Media (social and otherwise)
We are so connected now that we can know anything. We have the reach to see things happening all over the world. But for us to see it, someone has to publish it.
Traditional media only publishes what they think will make them money. They try to out-do one another with the exotic and the bizarre. They are not interested in anything that is not bizarre and unusual.
We gain our perceptions of what is normal and true from what we see every day. So if the news every night tells us that there is a terrible economic downturn, and it’s going to get worse, of course we start to spend less. So the economy will downturn, and the media will be proved right! And we’ll keep spending less until the media is distracted by something else and forgets about the economy. And then the economy will recover. I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that the recovery from the global economic downturn in 2009 coincided with the swine flu pandemic. All of a sudden the news you saw every night stopped any mention of the economy, and instead was full of swine flu. People started spending again and all was well!
What we see every day is what we come to accept as normal. And the media is showing us ‘bizarro’ earth. If you watch traditional media day after day, you’d have to come to believe that the worlds population is made up of terrorists, murderers, rapists and politicians. But in reality, by far the majority of the worlds population are good, normal people. By showing us the bizarre, the media is moving our perception of what is normal off centre towards the bizarro zone.
While a lot of people criticise social media, I think that it will be our salvation. It contains the good and the bad, the beautiful and the ugly, but that is life, and it is in balance. In traditional media we see the bizarre. In social media we see reality. People living their lives, and sharing their experiences. We get to see drunken rants, and bigotted comments, but we also get to see peoples favourite recipes, and what they did on the weekend, and how they’re enjoying their lives! It doesn’t have to be bizarre to be seen! This I think is far more valuable to us than another hour of death, destruction and politics delivered by the TV news.
By sharing in peoples lives we get to learn that the majority of people are good, normal people. Don’t let your view of the world be distorted by the media freak-show.
Minefields!
I work in computer security, and that is how this post came about, but it’s not really WHAT it’s about.
I’ve been thinking about the things we do to try to secure computer systems, and realised that what we’re doing is setting up minefields. It’s not a solid, impenetrable barrier to keep people out. Our access lists, file permissions, and selinux policies are more like a set of booby-traps and land-mines that we hope malicious people will bump into, so that they either cripple their attempts, or at least trigger an alert so that we know that they’re there.
But if someone is careful, clever, or lucky enough, they can still get through. And even if our tripwires trigger, if we don’t have our response prepared and ready to go, it wont help.
The only reasonable way to safeguard a system is to lock it in a safe and let no-one near it. And that makes it pretty useless. So all we can really do is to keep deploying our mines and hope they’ll catch someone.
And I think that our lives are sort of the same. No matter how organised and prepared we think we are, there are always things that can happen that we don’t expect and haven’t planned for. There is no 100% guaranteed way to make sure that things will always go the way that we want them to. We can try to be as prepared as we can, but in the end the best that we can do is to expect the unexpected, and be prepared to roll with the punches.
Noticing people?
I read something the other day about sexism, and it got me thinking. As you go through life, you notice many things that get your attention. A nice sounding bird, a pretty sunset, a nice looking person, someone saying something really interesting, or funny.
All of these are considered ‘OK’, except for the nice looking person. If you see one of those you should ignore it. This is a bit odd I think. Physical looks and intelligence are both accidents of birth, why is it OK to value one but not the other? Is it ‘intelligenceist’ to value someone for being smart?
The thing is that whatever first brings another person to our attention, that is just a fleeting moment. From that moment forward, we can start to learn more about them, and discover that they have far more to offer than whatever it was that first made us notice them.
So if you’re the ‘noticer’, the important thing is not to get too wrapped up in the first feature you notice. Get to know the person more. And if you’re the ‘noticee’, then try to remember that the other person has just realised that you exist. Don’t assume that whatever brought you to their attention is all they see in you. Give them a chance to get to know you.
And of course there’s the other side. Don’t write people off because they don’t leap into your attention straight away, or don’t notice you straight away. Everyone has so much to offer. Be friendly, supportive, and give people a chance!
Do all the things! 
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