We are Willing Victims of a Social Contagion.

Before the internet there were several simplistic packet switching models of digital networking. In the early 1980s as the internet grew in popularity, it is unlikely that anyone person could have imagined the enormous impact the internet would have on today’s societies across the globe. When we hear of societies which are very ‘primal’ to our technology saturated culture, our reactions can often be of shock and wonder: how do they function? What did we do before the internet and technology dominated our lives? At this point in our technological advancement, perhaps it is not important to look back at how far we have come, but instead to focus on the monstrosity our society has created. When considering the popularity of social networking sites such as facebook, it is important to consider that such sites have grown immensely in popularity. Since its formal launch to the public in February of 2004, consider the leap in users from 1 million people at the beginning of 2004 (prior to public launch) to 175 million active users in 2009. From this, I will be so bold as to suggest that facebook itself is a social contagion that is expanding in an organic, voluntary, seemingly unstoppable form. The numbers are staggering, and, in my opinion, terrifying as to how many individuals rely on the site daily; a study at the University of Illinois indicated that users logged into their facebook accounts 1-4 times per day. Some students admitted to leaving the site open all day on their personal computers. But, what does this all mean?

Facebook, like any other internet meme is a powerful contagion. “Meme” was originally coined by Richard Dawkins in his book entitled The Selfish Gene and its original intent was to refer to packets of cultural information. This term has since been adapted to describe viral lulz and frunz which spread like wild fire across the horizon of the internet. Lulz refers to laughter at someone else’s expense, literally taking pleasure in the anguish of someone else. Frunz is the anti-lulz, it can refer to content which is still humorous in nature but does not rely on other’s pain for laughter or simply informative or serious information passed on in mass quantities. “Internet meme” is literally a shortened form of internet phenomena. I hope that my above exploration of facebook indicates that these phenomena are growing at an astounding rate. Any idea, image, quiz, video, virus, website, saying, joke, or similar packets of information which is spread quickly peer to peer via the internet is considered to be an internet meme. The spreading of this information takes no predetermined path and is not automated in its transfer. This contagion cannot be predicted as it is entirely dependent on the individual in order to grow and continue its lifespan.

Any individual who exists within our technological enamoured society has fallen victim to internet memes. Those who consider themselves exempt are not, they have, at some point, glanced at a forwarded image or scanned a ‘friend’s’ questionnaire responses. Regardless of whether we choose to partake in these internet memes, the reality is that they are dominating the world wide web. Within the past day of opening just my university granted email (ignoring my use of the social networking site of facebook, my blog, and instant messaging) I fell victim to an internet meme no less than four times. Four times, within twenty-four hours. It is appalling to take a moment to pause and watch the uncontrolled growth of this phenomenon: there is no control over what content get spread, or the underlying messages which get transferred almost thoughtlessly between individuals. These packets of information are transferred peer to peer without a moment’s thought as to their impact on the individual, much less our immediate and global society. Thus, it is not difficult to see that the impact of these internet memes will be challenging to track and it will be seemingly impossible to fully realize how much this culture’s dependency on the internet will impact how our future societies are shaped.

But what can be done with this social contagion? The likelihood of every facebook user simply deactivating their account and walking away from other social networking sites is slim, in fact, I will be bold and suggest it will never happen. What does this fact say about our society? We are willing participants in a social contagion. A contagion which is being documented, quite thoroughly I might add, and being used to manipulate the individual. The number resources dedicated to advertising through social networking is ludicrous, but ever expanding. The amount of information that is processed by individual users of facebook is astounding, and mounting. My generation is a generation which heavily relies on the internet for social and academic purposes, the amount of information which we encounter purposefully and unintentionally is phenomenal. The ultimate question is: how much will our reliance on the internet shape this generation and generations to come? The social contagion which we seem adamant to cultivate has an unknown impact on our futures. Will this phenomenon be a positive or negative influence? Unfortunately, only time will tell.