Its just a theory but social media is changing our society!

It is buffeting us in all sections of our lives. Those of us brought up within a culture of short termism, risk and the technological revolution are filled with contradiction. A friend who is in a long-term relationship says that he doesn’t think that we are destined nowadays to spend more than 8 – 10 years with one partner. A connection on Twitter sees their career as ‘flighty’ because they are nothing more than a commodity. And, a relative spends thousands of pounds on something they don’t need because “life is just too short. Thankfully and testament to 2008, its not on a credit card. If life is too short why, on the whole, are we living longer?

In most cases, the social scientists agree, given most circumstances the individual will choose herself before being a member of a social structure. That is about to, albeit, slowly change and whilst not wholly disappear, we will start to slide towards a period of more collectivism certainly in the knowledge based economies being thrust upon us by social media’s eventual mass adoption. In this series of five blog posts this week, I propose that whilst the capitalist, market society is not dead and buried just yet, there exists an underlying modification that will drive a new society that features globalization strongly, yet it goes beyond that. History will inform of us in due course of its label, its definition and its role in the evolvement of human society. For now, I’ll call it the digital/social society.

Capitalism was meant to bring individualism of a pure nature but it did not. In fact, there is little evidence to suggest that over the long term, and so far, that capitalism, whilst it has brought about wealth, sanitation, better health and individualism, will not have actually benefited human to human relationships that much. Like all these things, time will tell. What we do know is that it has created a manipulated sense of individuality that has bred a sameness, dullness and almost clone like approach to life, encouraged by mass media and broadcast in recent years. As Seth Godin calls it we living in the “post industrial revolution.”

The technological revolution (I prefer this term) and its ability to allow humans to communicate and connect 24/7 anywhere in the world where you are ‘hooked up’ coupled with the prevailing changes it is bringing to our society are shifting people’s behaviour and attitudes. Indeed, it is inducing a new individualism that has ramifications never seen before in 300 years. The thinking, lifestyles, creativity and way of working and living will be very non traditional, unorthodox and anti establishment, perhaps even slightly bohemian, well a lot bohemian actually.