Life Imitating Social Media

I stepped into my favorite little coffee shop and glanced at the whiteboard listing the daily specials.  I like two things I saw : one, the flavored coffee of the day was vanilla hazelnut; two, a quote by Albert Einstein: “The pursuit of truth and beauty is a sphere of activity in which we are permitted to remain children all our lives.”

I stopped to contemplate the sentiment, then beneath the quote I noticed something else. Someone had drawn in a red thumbs up sign and written ’6 people like this’ next to the quote. Beneath that, in different handwriting, ’1 person likes this’ was scrawled on the bottom of the board.

Hmph. Should I  change the 6 to a 7? I didn’t see the markers around. But in all honesty, I didn’t care to comment. Interacting with everything? I’m just not that into it.  Perhaps there is value in our web-based social interactions. We can validate other people’s feelings, affirm our politics or give our stamp of approval for just about anything with a mere click. While this might seem to be all about the original content, by putting our thoughts in writing (or rather an electronic thumb) we are in fact saying, yes, listen to me, for my opinion matters.

But does it?

Just why do we need to give our two sense so often? Is it really that we all want to be part of the conversation? Or are we losing our ability to view and observe without perpetual commentary? Does the mindless (albeit entertaining) chatter distract us from the issue at hand, be it Obama’s health care plan or a friend’s engagement?  Does it lead to an inflated sense of self-importance? And what indeed will all this self-aggrandizement lead to further down the line?

I don’t have the answers, but I do wonder how responsible web 2.0 is for reality shows, increased narcissism, the branding of individuals and our society’s obsession with fame.

The Internet lends itself to being altered and manipulated in ways that print does not (and, for that matter, even erasable whiteboards). We’re so busy talking about how we can change it, do we ever stop to think about how it is changing us?