We communicate like crazy -- and I do mean with a bit of lunacy -- in all sorts of media and at all hours of the day.
We like to talk about other people. Newspapers have always done that -- or more specifically allowed other people to use the papers to do that.
But of late we talk a great deal about ourselves.
Odd that, since protecting one's privacy seems to be a tandem societal imperative.
For example, some years ago hospitals quit sending out admission and discharge lists to newspapers that still published them. Their reasoning was that they were required by law to protect patients' privacy. Therefore, ministers, neighbors and friends could no longer check the paper to see who was ill and maybe in need of a visit.
On the other end of the spectrum, people are on the various social media, telling everyone interested their moment-to-moment goings on.
"Hey, I am going to the grocery store today and then cleaning the house! Some crazy guy just cut me off at the intersection and almost hit me."
Really⢠Does anyone other than writer and maybe his family care⢠It's dinner-table conversation run amok.
I learned from my first editor in the newspaper business that there are some who seek to manipulate the news. It continues even more intently to this day. Government, business, political organizations are just a few that get into the act.
Social media makes the manipulation of the "news" so much easier because we can just toss out opinion in whatever quantity we like, often to those people who are already of like mind. Somewhat akin to putting a message in a bottle and tossing it into the ocean, but who cares as long as we get our say.
Here is another good analogy for how we communicate these days. I have told this story before but I think it is apt to this mental meander:
During the folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary's 25th anniversary concert, Noel Paul Stookey told the audience that we used to have a magazine called "Life," and then came a magazine called "Us," and then one called "Self." He predicted we would soon have one called "Me" and each page would just be reflective paper.
Well, we have that today in our social media.
If it sounds like I have some disdain for social media, I apologize. That is not quite true. I would find it hard to avidly object to any mass media. And I could write another column on the benefits of such media.
To be sure, the so-called mainstream media -- newspapers, TV, radio, websites- - select what will make the news, whereas social media seem to make just about anything fair game. Consumers of information can discriminate as they see fit.
Even mainstream providers of news sometimes pick up on what originated on social media.
Consider the recent visuals of the boy who was said to be bullying another boy at his school in Australia. Most of us have seen the painful sight as the tormented boy picked up the aggressor and slammed him to the walk. The video is said to have gone viral, an apt word I think.
Now there is a lot to think about in viewing and reading about this incident, that cannot be denied.
But think about how different it is from not too many years ago when such incidents would go undetected by the larger community, not to mention the globe.
My question: Are we going to be a better human family for having seen the video?
I hope so, but I confess some doubts. People take sides, there is more polarization. But does life change?
Communication is a tricky business, from gossip to glitz, from street corner to the World Wide Web.
I wonder if the first caveman to put up his artwork on the cave wall ever dealt with such difficulties. If he did it was probably a violent outcome.
Some things never change.
Meandering appears Fridays. To share your thoughts on this column (or on most anything) with Mike O'Hare, write to the Leader Times, P.O. Box 978, Kittanning, PA 16201 or via e-mail to mohare@tribweb.com.
