There is nothing social about social media (yet)

Traditional media is a one-way street. They report the news and we watch the news. There is no other interaction. You can choose to change the channel whenever you want.

That old model is dead.

Social media, on the other hand, is supposed to be social. A two-way street. We interact with each other. It’s a community.

But when is the last time a tweet changed us for the better? How did it work out when you began engaging with someone’s political points? When was the last time someone changed your mind on social media?

The problem with social media is that most of the time it isn’t actually social. Instead, we end up spending our time watching cat videos instead of what it is for: A tool for connecting with each other. But we don’t use the tool the right way.

Social has to be more than interacting with a screen. Social is interacting with each other, sharing ideas, breaking down the perfect so we can unleash the impossible. Social is bringing a group together to make things better. Socializing can solve really big and really interesting problems.

I think we need to stop pretending: The time we spend on social media isn’t actually socializing. It’s a place to hide.

I don’t see a lot of problems being solved or accurate information being shared or a lot of growth happening. It can happen, but only if we spend less time correcting people for being wrong.

It’s easy to hide by swiping left and waiting for something better to come along. It easy to spend the afternoon architecting every word in your paragraph to make your point of view appear right. There are plenty of inaccurate sources to prove it.

What’s difficult…no essential is elevating our conversations. We can hold a higher standard. We could level up. We could provide better content for us to see and skip what we ate for lunch.