Shadow side of social media

This subject can be approached from many directions. On the individual level people can explore their shadow sides by creating online identities which are alter ego’s that provide a veil of anonymity allowing for a wider range of behaviors. A less intended, but a more common experience occurs when the seemingly protective insulation from the digital world that exists somewhere “beyond” the computer screen enables folks to project their shadow contents quite freely and unconsciously. As a result, 140 character mistakes get posted before the ramifications are even considered.

Here though I’d like to view the topic not from the standpoint of individual behaviors, but those of the group. I’m certainly not the first to suggest the analogy to the wild west in relationship to the social dynamic that is now only in the beginning stages of development. In fact, if we draw a parallel even wider to consider the settling of this continent, perhaps it’s still only in the early 1600’s and the first wave of colonial settlers are just arriving on the shores. What’s of interest and important to remember is how the social grid gets locked in pretty early. For instance, US policy toward Native Americans for over three centuries finds it’s roots in 1637 along the Connecticut shore at the Mystic massacre. Even though certain individuals from that time period, like Peter Folger of Nantucket, made genuine strides to relate to the Native Americans with dignity and as equals, the mold of collective prejudice and the violence of socio-political dominance that followed was already set. An alternative way never had much of a chance.

As the settling of the West unfolded, characters attaining an archetypal power in our myth include frontiersmen, charlatans, bandits, peddlers, rouge lawman, scouts, not to mention some interestingly independent female heroines. But again these harken back to expression of the individual. The social groups and movement of large masses revolved around land claims, religious revivals and gold rushes.

So where are the shadow behaviors of the group? What can we be on the lookout for as these new social dynamics form and dissolve only to be recast over and over across different digital platforms that have yet to be dreamt of?

My sense is that many of social ills that infect groups, including prejudice and different forms of intolerance, are all likely to slink into these arenas subtlety and look for ripe opportunities to infect large numbers. But a simpler and in many ways more destructive force is already firmly entrenched in many areas where power has consolidated in these networks.  It was a huge force that corrupted not only the distribution networks throughout this country, but is also a common criticism leveled at both communistic regimes and the fledgling democracies we see emerging in our own historical moment…and that is cronyism.

Yep, the good ole boys club syndrome. It almost inevitable in social media, but not entirely so. I mean, any group of college friends staying in contact through these tools a natural and inherently appropriate group of cronies.  But that’s where the deception can crawl in. Many of the new nodes of power emerging in these systems run the same risks that can be seen where ever cronyism manifests: corruption, collusion and fraud.

My sense is that so far, the illusion of “openness” that is being perpetuated has kept this issue from the spotlight. But what might seem harmless in the early stages of the new media could lead to far wider difficulties ten, fifty and a hundred years from now, and could undermine the very potential these tools have for offering wider human freedoms and unity.

All right, all right, I’ll put the penalty flag back into my pocket for now…play ball.