Fuck Social Media

Lets be realistic here. We all have this stupid thing where in which we attempted to connect to other people in our "circle". Some of us think that the connection to people really help with <insert thing here>. However like this article attempts to make a clear distinction on what social really is. I tend to think that social means in a sphere of interaction with another person that is in front of you physically. The reason for this thought process is the fact that in all other attempts to create a social interaction on the net isn't really social. Trolls will never troll in real life. People for the most part tend to be nice in real life. They tend to have less of an anger. It always seems to me that when we bring social interactions to a sphere where in which the user is not allowed to be face to face with the other user the meaningful interaction is lessened by not seeing real reaction.

Albert Benschop, the Amsterdam pioneer of web sociology and editor of SocioSite.net, proposes that we overcome the real-virtual distinction altogether. He makes an analogy to the Thomas theoreme, a classic theory in sociology, when he says, “If people define networks as real, they are real in their consequences.” For Benschop, the internet is not some “second-hand world.” The same could be said of the social. There is no second life, with different social rules and conventions. According to Benschop, this is why there is, strictly speaking, no additional discipline necessary.


Benschop brings up a good point in the fact that we can no longer think of this social interaction as unreal. It is a network that we all see as real, there for the following consequences are also real.

More on this in class.

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I have a bag of Jelly Beans for the first person to sign up for this.

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