I recently read a very interesting New York Times article which is an excerpt from what may prove to be a very interesting book!
Both the article and book are all about Shame and Social Media.
It tells the story of 'How one stupid tweet blew up Justine Sacco's Life'.
She was on a flight to South Africa and on the way tweeted -
" "Going to Africa. Hope I don't get AIDS. Just kidding. I'm white!"
"
"
She turned off her phone and went to sleep....BUT before she even landed her tweet had gone viral and at the airport another twitter user was already there to take her photo and tweet it to the world!
She deleted her tweet, but by now thousands of others already had copied it. There was no turning back the clock! Her impulsive, poorly thought through but mis-understood joke inferring that Americans live in a such a 'bubble' that they think they are immune from the issues others in the world face, had risen up to bite her with public accusations across twitter accusing her of bigotry, and being a 'brutal nadir'.
The author of the article mentioned that he thought "Modernity had diminished shame's power to shame — or so I assumed."
He also said "Social media is so perfectly designed to manipulate our desire for approval," [and is] " a bid for the attention of strangers "
Of further interest are a couple of the 'comments' at the end of the article:
John N
Many of the social aspects of "social media" are shaping social norms in ways I find disturbing...... If social media means that the mob has more power to force conformity, then we all become less free and our society less diverse.
Pamela
every society has evolved a way of establishing and enforcing social norms. once, some used stoning with real stones. now on twitter folks throw verbal stones. real stones break your bones. twitter can hurt you too.
I could make many comments about thinking before you speak, or the foolishness of making irony jokes across a global multi-cultural audience, or the need by people to treat others the way they want to be treated and not attack and shame, or the dangers of social media, or...or ....or.
However, what I want to hone in on is the 'shame' factor in it all.
Anthropologically the 'West' is never categorised as a 'Shame Culture' - neither totally nor primarily dominated by shame. Yet, as the objectiveness of absolute truth according to God's Word and thus a clear and united and consistent definition of right and wrong slips into the background of Western society, guilt according to that standard of right and wrong also slips away. But it doesn't leave a vacuum. Sin (doing 'wrong') doesn't disappear just because someone now says there is no absolute standard by which to decide right, wrong and guilt. Instead, without sin being defined according to God's law (what is acceptable in His eyes and what He says is honourable), it becomes defined according to 'mob law'. And 'mob law' will always be defined by what is acceptable and honourable in the eyes of those watching around us. The 'creature', rather than the Creator, sets itself up as the determiner of what is good and evil, right and wrong.
As 'we' set our sights on approval from people rather than God, we also set ourselves up for the full force of the disapproval from people. The issue of shame will not go away, while sinful human beings inhabit this earth - both because in our sinfulness we shame others, but primarily because shame and sin are inextricably linked and when sin entered the world, so did shame, and its here until we have new heavens and earth.
Social Media is just giving greater opportunity and platform to some aspects of our sinful nature which has been there all along.
In our pride and seeking of significance and honour in a mis-placed way, we think we are getting somewhere in the world, when that approval quota grows, especially when it grows larger than the next person's. Why do you think Facebook includes a feature to keep a visually obvious tally of 'followers'?
