One aspect of social media that we can feel good about

Photo by Sam McGhee on Unsplash

Welcome to this week’s post. It’s a little shorter than usual, as I have lots going on these days. I hope you find something in this topic that resonates with you.

“Let me show you how to do this.”

Photo by Ron Lach, via Pexels.com

While much has been said about the negative aspects of social media, certainly not to be underestimated, I want to take a moment to consider the benefits of digital platforms in terms of the unparalleled accessibility they provide for learning.

I’m convinced that when we use social media for expanding our horizons, we can be better for it.

There are countless examples, but let me focus for a moment on a relatively narrow area of sports and hobbies.

When I was younger, I played on a lot of different soccer teams. Back then, in the 1970s and 80s, we acquired some skills by imitating friends and teammates and we learned the rest from coaches to whom we were assigned. If we were lucky, we found a book in the library on the techniques of the sport that we could peruse on our own. It was sometimes bewildering to be a junior player and adjusting every season to a new coach, usually a teacher at school or a well-meaning volunteer in the community. In my thirties I, too, volunteered as an assistant coach for a while. Looking back on my youth, I can say with all honesty that some trainers were good; others were absolutely terrible. I will always remember the good ones. In a similar way, the bad ones also left a lasting impression. Heaven only knows what the kids thought of me when I was volunteering.

Some coaches were woefully deficient in managing people. Some also had poor communication skills. Some had bizarre ideas about strategy. We players stumbled along, sometimes miserably following instructions we didn’t understand or agree with, and often ended up on the field confused. When we did well it was either because we were fortunate to have been paired with a coach who had sound ideas about strategy or because we were blessed that particular season with a few players who possessed better than average skills.

Now I watch kids playing soccer and I am amazed at the difference. The quality of play in team sports is improving rapidly. One reason is that many kids aspire to emulate the superstars they follow on social media. But at the same time, the convenient dissemination of knowledge through online platforms has facilitated access to better coaching for everyone, especially through the powerful medium of video. Whether it’s reviewing highlights of professional players, using YouTube to learn skills and practice tips, illustrating strategies with animated diagrams or perhaps watching TikTok moments showcasing someone’s incredible personal skills; all of this contributes to improvement. None of this material was easily accessible in the pre-digital era.

Teams of young players today are performing at a level of personal ability and tactical cohesion that was not evident even just ten years ago. Coaches, players and even parents are benefitting from the knowledge available via social media or downloadable from the internet.

Photo by Acton Crawford on Unsplash

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Another example from my own area of interest is motorcycling, where instructional videos from a variety of sources are freely available to anyone interested in improving their skill level, whether it’s controlling their machine better at slow or high speed, or improving their streetcraft for safety and survivability in high traffic scenarios.

A small sample of motorcycling instruction on YouTube

I’m certain many of you also have experienced this trend.

The same effects can be witnessed in a myriad of other subject areas: working with specialized software, improving corporate teamwork, enhancing time management skills, carpentry, cooking, playing music, fixing machinery, dancing; basically in an endless list of activities that require any sort of skill.

As an aside, let’s just consider the rise of YouTube for a moment: launched in 2005 with a 19-second video by one of the co-founders of the platform, Jawed Karim, describing elephants in a zoo, the platform now reaches more than 2.75 billion people each month.

Like video, the possibilities for sharing and acquiring knowledge just keep growing: we have searchable text, interactive gaming, graphics of all kinds, podcasts for audiophiles and now even artificial intelligence, all at our fingertips. We may not have noticed it, but the understanding and proficiency acquired from learning skills over social media platforms have changed our lives. Little by little, many people around the world are improving themselves.

So it’s not necessarily true that spending time online is ruining our minds. There are two sides to the social media equation: for those who do more than passive scrolling, and seek a higher level of performance at work or at play, social media is a valuable tool that is making a positive difference.

So what do you think? Do these forces balance out or is one more dominant than the other? It would be great to know your perspective.

The sketch

My quick drawing this week is of a church steeple behind a stone wall in Alto Adige, Italy. It was a magical place that our family visited last summer.

Thanks for reading Zanepost. I appreciate you taking the time to visit.

Cheers,

-Renato