people's judgement. The latter, however, is better translated as ‘vanity’, in which the individual acts in a manner that seeks the affirmation and approval of society.
The dangers of misinterpretation are discussed in the Platonic dialogue Phaedrus. In this dialogue, Socrates narrates a conversation between two Egyptian gods Theuth and Thamus. Theuth believed that having written information would improve memory. Thamus, on the other hand, argues that written information would not only lead to forgetfulness, but also inhibit deeper reflection on ideas.
Although originally published in 1775, Rousseau’s ideas continue to hold significance today. In a world where over 56% of the entire population is able to maintain constant access to each other through social media, how has the modernisation of socialisation affected the population? Has growing up in an age in which one can communicate with billions of people at the touch of a button damaged intellectual engagement with political and philosophical ideas? Even more importantly, how has this media revolution affected young peoples’ relationship to the self?
Another anecdote that discusses the dissemination of knowledge is Plato’s Protagoras. Here Socrates discusses the sophist Protagoras’ teaching methods. Protagoras insists he can teach virtue comprehensively and that his students will become more virtuous as a result. Socrates questions that if out of two students who received the same teaching, one student improved and another did not, could one say that they actually improved due to his teaching? Socrates generally believed that teachings that relied directly on rhetoric and the
Popular debates on the effects of social media on young people often come from a
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