Social Media And Storytelling

When Thomas Sorensen posted a thought provoking and insightful article about how social media is killing storytelling, it echoed a sentiment which had been resting somewhat uneasily with the 7th Chamber for some time.

Progression in technology is changing the way we remember and recount our memories – if we have to recount them at all. Social media stores and presents our personal data in a way which necessitates little or no social interaction between the host and those accessing the virtual memory bank. Face to face communication is thus thrown out of the window in favour of a less social, more intrusive look into our lives.

Sorenson then goes on berate bloggers who document their (often nauseatingly perfect) lives in exhausting detail using a variety of social media platforms. Overly revealing blogs like Louder Than Silence are just some of the culprits for this practice. We can just imagine the conversation 40 years from now:

“So Grandad, what did you do when you were younger?”
“Why son, have you checked out my blog?”

But it wasn’t always like this. Readers, if you will, imagine a world without smartphones and a fibre optic connection in every office. Yes, that’s it, the world of (whisper it) our parents. A simpler world where storytelling was valued as opposed to being viewed as a tiresome distraction from the online world. With artistic licence liberally applied and rose tinted glasses seldom removed, stories could come to life in the right hands. This writer vividly remembers a story of his father being caught by his brother dry cleaning tight fitting, stonewashed Levis – at the climax of this story I felt as if it were my legs were incased in the very denim he once wore.

Ok, the last sentence may be a little dramatic, but it is true that social media, despite its obvious advantages, can be held responsible for sucking the creative life out of our descriptive powers. So my message to you all is: ditch iPhoto, get a point and shoot and save those stories for when they’re asked of you. Stories may be made for sharing, but that phrase was coined our capacity for elocution in mind as opposed to the power of a Macbook.