Madeira Consorcio

105th Madeira Consorcio Meeting 16.3.2019

We met in the RESTOCK workshop room again, and the meeting went very well!

Do. came up with the topic for the evening“Social Media Addiction”. He chose two videos:

Is Social Media Hurting Your Mental Health? by Bailey Parnell   15 min

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czg_9C7gw0

Social Media addiction  13 min

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JH5bC-SLvb4

Negative aspects of Social Media:

• Social Media are addictive, as explained in the video, especially for younger people who are still insecure in their roles and tend to compare themselves to their peers.  They derive a false sense of belonging and importance from the excessive use.
• Lonely people pour their souls out into the Internet, basically to nowhere, and hope to be “seen”.
• Social media split people apart and replace real social interaction.
• Many people us fake names and harass and insult others with impunity; they lose their sense of respect and decency because the attacked persons are far away.
• The effectiveness of Social Media decreases with time, as more and more Fluff or Noise is put out there.
• Mouth-to-mouth recommendations are much more effective that any Social Media campaign.
• Nobody know how Social Media are going to develop from here.
• 15% of the world energy consumption is due to the Internet.

Positive aspects of Social Media:

• Websites such as Do.’s classic photos of Madeira, and the Dutch group which stays in touch (both monitored).
• Long distance family connections work instantly and give a feeling of togetherness.
• People can stay be in the loop with their friends and family but do not need to comment on just any photo that is posted.
• It is a great tool to tell stories and present yourself, as long as marketing is not involved.

Here are some links to Do.’s sites, who monitors everything, he manages “internet etiquette”:

Madeira Quase Esquecida (Facebook page): https://www.facebook.com/MadeiraQuaseEsquecida/

Madeira Quase Esquecida (Instagram): https://www.instagram.com/madeiraquaseesquecida/

The story about the project ‘Madeira Quase Esquecida’ via AprenderMadeira (in Portuguese): http://aprenderamadeira.net/madeira-quase-esquecida/

Social Media in themselves are not intrinsically bad, the use can be bad or good, similar to cars or guns. But cars need a driving license and guns needs permissions (at least in Europe)

As for driving, there should be an education for parents and children, to warn about the dangers and refrain from addictive use. It should be made clear that the opinions of strangers on the internet are not paramount.

The definition of “friend” has been distorted by Facebook, but there are levels there that most people don’t know about: “acquaintances” and “good friends” also exist. If somebody is blocked from a site by an administrator because of bad behavior, they simply cannot get in anymore, they don’t receive a “justification”.

Social media are a necessity for businesses – like it or not – and can be a necessary evil for people with a public profile. C. as surgeon cannot avoid it, it would create bad will if he didn’t have a FB page, people might slander him for not having a FB page because they will try to contact him in FB (of course, he doesn’t answer any medical questions on FB).

Cl. thinks the Social Media in all (Do. says that they are many more than just the big Five) are evil. They are using behavioral science to manipulate the users and get their data to sell to other companies.

The fact is that emails are still free. If emails or tweets were to cost at least a cent (and people would have to log in to a payment system and show their identity to pay for it) then the amount of emails would drop drastically and the slanderous use would be curbed.

Ce. said that we used to get our information from journalists, philosophers, priests and teachers who put their energy into understanding the issues and explaining them to us. If the internet was had to be paid for, these groups would regain their importance and could again do a good job.

Social Media should be monitored at all times; we have seen with the events in Christchurch that attackers will post on the Internet to gain “fame” and “likes” bad content must be monitored and removed immediately.

Social Media should be used better, and everybody should have an education on it.

K. recommends a book on the topic, a novel by Sophie Kinsella” “My not so perfect Life” about a woman’s dive into Social Media and the way out of it.

Other info:

The Wikipedia Info for the European elections:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_European_Parliament_election

At the bottom of the page, there is a description of the coalitions/alliances which have been established; from there one can click on the coalition names and see which European parties make up this alliance.