Is this social media thing just a psychological defence mechanism?


If you don’t read Seth Godin’s blog, then I really recommend that you do.

Today’s soundbite raises a question about the daily flow into our Inbox’s of email, spam, newsletters and so on – almost all of it low importance and low urgency.

People complain, understandably about spam, but what about all the other stuff? Why is it that many people keep checking if there’s fewer messages than they’d hoped for? Does this ‘white noise’ of generally irrelevant material actually serve a purpose?

Seth argues that it does – it prevents us from experiencing the pain of not having addressed those things that REALLY needed addressing. It’s distraction keeps us from anxiety about real work that we haven’t done.

So, I’d like to extend that question and ask whether there’s a delusional dimension to all our activity on ecademy, linkedin, facebook and so on?

All these interactions with people on continents that we will never do business with, with people who have little or no understanding of OUR business, with people whose networks never overlap with those which we need to access. All the “like” buttons that get pressed before we’ve even read the item, the re-tweets, and scrawls on the virtual wall of our friend’s facebook.

Do they serve a purpose simply to distract us from more practial tasks that would REALLY help our business? I could go on, but I’m sure you get the point.

I am happy to comment, or deliver keynote sessions, on any of the topics that I post about.
For media and speaking enquiries, please call me, Graham Wilson, on 07785 222380.

Best wishes


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