Is social media thwarting our creativity?

Social media has been on the scene for a good few years now; it is used by millions and is now a generally accepted part of our daily lives. Use of Facebook, Instagram, Flickr and Twitter for personal sharing of photographs and for keeping us connected with friends and family has completely transformed the way in which we communicate, bringing us closer to our distant loved ones than ever before: it’s caused a true revolution in relationships across the world.

Our virtual world...

More recently, individuals and businesses have been using the tools to grow their client and customer networks and to sell their products to wider audiences than they ever thought possible. I know many people will be shouting at the words on this page right about now saying “this is old news, it’s been around for years!” and I agree, that’s true, but I believe that it's only recently that the business world has really started to see the value in social media. Our proficiency in using it effectively as a business tool is very much in its infancy.

The demand for 'experts' in social media management, SEO optimisation and blog site development (to name a few), has grown exponentially over the last couple of years and as stated by @businessinsider (amongst many other publications), 2014 is set to be the year of the technology boom.

The constant stream of information we have access to is mind blowing and the rate of growth of the technological industry is phenomenal. I for one am very much riding the technological wave, but, I must admit, with a touch of trepidation.

I can’t help but wonder if the constant barrage of information is preventing us from being true individuals; from one perspective I think it is fantastic that we can now share our creativity with more people and in more places than we ever could and we have access to more information and so we can, in theory, have more rounded and better informed views of the world around us; but, is all of this unregulated and often conflicting information confusing us? Do we really understand how to manage all of this data and are we gaining anything from it?

In the paragraph above I mentioned that employers are crying out for ‘experts’ in social media related jobs; are any of us true experts in social media or many of the other technological beasts that are now so prevalent in our world?

Don't get me wrong, I’m certainly not one for standing in the way of progress, I think the availability and accessibility of the array of data we have today makes us exceptionally lucky, but I do worry that we don’t know how to handle it and that ultimately it could lead to confusion and misguided education across our schools and businesses.

Recently I’m realising the importance of stepping away from my Twitter, Facebook and Linked In accounts and asking myself: what do I think about the latest ‘trending’ topic, how do I feel about the latest news report or controversial comment from a celebrity? Taking that small step back from my constant news feeds gives me that rare opportunity to be myself, before I desperately try to digest the views, thoughts and ideas of the rest of the technologically savvy world.