Experience, the basic form of learning, the way by which we develop consciousness, the process in which, by iteration, by curiosity, by love, we understand, or we fail to.
Is perhaps this precise fact, this basic step, which opens the door to all the remaining theories about social behavior, moral principles, individual and group activities.
By anchoring the process of experience to context and social restrictions, and more so, till recently, to material restrictions, the learning process is indeed quite possible to truncate, to manipulate, to guide.
If the learning process can be conditioned and manipulated by the context, media, social and material restrictions, those that can control the mentioned variables, can indeed control the experience, and therefore the behavior, one could argue.
So what’s the whole point of these obvious statements? What’s the deal with the whole experience paradox, because, if we learn through experience, and at the same time we are conditioned by this learning, how the hell do we really grow? searching new experiences?, keeping the iteration until we distill the right ones from the wrong ones? is a hegelian dialectic the way to go in perpetuity, and is it even possible to, at some point, get out of this charade?
Then, we have this new way of interacting with life, the so called social media, of which “social” became a word too big to relate anymore and thus, the distortions and disguised dissociation gets ahead.
By anchoring the symbol “social media” to those business, we are cementing the idea that they are socially driven, implying that there is actually a social interest behind, when there is not, well, not besides our utility as market and commodities, and the actions related, as a business, to keep them operative and lucrative.
Well then, so, how does it feel now when suddenly your whole feed shows you 10% content of your social related people, and 90% of a mixture between ads, satisfactory content and random stuff to see how you react to it? Even more, when you realize that you actually spent a lot of time just scrolling through that feed digesting whatever’s thrown at you without even blinking. To this point the question floats around the “if”, if we really need to have that information, if we really need to watch those videos, no matter if we enjoy them, no matter if we find them useful or interesting, is the time invested actually useful?, is it actually needed at that moment? Are we getting into something or are we just accumulating a lot of superfluous trivia, tender puppy videos and cliche phrases from really complex authors?
Suddenly I thought about all this fake social interaction, as an “addxperience”, yes indeed, I don’t see it as social interaction anymore, I just see it as new kind of commercial experience, in which we are part add, part consumer, part media and part funnel. And no, I don’t think there’s real freedom to what we choose, share or post, no, we simply behave diligently inside the rules, parameters or “best practices” given. Just think for a second, if we don’t comply with the ever changing rules, we are penalized, we are punished, this could be Pavlov wet dreams material.
So, will it stop at some point? I really don’t know, there’s little on the horizon that points to that, actually, everything points to the idea that those structures are becoming more and more powerful, accepted and normalized. Look, I don’t know these people, in the interview the look like kind and reasonable people, actually they look at themselves as the good guys, offering to the people real alternatives to their lousy lifes, to make them poor lifes more bearable, les boring, offering everyone a voice, a showcase, a newspaper or magazine cover, you can actually “be” whatever you want to, you just need to say it, show it, you know, maybe fake it, wishfully, till you make it.
What worries me, is the idea that those spaces are some kind of omni beings, they are some kind of territory or space, in which we kinda think we enjoy some kind of freedom, they are some kind of counterpower to the establishment, to the state, in which we can express and appear as we are, or as we want to be, we kinda can say what we want, they kinda give job opportunities, space to promote initiatives, and so. Well there’s a lot of kindas, cause I feel there’s not much that this places don’t try to put their feet, but, not being more than a facade, they can only be kinda something, cause, well, they are business, not beings, even less, blessed beings to give such altruistic vibes.
In any case, what’s not being enjoyable for me is simply the idea that myself and my loved ones, are being sucked in one way or another by this mechanisms, this distorted social mechanics, that to some point dissociate the learning process from the experience to the “addxperience” and pollutes the vision of the world, the society and even people with a really narrow field of view, even if we think that we are contemplating the whole world in our tiny screen in 60 seconds bites.