What Is The Social Game?

The idea of the newsletter and why it is needed

Photo by Vladimir Fedotov on Unsplash

Being part of the internet revolution and all that belongs to it ever since it started, made and makes me feel both excited over the possibilities and scared of the threats.

It is common to talk about the escalating amounts of data in the world and the incredibly huge numbers of web pages, blog posts, and other communication — but it is not so common to talk about the human consequences.

Most recently, AI has become a pet topic to debate, and AI definitely has a bunch of consequences for society — for technology, processes, collaboration, employment, and, indeed, people.

But people are already under pressure from social media. This is something mostly forgotten in today’s excitement over social media marketing strategies, building up a followership, making money on “low content publications”, and so forth.

The train is running at high speed, escalating even more, but we are forgetting to stop now and then in order to take people onboard or let them off. We have forgotten all about where we came from and where we thought we wanted to go — the only thing on our minds is now SPEED and more SPEED, believing that it leads to MONEY and more MONEY.

And we all want to be first, all want to win the game of social media.

So, being both excited and scared at the same time, I find that we must step outside of it and look at the whole thing in a bigger perspective. What is this doing to us as humans? How is it shaping our societies?

This game has some real consequences for the people involved — sucking out life and opportunities from the followers by taking away their voice, manipulating them into becoming part of a narrative that is constructed with the sole purpose of earning money to the winners. Making the followers feel that they are with friends, but such friends who speak to them only with the purpose of selling them something.

It is not a popular topic. When people are in that mood where they just want MORE and MORE, they hate to stop. They hate talking about what is happening, because they have no TIME, as all their TIME is needed for optimizing their followership, gaining more SPEED and MONEY. They are all busy cracking the code for the ALGORITHM.

When people hate to stop, they exactly need to do so. They have lost their sense of what is reasonable, lost track of the consequences.

Their minds are in gaming mode.

Holism

Seeing things in a bigger perspective is important, and so is every detail in that perspective.

Everything you do leads to something. Often a small thing at the moment, but it takes part in building a bigger construction over time.

Everything matters.

Your way of using social media matters. For you and your fellow users right now, and for the development of the social media going forward. As social media is a major component of modern society, it matters also for that; for the whole society.

Social media offers you many opportunities to enrich yourself. They may be part of the game — or not. You will at times feel inclined to bend the rules of the game or make your own parallel game, because you can, and it will lead to earnings now or more opportunities later.

It is a natural human reaction. We see money on the street and want to pick it up and keep it. We see money just inside of an open door, and we want to pick it up and keep it, thinking that it was almost just lying on the street. We see money in the back of the room, through a window, and we can easily break up the window and quickly enter the room, grab the money and run…

But you cannot just grab the money and run — it will haunt you forever. Even if you have no conscience, others may remember. Even if others forget, the medium and the society will take injure and adjust to avoid similar damage in the future.

It’s a matter of moral, and moral is a matter of creating a world in which we can trust. Safe and predictable surroundings for all. Without this, the world will become restricted and feel unsafe and difficult to navigate.

By gaming the system you change it.

By doing the same wrong that all others seem to do, you enforce the damage they are already doing to the world.

Therefore, we must talk about what is right and wrong on social media, what is good and bad, and what consequences any act may lead to.

The newsletter

There are many aspects of social media, and most of them are never really discussed — they may be mentioned casually, but people do not dare talking more seriously about them.

“What if that door will get closed before you manage to take the money? Better not say anything! “— We also want to take part in the rush, be among the winners of the game.

This newsletter, A Rich Life: The Social Game, will try to describe some of these, including those that are not commonly discussed.

There will be critical articles about the construction of social media, its development, and the way people think and act toward and in them.

But there will also be positive descriptions of what seems to be valuable from various perspectives, including both human and monetary.

And I will try adding some more general descriptions that are as holistic as I see the world — about such topics as history, practical use, and technology.

Hopefully, you will enjoy reading the articles and think of them from the different angles you see relevant for you. And hopefully, we can all learn to talk about what works, what doesn’t, and which good and less good perspectives we see in the different developments taking place.

Talking about things is needed to develop them into becoming mutually beneficial, making the world easier to enjoy.

I would like to see a world that we can all easily enjoy.