SOCIAL NETWORKS

Digital Apocalypse

Was it all just a dress rehearsal?

Photo by Ross Findon on Unsplash

The recent crash of Facebook and Instagram in itself showed us in great detail something that we have known for a long time. It exposed in full the vulnerability of modern society. Showing that our dependence upon the virtual is equal to (if not greater than) our reliance on tangible things. The reasons for this are many and volumes of studies and research can be done by people far more competent than myself.

Here I am going to take a more “positive” approach. It is 2021. The world is caught in a global pandemic. The allure of virtual reality and all its joys had never been greater. Many wish to escape the grim reality. I understand, I am a proponent of technology myself. We cannot bring back time and trends are seldom reversed.

Let’s take a stance that social media is somewhat beneficial to the human psyche in the present circumstances, that is all well and good. We as humans are creatures of habit, once attained and developed we change habits with great difficulty.

Let’s take for a moment an example of a toddler, if they have in their possession an object of interest they will hold onto it fiercely. They will cry protest and fight if someone tries to take it away from them. Yet, if that someone is stronger after a while they will give in a turn their attention elsewhere in their quest for a new object of their affection.

The trouble with adults is they are not nearly as good with “letting go” of their toys as toddlers are. With this recent “outage” they have taken our toy away! Many of us were, shocked, stranded and surprised! Why, how could this happen?! We have been lulled and hypnotised by the virtual world to the point that our virtual alter-egos are an integral part of our being!

This time it was taken from us and quickly brought back. Our faith in the system was restored. The question remains though, how would we have coped if we lost it all for good?! We would have to interact with others without the clout of our virtual alter-ego. This would be an unsettling concept for many out there.

In the world of computers, things break down, outages happen and servers fall. Nothing new, right? One has to ask rationally if social…