Social media are making us anything but social

My father had a friend named Reuben. He owned a venerable men’s clothing store. Reuben was always stylish. His commitment to the new extended to cars, diets and trends such as adult education.

Were Reuben around today, he would have loved social media, the greatest fad of the 21st century.

As a haberdasher, he would have seen the advantages in selling clothing online. As an intellectual, he would have seen the Internet as a marketplace of ideas. His musings on lifelong learning might have been broadcast on iTunes.

In a saner world, Reuben might have eventually come to see the ugly side of social media. He might have realized that social media has become an instrument of hatred, a vessel of vanity and a forum of insecurity.

It’s increasingly pointless, even destructive. Visiting these spaces has become what journalist and satirist Malcolm Muggeridge called his memoirs: Chronicles of Wasted

Time.

In Vanity Fair, author Nick Bilton sees these platforms as “terrorist recruitment tools, facilitating bullying, driving up anxiety, and undermining our ( U. S.) elections.” He predicts the end of social media. May we be so fortunate.

It’s dangerous to question the contemporary cant around social media; you’re a Luddite or a reactionary.

Certainly, the Internet is one of humanity’s great inventions. It’s the great engine of democracy. It disseminates knowledge and empowers people. To attack the Internet for purveying falsehood is no more logical than holding the printing press responsible for producing Mein Kampf. It isn’t the digital world, writ large, that offends here, but its unsavoury offspring.

In education, the electronic world was initially welcomed in the classroom. We can check facts, search terms, call up maps. Breathtaking.

The problem is that, left to their own devices — literally — students will do little but check email and post photographs. Unable to compete, professors are banning laptops and smart phones from the lecture hall. It’s a losing proposition. Students in need of a fix finger their iPhones furtively under the desk.

Anxiety is rising among young people, say researchers. Blame the running score of “likes,” “friends,” “swipes” and other expressions of approval or disapproval.

Social media turns us into narcissists. We crave attention, demand affection and get it here.

In politics and policy, social media have brought foreign interference from the Russians and tools of manipulation all parties will master. Read the ground- breaking work of Canadian political scientist Taylor Owen, who worries how technology, through targeted micro- ads and fake news, threatens to disrupt our democracy.

Twitter may be an elite medium, reaching 330 million subscribers. But Donald Trump has turned it into the bully pulpit of his presidency.

Social media is the new opioid. In Canada, ministers retweet the prime minister, who retweets his ministers. Some politicians ( and their staff ) tweet for the sake of tweeting. Messages that could be substantial are silly and sophomoric. The insults are so common that people always threaten to quit it. Few do.

They can’t. Social media is the fad — and the freak show — of our time.