Does social media make it impossible to leave childhood behind?

Rather than being a threat to childhood innocence, some argue that the real threat from social media is quite different:

In sharp contrast to Postman’s prediction, childhood never did disappear. Instead, it has become ubiquitous in a new and un­expected way. Today, childhood and adolescence are more visible and pervasive than ever before. For the first time in history, children and adolescents have widespread access to the technologies needed to represent their lives, circulate these representations, and forge networks with each other, often with little or no adult supervision. The potential danger is no longer childhood’s disappearance, but rather the possibility of a perpetual childhood. The real crisis of the digital age is not the disappearance of childhood, but the specter of a childhood that can never be forgotten.

https://www.wired.com/story/excerpt-end-of-forgetting-kate-eichhorn/?fbclid=IwAR131h6o3TWLxvzE62wJTU6B6-9SwbkpaB0RlrAW5XSbtPs5nKWb3wq3EzU

Makes me think of the frequent, quite-childish Facebook posts you see from people who are well out of childhood!

Social Media is the new wild, wild west. The arena where pitched battles are fought.

Some contributors have the emotional maturity of a newborn infant. Traits like petulance and attention seeking behaviour are normal in kids but bizzare in adults.

Let's also not forget high functioning personality disorders. And outright psychiatric problems too.  Both can come across as childishness, when in fact immaturity is not the issue, it's something more serious.

Lurker with OCD, Wolfie with pretend pugilistic posts !?

Facebook and other social media sites deal in fantasy.....look at my fantastic life, look at my fantastic face and figure (airbrushed or photoshopped or whatever) often the good stuff is exaggerated and the bad stuff is hidden, though if the bad stuff ever does emerge millions on people are on hand to boo and hiss the bad guys....a bit like pantomime.

Kids love pantomimes and fantasy, so in that respect social media DOES bring out the child in many.

Mind you....so do forums sometimes.

nicko wrote:Lurker with OCD, Wolfie with pretend pugilistic posts !?

This is neither Facebook, nor "social media" -- but a discussion forum, nicko..

Do you have something against people defending themselves against obnoxious bigots and prats on here ?

Pity you don't take a similar stance against those 'fake soldiers' like smelly' and Major, and their ilk -- I would have thought that the genuine ex-servicemen on here would take a strong stance against them; rather than befriending and defending them simply because you like their political and nationalist proclivities..

Erm yes

Just look at this place, you got Quill playing make believe lawyer lawyers

Lurker who created a thread so he can post pictures and cartoons

And wolfie who basically has the speech capacity of a toddler in full blown tantrum

Then you have the mods who basically throw their teddies out and stomp their feet everytime they don't like someone's opinion.

If there is an example of how social media keeps people in perpetual child mood, this place is it

smelly-bandit wrote:Erm yes

Just look at this place, you got Quill playing make believe lawyer lawyers

Lurker who created a thread so he can post pictures and cartoons

And wolfie who basically has the speech capacity of a toddler in full blown tantrum

Then you have the mods who basically throw their teddies out and stomp their feet everytime they don't like someone's opinion.

If there is an example of how social media keeps people in perpetual child mood, this place is it

Lol, and yet here you are...

Syl wrote:

smelly-bandit wrote:Erm yes

Just look at this place, you got Quill playing make believe lawyer lawyers

Lurker who created a thread so he can post pictures and cartoons

And wolfie who basically has the speech capacity of a toddler in full blown tantrum

Then you have the mods who basically throw their teddies out and stomp their feet everytime they don't like someone's opinion.

If there is an example of how social media keeps people in perpetual child mood, this place is it

Lol, and yet here you are...

Well there has to be adult supervision, haven't you seen Lord of the flies??

I don’t use Facebook to post up photos of my dinner or to announce what programme I may be currently watching or the fact I’m playing Top Trumps with my daughter or whether my trip to the dentist was good or bad.

I prefer to actually post little and often and mostly it’s quotes I like or have written. People on Facebook hate a debate too...they often get all ultra sensitive.

eddie wrote:I don’t use Facebook to post up photos of my dinner or to announce what programme I may be currently watching or the fact I’m playing Top Trumps with my daughter or whether my trip to the dentist was good or bad.  

I prefer to actually post little and often and mostly it’s quotes I like or have written. People on Facebook hate a debate too...they often get all ultra sensitive.

I dont post much either, but I have this to say.

When people are gone, its the one thing that people can hold onto and its something death can never take from us.
People are captured in memory with pictures and from words said at the time. Do not get me wrong some people live to be immortalised by their pictures every single day and its boring at times. Yet, when we lose someone, all that negative thought we may have had around such pictures. Diminishes in a second. As then those pictures become the very aspect to remember someone by.

My view is this. So what if people continually post pictures. What is more oncerning is whether they have mental health issues around this and are screaming for attention and people are not listening. If people are simple recording aspects of time. Its a good thing. If for attention, then are people listening to those doing this and not recognising they are screaming for help?

Social media is creating many problems, with mental health issues as much as its helping immortalise the lives of people

phildidge wrote:

eddie wrote:I don’t use Facebook to post up photos of my dinner or to announce what programme I may be currently watching or the fact I’m playing Top Trumps with my daughter or whether my trip to the dentist was good or bad.  

I prefer to actually post little and often and mostly it’s quotes I like or have written. People on Facebook hate a debate too...they often get all ultra sensitive.

I dont post much either, but I have this to say.

When people are gone, its the one thing that people can hold onto and its something death can never take from us.
People are captured in memory with pictures and from words said at the time. Do not get me wrong some people live to be immortalised by their pictures every single day and its boring at times. Yet, when we lose someone, all that negative thought we may have had around such pictures. Diminishes in a second. As then those pictures become the very aspect to remember someone by.

My view is this. So what if people continually post pictures. What is more oncerning is whether they have mental health issues around this and are screaming for attention and people are not listening. If people are simple recording aspects of time. Its a good thing. If for attention, then are people listening to those doing this and not recognising they are screaming for help?

Social media is creating many problems, with mental health issues as much as its helping immortalise the lives of people

I can imagine and as we have seen here. When people have shared cherrish memories. Of loved ones lost. How it is able to help us connect to the person we are speaking to and how they had this wonderful moments in life with love ones they have lost? Pictures can really tell a thousand stories. So there is good and bad from this, but why would in this situation would anyone want to leave this behind? I would think that again we would want this immortalised. Its like when Gelico has shared the family history and shared pictures. Telling the stories was amasing, but placing faces to this with pictures. Made it make her memories that much more special. Sharing expericnes are that much more vivid, when expressed also with pictures.

You made some very good points there didge. I often get memories come up of my beloved Lisa and it makes me laugh and smile all over again at the shit we used to chat on there.

eddie wrote:You made some very good points there didge. I often get memories come up of my beloved Lisa and it makes me laugh and smile all over again at the shit we used to chat on there.

Indeed and i would always want you to have access to those memories Eddie in picture. How often do we see a picture of times well spent together and it brings such fond memories?

Ofcourse it can have the opposite effect, if people have been abused by people and have no wish to see these pictures

But with people we love and have lost, its the best way for us to continually keep their memory alive. As we already do this with the mental pictures we keep in our mind

Have another green. I’m feeling generous.

eddie wrote:Have another green. I’m feeling generous.

Have one back eddie  

Its not just the pcitures though eddie

I will read back to views made by those dear to us now lost. It helps us also form a mental picure for the time, that we spent together. It has become immortalised. Its why the people from thousands of years ago and then into writeing. So their memories would never be lost to time. That is history.Its why I love history, it is able to capture now more than anything how we shared our lives, for better or worse.

phildidge wrote:

eddie wrote:Have another green. I’m feeling generous.

Have one back eddie  

Its not just the pcitures though eddie

I will read back to views made by those dear to us now lost. It helps us also form a picure for the time, that we spent together. It has become immortalised. Its why the people from thousands of years ago and then into writeing. So their memories would never be lost to time. That is history.Its why I love history, it is able to capture now more than anything how we shared our lives, for better or worse.

Can’t disagree.