Reality? 'Pics or it didn't happen' Long Read

A long read from The Guardian this week has been on my mind since I first read it.   It was on my mind before I read it, as I've been thinking so many of these same thoughts and working them out loud with friends for a while now.      I like the author's tone because he includes himself as he ponders these questions.   The piece is based on his book, also linked below.

This piece is definitely worth a read, as it applies to so many adults.   If I were still a middle school teacher, I would read this article with my students and discuss it.   These issues need to be addressed, right alongside those of internet safety for the mental and emotional health of our children.   Children today know nothing else.   We must protect their senses of memory and self.   We must encourage them to develop into real people, not just accumulations on social media.   They need to experience being really present in a situation, instead of being occupied with how they capture images of it to prove to others that they were there.   They need to see the beauty in the spontaneous and organic instead of frantically seeking to arrange and create images to develop a composite personality.   We all need this reminder in this age:


http://www.theguardian.com/news/2015/feb/26/pics-or-it-didnt-happen-mantra-instagram-era-facebook-twitter



The author of the piece also wrote this book:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Terms-Service-Social-Constant-Connection/dp/0062282468











Comments

  1. Julia2 March 2015 at 21:50

    Very glad you shared it...I don't tire of this reminder. It's easy to be hypnotized by social media and while so much of it is good, we can be robbed clean of real connection with people if we are not careful. And no one will be immune to the pressures of it, we have to be able to teach our children to "use" it wisely and not be consumed by it, either.

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