I can’t imagine anyone under the age of 70 that isn’t aware
of the changes brought about by social media and its meteoric rise within our
culture. My apologies to anyone over 70 and I know there are many who are tech
savvy. The society in which we live and move and have our being has changed
since the advent of Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and even going all the way
back to MySpace!
Joe Battaglia addresses the negative influences of social
media over use in his new release, Unfriended.
The book is set to be released next week. I would highly recommend anyone
working with a segment of the population under 40 years of age get a copy. In
the book he addresses many ways that the promised community online fails to
live up the real version of community that helps create a functioning society.
He does this by pointing to the promises of the online
version and pointing out the flaws of the delivery system associated with virtual
community. Battaglia presents the longings of humanity that are common to all
that people hope will be met via the online community via the various social media
sites. It’s not a bashing of the either. It is simply an honest examination to
see if they are holding up under the promised outcomes.
Each chapter is short enough to really hold your attention.
Even for those of us conditioned by our media choices to move quickly from one
blurb to the next. The readers will find ourselves at some point among those
searching for community in our online avatars and will no doubt see our own
desires pointed out in more than one of the chapters in the book.
The book seems to mirror something happening in real life in
many places. Scholars and regular joes and janes are discovering that the
benefits of being connected virtually all across the world are having some unintended
consequences in real life. As Sherry Turkle’s book title points out, we are
indeed finding ourselves increasing Alone
Together.
I wish that Battaglia had included the positive contributions
made from the rise of social media in a little more detail. But that wasn’t the
nature of the work, so I understand why it wasn’t included. Even with that
being said, I think the work is a need-to-read book for anyone who wants to
understand the culture today. I highly recommend Unfriended.
I received a free copy
of the book from the publisher in exchange for my honest review of the work.
