Wannaskan Almanac for Tuesday, May 3, 2022 When We Forgot How to Talk

Make your guess...what was the first social media site?  

If your answer was Instagram...keep studying for your driver's test.

If your answer was twitter...you are far too young to drink legally.

If you came up with Facebook...make sure you are scheduling that colonoscopy.

If you settled on Myspace...you have a great memory...but no!

The very first social media site was released on the world in 1997.  It was called Six Degrees.  The thought was that there was six degrees of separation between every human.  You can still sign up for Six Degrees by clicking here.  Unfortunately you have to be invited by someone to join.  I am still waiting on that special invite to show up in my email.

The first social media website, and common January temp in Wannaska

After that came the unforgettable social media site...Am I hot or Not?  This site was released in 2000, and was a place where you could post pictures of yourself and people would judge you as hot or not.  Also released in the early 2000's were Friendster, Myspace, and Facemash.  Facemash, an Am I Hot or Not clone, eventually became Facebook.  

Today there are many different social media sites.  They all have their plusses and minuses.  One of the drawbacks of social media is that people seem to becoming less social.  People began saying things on social media that they would never say in person.  If someone disagrees with you, just unfollow or unfriend them.  It has really started to seep into regular life and now it seems like there are more and more people unfriending each other outside of the metaverse.  Families refuse to get together.  It seems we are more and more conditioned to only accept only those who agree with us on every single issue.  Social media has fragmented society.

I guess I am saying that we seem to have forgotten how to talk to each other.  We have become more concerned with being right than we are with being civil.  Cute pictures of what we were having for dinner have turned into character attacks.  We have forgotten that debate can lead to thought...anymore it just seems to lead to anger.  

On that note, I will offer what I have learned from coaching.  No matter how bad the officiating is, no matter how aggravating the opposing coach has been, no matter how horrible the players on the other team has been...I still make myself and my players shake their hands and thank them at the end of the game.  As a society we need to get back to being able to have differences without divisions.  That is a change that would make us all much more...social.