Technology as a Scapegoat

Recently, technology has been blamed or credited for a number of things:

Arab Spring Uprisings

Riots in London

The end of the debit ceiling debacle

And countless other evils and goods…are we serious? Technology is not the cause of the uprisings in London or Arab counties and it didn’t solve the debit crisis…the real issues are unrest, distrust of government and general economic malaise. It is the growing (in every corner of the world) of the gap between those in power and those who are not in power, it is a reflection of economic unfairness, it is not because we now have social media.

People. Social media is a tool for accomplishing goals, it is not magic.

It has no power in and of itself. It helps spread the word or keep people connected but thousands of people would not have been tweeting about rioting in the streets if there was no need to riot in the streets. People would not be expressing outrage over the debit ceiling if the government wasn’t so self serving. The British Prime Minister proposing the banning of social media totally misses the issue. He is cluess about the real causes of the riots which, to me, means there will be more riots.

So for all of these so called social media experts and “pundits” to blame, credit or hold social media up on a pedestal as the reason for events…they are totally missing cause and effect. The cause of the unrest, the reason for the discontent is NOT social media. Banning social media won’t solve the problem and diverts attention from the real issues that must be addressed.

And its also true that introducing social media to a corporation will not automatically make the corporation communicate better. Its the underlying culture and issues that drive the impact of social media not…social media technology tools.

Social media is a scapegoat for good or bad but its not the cause of anything. It’s a tool, a good and productive and handy tool but still, at the end of the day, its a tool. So stop blaming or crediting social media, don’t ban it hoping to avoid future problems because unless you fix the underlying problems, people will still find ways to riot in the streets and show their discontent.

In the 1960s, the marches in the South of the United States were not enabled by Social media, it didn’t exist. It was the will of people who wanted and demanded change and the change happened even without social media.

The same can happen in the mid-2000’s without social media.

It is a fool’s belief that banning, cutting off or eliminating social media will solve social problems…it won’t. Nor will social media solve those problems.

Don’t treat social media as scapegoat…treat it as a tool.

Finally, as a homework assignment, I think we all need to reread two increasingly realistic and scary books: