Social media has become such an integrated part of communication across personal and corporate spheres that it is difficult to imagine a successful connection without it.
Not only have networks made it possible for to stalk close to scarcely acquainted contacts, but communities also allow members to post enough media to make long distance seem shorter as you share almost everything, but each other’s presence over the net.
As most of these services are available via mobile, it is quite easy to stay only a click away from your connections possibly stored within skin-close proximity.
Where text-based communication has become so effortless, sharing might even be easier than verbal communication. No need to say “we need to talk” – a chat app message later all secrets are spilled and saveable as evidence.
Not only has network-based evidence been used in courtrooms, leading to expulsions and sentences, but brands also build up their reputations through these mediums.
If social media is then such a significantly influential part of life, is it safe to say what happens in the virtual space can be seen as reality?
While action on these channels definitely has real consequences, the authenticity of the user behaviour is under question.
Last week South African journalist Louise Marsland pointed to the possibility of social media being the new reality television (TV).
How much realness is out there? How real are people (trying to be) when posting, sharing and commenting?
While social media offers a chance to create an onscreen personality, does this generally display a truthful complement to genuine reputation or rather boost an artificial construction in false promises, soon-to-fade facades and poking the metaphorical tiger in the social media zoo only to get (web traffic) reaction?
Organisations such as Sustain Our Africa (SOA) urges the public to create change by imitating nature in social media use as a sustainable medium of meaningful communication.
SOA employs social media as an agent for change to create environmental awareness.
Meanwhile Nigerian social network Nairaland founder Seun Osewa has told HumanIPO censoring material is a life saving act.
Social media can only become real if its users become real on social media. Just as with spoken words, web-based words still have a positive or a negative communicative impact on any person’s screen.
“The pen is mightier than the sword,” English author Edward Bulwer-Lytton wrote in his play Richelieu, almost a century ago.
The ‘think-before-you-ink’ principle might be a bit outdated since the pen and paper is now generally forsaken to the bottom drawer. However, think-before-you-type might be a start to take tech-enabled sharing to the level of positive influence-impending posts.
As society’s main communication implement switched from pen to keyboard with the consequence of swifter interaction and an elevated level of transparency, the responsibility should however not be underestimated just because of its increased crowd-reaching simplicity.
When reality television (TV) became a hit, people asked: “How real is reality TV?”
Though the show element definitely exists in social media, it is up to every account holder to behave, rather than act accordingly to create an honest sphere true to life, rather than lies.
